The Prophecy of Daniel 2 - Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

Hello, friends. I'm Chadwick Harvey, and this is Faithful Performance — weeks for the testimony of the biblical prophets and how they perfectly correlate with the current events of today. Thank you for joining us.

In this episode we begin our three-part series on the book of Daniel, covering Daniel 2, Daniel 7, and Daniel 8 — the four kingdoms that will rise to power at the end of the age before Messiah's second coming. We begin with Daniel 2, the famous statue dream of King Nebuchadnezzar and the interpretation given by the prophet Daniel.

Before we commence, it is important to understand how we know we are living at the end of the age. How can we understand through the Holy Bible what God has pointed to, so that we know we are living in the days the biblical prophets ordained — the days when all these events come to fruition in the blessed hope of the return of King Jesus the Messiah, to fulfill his second coming events and reign as King of Israel on David's everlasting throne in Jerusalem literally for a thousand years? That is our hope, and that is why we review and study these things — to understand what the Lord has prophesied through his prophets by the blessed Holy Spirit. Messiah himself told us to watch these events, so that he does not come upon us as a thief in the night. We will be the wise virgins of Matthew 25; our lamps will be lit, and we will understand what is going on during these times and seasons.

How can we understand this? I believe we can go back to the book of Genesis and the seven-day creation plan. The Lord worked six days and rested on the seventh, and I believe this gives us a prophetic picture of what will occur across the millennia that follow. He set a pattern: work six, rest on the seventh. He commands all of us to work six days and rest on the Sabbath. He hallowed the seventh day, the Shabbat — Saturday. He also commanded the children of Israel in Leviticus 25 to work six years and rest on the seventh year, the Shmita cycle. So the pattern is consistent: six days, rest on the seventh; six years, rest on the seventh.

Now when we look at that creation plan and then turn to 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90, we have two witnesses that confirm the matter. Both say that a thousand years is as a day, and a day as a thousand years to the Lord. We must ask ourselves why Peter and Moses would write it that way. I believe they are reverting us back to the days of creation, to understand that this earth will work six thousand years — six completed days — and then on the seventh day, the seventh thousandth year, that is Messiah's day. That is the Day of the Lord that the biblical prophets speak of. The Day of the Lord is the seventh day, from the seven-thousandth to the eight-thousandth year, for he reigns a thousand years as stated in Revelation 20.

How do we calculate this? Most would agree that from Adam to Messiah was four thousand completed years, or four completed days. It has now been almost two thousand years — almost two completed days — since Messiah's first coming, which brings us to almost six completed days, or almost six thousand completed years. This is not about setting dates; it is about understanding the times and seasons we are living in. Most place the resurrection and ascension of Messiah around AD 30 or AD 33. Do the math from that standpoint and we are knocking on the door. It is important to understand this — again, not to set dates, but to understand that the Lord's return is drawing near.

Beyond the creation plan, I believe we can look to 1948, when Israel was born again as a nation. It was not the final return of the Jewish people — the Antichrist will come against them one more time during the seven-year tribulation — but it was a critical marker. After nearly nineteen hundred years, Israel was reborn in the promised land, and that had to happen for many of these prophecies to reach fulfillment. I believe 1948 was the gateway, the door that had to open for all the other end-of-the-age prophecies to escalate and intensify until the return of the Messiah. Then in 1967, during the Six-Day War, they recaptured Jerusalem as their capital. It was vital for the Jewish people to reclaim not only the promised land but Jerusalem itself.

Once those two events occurred, we can turn to the book of Daniel and all the other biblical prophets and look at what they were speaking about — when Israel returns to the land, when the desert blossoms like a rose. What the Lord has done in Israel since 1948 and 1967 is remarkable. Over four million Jewish people have returned to the promised land since 1948. The return of the Jewish people is a major sign that the Lord is going to return, and it is one of the prophecies that had to be fulfilled. Messiah said to watch, and he wants us to watch the prophets he has ordained, so that we are not blinded, not foolish virgins, not caught as a thief in the night.

First Thessalonians 5 says there is no need to worry about the times and seasons because you know them — speaking to the faithful church. We know the times and seasons; we are not in darkness but in the light, and he will not catch us as a thief in the night. The dead, lukewarm church — those are the ones caught as a thief in the night, because they do not understand the moedim, the feast days, the covenants, or the prophets. That is why it is important for us to go through these things responsibly, for everyone has a piece of the puzzle.

We can see the escalation in the Middle East and in North Africa, which is the biblical world, and which is precisely where the prophets are speaking. The prophets were not primarily speaking about nations outside of Israel and her immediate surrounding nations — the biblical world, the seventy nations of the table of nations. I am not saying that America, Europe, China, and Russia will not be involved; everyone will be involved. But when the prophets speak about specific nations, they are speaking of the Middle East and North Africa. The Antichrist kingdom, as we will see, will be situated in the Middle East and North Africa, not spread across the entire world. That is a misunderstanding of the scriptures, and the text is very clear throughout.

Once we set these markers in place — the seven-day creation plan, 1948, and 1967 — we can turn to the book of Daniel. This amazing book is one of my favorites in the entire Bible. Daniel 12:4 says his book is sealed until the time of the end. The time of the end is the time of the end; you cannot stretch it across thousands of years. Remember, there are only six thousand years in God's timeline before the Messiah returns for the seventh thousandth year, the Day of the Lord. When Daniel's book is sealed until the time of the end, it means the visions, the dreams, and their prophetic fulfillment will occur at the end of the age. Even if they occurred in history, the Lord works in cyclical patterns — what occurred in history will occur again at the end, and in the Middle East and North Africa today we are seeing these four kingdoms come to fulfillment just as Daniel said.

We will cover these across the next three episodes on Daniel 2, 7, and 8, presenting the facts and the evidence that these kingdoms are arising just as Daniel prophesied. While many look at Daniel 2 as purely historical, I believe the scriptures indicate it is for the latter days — for the time when these kings come to power and the King Messiah will crush them all together as one conglomerate destruction.

This brings us to Daniel 2 itself. Most people know it as Nebuchadnezzar's statue dream. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon who invaded and destroyed Jerusalem. The ultimate destruction occurred in 586 BC, though he began taking captives in 606–605 BC — a lengthy process, as breaching walls, burning a city, and taking captives in those days certainly was.