01 A New World Order

Discovering Revelation  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  48:32
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Good evening - and welcome to Discovering Revelation - a special Bible prophecy seminar that has been conducted on six out of seven continents over the last twenty years or so . . . and now, at last, it’s come right here to our town!
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My name is Jason Worf, and I’m going to be your host over the coming nights. I work in conjunction with a very old radio broadcast known as the Voice of Prophecy - one of the very first Christian broadcasts. It first went on the air in 1929 when a preacher by the name of H.M.S. Richards went on KNX Radio in Los Angeles, and at the time it was one of only four religious broadcasts.
It actually started out as the “Tabernacle of the Air” - if you were around in the 1930s, you might remember that - and then it changed to the Voice of Prophecy - and since that time, it has grown into a worldwide broadcast, and it’s connected with the world’s oldest (and probably the biggest) correspondence Bible school.
So let me explain how the seminar works. We’re going to dig deep into Bible prophecy - probably deeper than you’ve had the chance to dig before - and because the subject is the Bible, the Bible is going to be our only textbook.
That doesn’t mean that other books aren’t valuable, but over the years, I’ve noticed that people have a lot of different theories and opinions about books like Daniel and Revelation - and that can create a lot of confusion. So what I want to do is just deal with what the Bible actually says, and I think you’re going to amazed at how clearly the Bible speaks if you just read it.
And of course, we will go back and look at some history, but for the most part, we’re just going to stick with the text itself and allow the Bible to become its own expositor . . . because there’s easily enough detail in the Bible to make it very clear what the author actually meant.
The key is to read the whole book. And I know that sounds like a big task, but I promise you, it’s going to be worth the effort. All you need are the right tools - the right frame of reference. If you understand how the book of Revelation was written and how it was meant to be read - if you understand the original context - you’re going to find that it all makes really good sense.
But that’s going to take a little bit of time and effort - because after all, the Bible is a big book and it took a really long time to write. Something like forty different authors wrote portions of the Bible over roughly 1500 years.
It’s a lot of material.
So here’s what we’re going to do: every night, we’ll cover one of the major themes of Bible prophecy. I’ll give you some of the tools you need to understand Bible prophecy for yourself. And what I want, by the time we’re finished, is for you to be able to read the prophetic books of the Bible - books like Daniel and Revelation - just as easily as the rest.
I want you to really understand it.
So what we’re going to do is touch on the big themes - and there are lots of them - and each night, we’ll build on what we learned the night before. That means it’s going to be important to keep up and follow along - and I know that people are busy - but this might only come along once in your lifetime, so I’d encourage you to clear your calendar if you can and take in as many of these subjects as possible.
It’s kind of like building a house. First you pour a foundation, and then the next day you put up the studs, and then you sheet the walls, and you put on a roof, and then you put in doors and windows . . . and by the time you’re done, you can actually stand back and see the whole thing.
That’s how this is going to work. Every night, we’ll add one more piece - one more key concept - and then by the time we’re finished, you’re going to be able to stand back and see the book of Revelation like you’ve never seen it before - and believe me, it’s a picture that’s going to take your breath away.
So what kinds of things are we going to cover?
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Tonight, our subject is “A New World Order.” You hear a lot of people talking about a one-world government that’s coming, and you’ve got to wonder if it’s true. Tonight, we’re going to look at the biblical evidence, and you’ll be able to decide for yourself.
Tomorrow night, “Planet in Upheaval.” Everywhere I go, I hear people saying that our world isn’t the same as it used to be. The climate is changing, the crime rate is increasing, and we have more political tension and far more natural disasters.
But is that really true? Is the world on the verge of some really big changes - and is the Second Coming of Christ something we should expect in our lifetime? Tomorrow, I’m going to show you an amazing passage from the Bible, written almost 2000 years ago - and you be the judge.
On Sunday night, our subject is “Armageddon.” Now this is a word I know you’ve heard before, because Hollywood loves to use it. But what does the Bible actually say? What is Armageddon? Is it a nuclear war? An asteroid hitting the earth? A pandemic worse than Ebola or SARS or Covid-19 that finally takes us all out?
Sunday night is going to be a very special evening, because we’re going to look at basic principles and tools that will help you start unraveling Bible prophecy for yourself. And then we’re going to take those tools and apply them to Revelation chapter 16.
On Monday night, we’re going to talk about “The Man of Revelation,” and we’re going to look at the central theme in the book of Revelation. This is an absolutely essential subject: if you don’t understand this topic, you can’t possibly understand the book of Revelation. We’re going to start digging into chapters 4 and 5, and you really need this if you’re going to have a good foundation for the rest of the book.
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We won’t be meeting on Tuesday or Wednesday due to the fairgrounds schedule. So then on Thursday night, our subject will be “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” We’re going to take a good look at Revelation chapter 6, and I think, by the time we’re done, you’re going to see a picture that will leave you absolutely breathless. People have talked about these four horsemen for generations, and on Thursday night, I’m going to show you something that comes as a big surprise to a lot of people: most of chapter 6 has already happened, or is now taking place.
It’s another really important night, because we’re going to see how prophecy is structured. We’re going to get a bird’s-eye view and cover a lot of material. If you see this big picture, it’s going to help you make sense of all the rest.
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. . . And then we’ll move on to more big subjects: we’ll look at the judgment - the mark of the beast - the Second Coming.
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Every night, we’re going to cover a lot of material, and we’re going to move quickly - and some people get frustrated because it’s hard to take notes. It’s just impossible to keep up! So what I’m going to do is give you the notes. You’re going to get an outline at the end of the meeting that reviews what I’ve just said.
But I don’t have an unlimited number of supplies, and people have donated them, so I’m going to save them for people who are taking the time to invest in this seminar - so if you’ve registered, if we know that you’re here, you’re going to get those.
In fact, there might be some other things you also get for participating - and I’ll tell you about those as we move along.
There’s one more thing that we’re going to do: because we move so quickly, and we’re covering so much material, we don’t have time to stop and take questions off the floor. If I did that, we’d never get out of here. But your questions are important, and I want you to have a chance to ask them. So what I’ve done is put a question box in the foyer, and you can ask any Bible question you want.
There are just a few rules:
Number one: it’s got to be a Bible question. “Why do you drive such an ugly car?” is not a Bible question.
Number two: if there are lots of questions, I’m going to give priority to the questions that deal with the topics we’ve already covered.
Number three: I never answer “preachy” questions, because we all come from different backgrounds and I want to make this comfortable for everybody. So what is a “preachy” question? A “preachy” question is something you put in the box because you’re hoping someone else will get the message.
It kind of goes like this: “Why do some people do such-and-such when the Bible says they shouldn’t?”
That’s not really a Bible question. It’s an attempt to preach to someone else in the room through the question box, and I’m not going to do it. Does that sound fair? All right.
There’s just one more ground rule, and then we’re ready to get started. Every time we do this, we have people from every imaginable background. Some have studied the Bible for years, and some have never even read it. A typical audience might have Christians from various denominations, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and atheists - just about any background you can think of.
So there’s bound to be some disagreement. And honestly, that’s okay. But it’s not okay to be disagreeable - there really is no point in arguing. I want this to be fun for everybody, and so I would ask: even when people disagree with each other, I’d like us all to be kind and civil. Does that sound like a good idea?

Registration

Okay, it’s time to register. Everybody take out their registration card, and take a moment to fill it in, because this is how I know who’s here, and this is how I know how many materials I need, and so on.
And I promise, this is just for Discovering Revelation. I won’t be selling your name to any mailing list - this is just for me. And if you don’t mind, tell me a little bit about yourself - how you heard about this meeting, what your family’s religious background is, and that kind of stuff. That’s just for my curiosity. I like to keep track of what kinds of people have come to this seminar, and it helps me make the seminar better.
You don’t have to do it, but it really helps me.
Give people a moment - walk them through the registration card - collect them.

Prayer

Okay, tonight subject is “A New World Order.” Now, I know that we have people from every background who have come to Discovering Revelation, but my own background happens to be Christian, and it’s my custom to pray before I study the Bible, so I’d like to do that right now.
“Heavenly Father, thank you for the people who have come here tonight, and thank you for the opportunity and the freedom to study. Bless my thoughts so that I can be faithful to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
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Tonight, I want to start with one of the biggest questions in the universe. There’s really no point studying anything else in the Bible unless we answer this:
Is there really a God? Or is this world just some kind of accident? Are we accidental lifeforms on a tiny blue marble, circling an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy?
Is that all there is, or does life actually mean something? Is there a purpose to our existence? Is there rhyme and reason to human history?
Let me take you to a very unusual place to find an answer.
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Maybe you recognize these two men. On the left, you have the Duke of Wellington, and on the right you have? Napoleon.
These two men were mortal enemies who met at the Battle of Waterloo in June of 1815. That much, most of us know. But what some people don’t know is just how much these two men had in common.
Both of them were born in 1769.
Both of them were born on an island.
Both of them lost their fathers in early childhood.
Both of them had three sisters and four brothers.
Both of them attended military school in France . . . at the same time.
Both of them became lieutenant colonels within a day of each other.
Both of them excelled at mathematics
And of course, both of them were great commanders over large armies.
They were evenly matched - and yet the Duke of Wellington won, and Napoleon lost. And the question is, why?
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Well, historians have given us some reasonable answers:
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Some say that the geography of the battlefield favored the Duke of Wellington.
Some say Napoleon lost because the Prussian army went many miles out of its way to join up with Wellington.
Others say that Napoleon was getting really tired. He had suffered some really major defeats. His excursion into Russia in 1812 was a disaster. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition pummeled him at Leipzig, and then invaded France. He went into exile at Elba. And so Napoleon really wasn’t the man he used to be.
But are those really the reasons he lost? Why does anything happen in history the way it does? Is it all just coincidence?
Tonight, we’re going to visit a very strange place to find the answer: an ancient king’s bedroom - a man who lived roughly 600 years before Christ . . .
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His name was Nebuchadnezzar - the man who built the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This was the man who ruled the ancient Middle East 2600 years ago.
And one night, something happened in Nebuchadnezzar’s bedroom that would determine world history for the next 2600 years.
It was a dream. A nightmare.
He woke in the middle of the night, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, a cold bead of sweat running down his forehead. His eyes were darting around in the dark, trying to figure out what was scaring him so badly.
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The Bible records the story in the book of Daniel:
Daniel 2:1 NKJV
1 Now in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him.
The man who was scared of nothing is scared of a dream! This is a man who’s not afraid of death - he’s not afraid of risk - but he’s just had a dream that tells him he’s going to lose everything - and that scares him more than anything else.
It’s one of those dreams that bothers you long after you wake up - long after you realize it’s just a dream. And it bothers the king enough that in the middle of the night, he calls for his wisest counselors.
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The wise men. Some people call them “Chaldeans” - or “Magi,” which is where we get the word “magician.” These were the philosophers, the scientists, the astronomers, the mathematicians, the priests of the empire.
They were the religious authorities of the day - really talented men who claimed to have a special connection to the gods. So that’s who Nebuchadnezzar wants, and you would, too, if you were a Babylonian.
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The Bible continues the story:

So they came and stood before the king. 3 And the king said to them, “I have had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream.”

Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation.”

The Chaldeans breathed a sigh of relief - this was going to be easy!
“Your Majesty, is that it? That’s easy - we know how to handle that! We’ll just go get our dream interpretation books, and then you tell us what you dreamed!”
But for some reason, the king smells a rat. He gets this not-so-funny feeling that maybe these guys aren’t honest. Maybe they’ve been lying to him just to stay on the payroll.
That’s not a good thing when you’re trying to run an empire. You can’t afford to have bad intelligence - and he did just have a dream that told him he was going to lose his empire.
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So he puts them to the test:

The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “My decision is firm: if you do not make known the dream to me, and its interpretation

you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made an ash heap. 6 However, if you tell the dream and its interpretation,

you shall receive from me gifts, rewards, and great honor. Therefore tell me the dream and its interpretation.”

Have you ever complained that your job isn’t challenging enough???
These guys have a big problem. They panic. They get in a huddle. “What are we going to do?” They come back to the king and try to reason with him:

They answered again and said, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will give its interpretation.”

8 The king answered and said, “I know for certain that you

would gain time, because you see that my decision is firm: 9 if you do not make known the dream to me, there is only one decree for you! For you have agreed to speak lying

and corrupt words before me till the time has changed. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can give me its interpretation.”

“Come on, Nebuchadnezzar! You know how this is supposed to work! Go back and read the employee handbook! YOU tell us the dream, and WE provide the interpretation!”
“Not a chance - you guys are stalling, and I want answers NOW.”
Pay attention to what’s happening here:
If you live a lie, it’s only a matter of time until you get discovered - until someone pushes you out in the bright sun where everybody can see who or what you really are.
Eventually, everybody’s life is put to the test.
For these guys, the lie is over - they’ve been exposed - so what are they going to do?
They CAN’T get inside the king’s head and read his dreams - that’s completely outside the realm of possibility.
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The Bible says that only GOD can read the hearts or minds of men.
“You ALONE know the hearts of all the sons of men.”
So what are these guys going to do?
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The Bible says they give up, and for the first time in their lives, they tell the truth.

It is a difficult thing that the king requests, and there is no other who can tell it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

The king blows his top, and I’m guessing you would, too - because nobody likes to be lied to. He trusted these men with his LIFE.

For this reason the king was angry and very furious, and gave the command to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

“That’s it! I’ve had it! Go and round them all up and put them to death!!!”
So the guards go out into the kingdom of Babylon and round up all the wise men for an early retirement party.
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And while they’re out collecting wise men, they knock on the door of a young man named Daniel.
He is NOT a Babylonian. He is a Hebrew - a member of the royal family, in fact. He was taken captive during Nebuchadnezzar’s siege on Jerusalem, and because he was Jewish royalty, they put him in a special program . . .
. . . a retraining program. They immersed him in Babylonian culture. They renamed him after a Babylonian god. They gave him a Babylonian education - because they hoped that he would help inculturate the rest of the Hebrew captives.
They wanted him to persuade the rest of the nation to fall in line with Babylon.
And Daniel is SO bright, so gifted, that he quickly rises to the top, and they consider him to be one of the Chaldeans - one of the wise men.
Arioch, the guard, knocks on his door.
“C’mon, Daniel - we’ve got to go.”
“Where?”
“Well, the king had this dream, and nobody could tell him what it means, so he’s rounding everybody up - and unfortunately, it’s not good news.”
“Take me to the king.”

16 So Daniel went in and asked the king to give him time, that he might tell the king the interpretation.

What did Daniel ask for? More time.
That was something the king wouldn’t give the other guys. But for some reason, he trusts Daniel - because Daniel has character, the most valuable commodity in the world.
Daniel was the kind of man who never gave you cause to doubt - the kind of man you KNEW you could trust - so Nebuchadnezzar gives him what the other guys couldn’t get.
A good character matters. Cheating and lying are shortcuts that always end in disaster, but a good character lasts a lifetime and will always serve you well.
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So Daniel goes and makes the best of his time. He doesn’t consult the star charts - he doesn’t cut open a goat and read its entrails - and he doesn’t go to a séance.
Daniel does something our ancestors used to do: he gathers three of his friends, and he prays.
He prays all night - and he gets an answer.
The next day, they take him back to the king.

27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, “The secret which the king has demanded, the wise men, the astrologers,

the magicians, and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king. 28 But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets

Now THERE’S the answer to our question: is there such a thing as God?
Daniel says YES. “There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets.” And he’s about to prove it.
Now I want you to follow this very carefully, because if you’ve never heard God speak, that might just happen for you tonight, in ways that you didn’t expect.

and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, were these:

31 “You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you;

and its form was awesome. 32 This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze,

33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

So what did the king see? A MASSIVE statue.
The head was made of __________?
(Gold!)
The chest and arms were made of _______________?
(Silver!)
The belly and thighs?
(Bronze!)
And the legs?
(Iron!)
And the feet were made of iron mixed with clay.
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That’s an incredible dream - but there’s more!

34 You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image

on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.

35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the

summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found.

And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

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The throne room is so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Everybody holds their breath.
Slowly, the king leans forward:
“Daniel! That’s it! That’s EXACTLY what I dreamed! . . . So what does it mean?”
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Daniel is about to explain the dream, and you and I are going to learn an important principle: if you want to understand the Bible, let it interpret itself.
You have to read the whole thing!
You don’t want to guess - you don’t want to speculate - you let the Bible explain itself, because it always does.
God has no trouble speaking for Himself.
Far too often, people read a few verses and start jumping to conclusions. “Gold! That must point to Fort Knox and the national debt! Silver! That must point to Montana and Colorado and the silver mines of the 19th century!”
That’s not how you handle Bible prophecy. You read the whole thing - you let the Bible speak for itself. Daniel tells us EXACTLY what it means:

37 You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory;

“Nebuchadnezzar, the One who gave you that dream is the One who gave you this kingdom. Do you think your military prowess made you successful? Think again. None of this would be here if God didn’t allow it.”

38 and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven,

He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold.

Do you see it? There’s no guesswork involved.
The head of gold is Nebuchadnezzar, and the Babylonian Empire. He ruled the whole known world from 605 BC until 539 BC, and it was one of the most unbelievable empires in history.
The Babylonian empire under Nebuchadnezzar really WAS the golden empire.
It may have been the wealthiest empire in world history. Some still use the word “Babylon” to symbolize over-the-top decadence.
It was wealthy - and it was VERY influential. In fact, it was SO influential that we STILL think like Babylonians to this day.
Have you ever heard of a horoscope? Astrology? We got that from the Babylonians!
They also gave us base 60 mathematics. You and I use the decimal system - we count to ten and we add a digit to the number - but the Babylonians counted to sixty.
So today, we have sixty seconds in a minute, and sixty minutes in an hour. A circle has 360 degrees. It’s all left over from Babylon.
It was one of the greatest empires in world history. There’s a reason we still remember it today.
But here’s the question: Did the Babylonian empire last forever?. Is the world today ruled by an emperor from the city of Babylon in Iraq?
No - and that’s the part of the dream that bothers Nebuchadnezzar.

39 But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours;

“Nebuchadnezzar, there WILL be another kingdom. It won’t be as great as yours - but it WILL replace you.”
And of course, Daniel was right . . .
So does anybody know who conquered Babylon?
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The Persians - or the Medes and the Persians.
In 539 BC, the Persians, under a general by the name of Cyrus, captured the city of Babylon in one of the most breathtaking feats in military history.
The chest of silver defeated the head of gold.
When Cyrus approached the city of Babylon, he realized that taking the city wasn’t going to be easy. There was a triple line of walls around the city that was so high, nobody could climb it.
And the walls were too thick to smash your way through.
But there was one flaw - one tiny chink in the armor - and that was the Euphrates River, which ran right under the city wall.
Cyrus went upstream and diverted the river into an ancient dry lake, and before you know it, there was a virtual highway right under the city wall.
The chest of silver defeated the head of gold.
So here’s the question: do the Medes and the Persians still rule the world tonight? Is the Supreme Leader of the Persian nation of Iran the ruler of the world? NO, of course not - and the prophecy continues:

then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.

“Nebuchadnezzar, there WILL be a third kingdom that rises to power.”
Now you tell me: who WAS the kingdom that defeated the Persians at the Battle of Arbela in 331 BC?
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It was the Greeks, or the Macedonians, under Alexander the Great.
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Alexander managed to conquer the whole known world - 2 million square miles - 20 million subjects - in four years flat - and he did it all before his 32nd birthday.
The world had never seen such unbelievable speed. He pushed his way all the way to the coast of India, and when he saw the ocean, history tells us he began to cry, because there was no more world to conquer.
So - because his men were tired, and he thought he had come to the end of the road - he turned back. And one night, as he camped by the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, he suddenly died in his sleep.
Some people think that he actually drank himself to death - that he conquered the whole world, but he wasn’t able to conquer himself.
The Bible was absolutely right: there WAS a third empire, the Greeks.
But does Alexander STILL rule the world tonight? No, of course not. Greek PHILOSOPHY still rules a lot of the world, but the Greek army doesn’t - which means there’s another empire.

40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything;

and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.

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Okay, all of you history buffs: who defeated the Greeks at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC?
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It was the Romans - the empire that ruled the ancient world the day that Jesus was born.
The Romans had a fierce, disciplined army that changed the face of the world forever. They were the empire that crucified Jesus, and the empire that created a lot of our modern-day legal and political structures.
To this day, we still THINK like Greeks and ACT like Romans.
I don’t know if you’ve ever read a massive set of books by Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - it’s possibly the most definitive work on the subject - but here’s what HE said about the rise of the Romans:
READ THROUGH QUOTE.
It looks to me like somebody read the book of Daniel!
Okay. So far, we have a head of gold, a chest and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of bronze, and legs of iron.
Was that the end of the dream? No - there’s more. We still have to look at the feet:

41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided;

Now, is that true? Did the Roman Empire divide? Absolutely - at one point, it split into east and west - and the east lasted FAR longer than the west.
But then it split even further - and now we’re going to talk about the TOES.
emphasize toes

42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.

Now the dream shifts to the WESTERN Roman Empire - and in the coming nights, you’ll see exactly why the focus is on the west.
But notice how it focuses on the toes. Let me ask you a question: how many toes do you have?
Ten. And when the Western Empire collapses in 476 AD, historians usually point to ten fragments - the ten families of barbarian tribes - just like the ten toes:
You’ve got the Anglo-Saxons, who eventually become the British.
You’ve got the Franks, who become the __________? (French)
You’ve got the Visigoths, who eventually become the Spanish . . . and the Suevi who become the Portuguese.
You’ve got the Burgundis in the region that eventually becomes Switzerland, and the Alamanni, who eventually move north and become the Germans.
You’ve got the Lombards, who eventually move south and become the Italians.
And then you’ve got the Ostrogoths, the Heruli, and the Vandals - three tribes that no longer exist.
And now the dream gets REALLY GOOD.
What you are about to read has determined the course of history ever since Nebuchadnezzar dreamed it.
It has determined who wins wars and who sits on the throne. And it proves - beyond any shadow of a doubt - that something or SomeBODY is guiding history.
God is about to present Himself:

43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men;

but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

What is Daniel saying?
He predicts that the Western Roman Empire would break into pieces - and then he says that people would try to put the pieces back together.
He says that people would try to restore the Western Roman Empire.
But he also says THEY WILL NEVER SUCCEED.
And if you go back and read your European history, you’ll see that Daniel was absolutely right!
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By the time that Queen Victoria sat on the throne of England, she was known as the “grandmother of Europe.” Why?
It’s because - for generations - the royal families of Europe tried to unite the nations by using marriage. They married their kids to other royal families, hoping to bring lasting peace to a part of the world that has always been ripped apart by war.
There was so much intermarriage that by the time Victoria was the queen of England, she was literally related to every other head of state.
They were quite literally “mingling the seed of men.”
But of course, it didn’t work. In fact, the 20th century - the century AFTER Victoria - was bloodier than all the previous centuries combined.
Let’s go back and take a quick trip through European history tonight:
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There are a lot of big names we could mention, but we don’t have enough time - so we’ll touch on just a few of the biggest ones.
You’ve probably heard of Charlemagne - he was the king of the Franks starting in 768 AD, AND then he became the king of Italy in 774.
By the year 800, he had become the first emperor in western Europe since the collapse of the Roman Empire more than 300 years earlier.
They called him the “father of Europe” - but let me ask you: did he bring lasting peace? Did he really reunite the Roman Empire?
Not a chance. He came really close - he was a very talented soldier - but it all fell apart when he planned to pass his empire on to his two oldest sons.
Both of them died before he did - so he went to plan B - he divided the empire between his youngest son and an illegitimate grandson - and neither of them was competent, so Europe went back to its old war-torn self.
Why?
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It’s because GOD said, “They shall not adhere to one another!”
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Then you’ve got Charles the Fifth.
In 1519, he was elected the Holy Roman Emperor. The people were desperate for unity - the Protestant Reformation was underway and Germany was sharply divided.
In spite of that, Charles the Fifth expanded his empire to almost 4 million square kilometers - or 1.5 million square miles.
It was looking good - it looked like he might succeed in reuniting the Empire . . .
. . . and then his health suddenly went downhill. He got horrible gout, which meant he couldn’t lead his troops into battle. And then he got malaria, which took his life.
He failed to do it. He failed to reunite the Empire. Why? Because he wasn’t a great warrior?
No - it’s because God said, “They shall not adhere to one another,” and when God says it, you and I don’t get to change His mind.
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Consider Louis the Fourteenth, the Sun King. He was so arrogant, he said, “I AM the state,” and under him, France became the strongest military power in Europe.
Under Louis, conditions were right to reunite the Roman Empire - but then he made a very bad decision about uniting Spain and France, and THAT started a war: the War of Spanish Succession.
Out of desperation, Louis sent his biggest, strongest men into battle, and so many of them died that SOME people estimate that for some time the average French male was two inches shorter than the average had been before the war!
So why didn’t he succeed? Wasn’t he smart enough?
Of course he was - but GOD said, “They shall not adhere to one another!”
. . . And then there was Napoleon. Do you remember him?
He almost did it. He almost pulled it off. He ALMOST united the whole Empire.
But he was arrogant and proud - and at one moment, when the pope was about to crown him the emperor of Europe, the story goes that he took the wreath out of the pope’s hands and put it on his own head.
He started out by trying to liberate Europe, by trying to bring Europeans out from under the oppression of royal families, but it went to his head.
And then it all began to fall apart.
In 1812, he marched into Europe with more than 600,000 men, and by the time the Russian winter had taken its toll, more than half a million were dead.
From there, he goes into exile, and when he comes back out, he goes to the Battle of Waterloo - where he loses for the last time.
So why did he lose?
His army was the same as the Duke of Wellington’s. His training was the same - everything was the same.
But he was trying to accomplish something that GOD said could never be done.
Let’s move forward to the 20th century - to World War One.
At one point, the Kaiser was winning, and England was losing - so the British, out of desperation, asked the Americans to help them.
But President Wilson just wasn’t interested. “That’s not our war!”
When Germany finds out that the Brits are asking the Americans for help, they panic. They don’t want America to get involved - so they hatch a plan to keep the Americans so busy they’ll never come over to Europe.
What did they do? They sent word to Mexico and suggested an alliance. “You attack America and take back all the land that used to be yours - you take New Mexico, and Texas and Arizona - and we’ll give you all the support you need.”
Somehow, the British intercept that message - it’s called the “Zimmermann Telegram” - and they manage to decipher it.
“Look at this!” they said. “Germany’s planning to invade the United States!”
And that settled it. President Wilson got so mad, he joined the war and Germany was defeated.
So let me ask you: how did England manage to get that telegram? Why did Germany REALLY lose the war?
It’s because GOD said, more than 2000 years earlier, “They shall not adhere to one another!”
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There was a young soldier in the Kaiser’s army by the name of Adolf Hitler. Like most other Germans, he found the war humiliating, and he swore he’d do something about it.
“I’ll finish what Napoleon started,” he said. “I’ll build an empire - a reich - that will last a thousand years.”
And you know something? I believe he KNEW he was defying the will of God. There are actually stories about people who showed him Daniel chapter 2 - and we can’t prove any of those - but we do know what Hitler said in 1941:
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“See my people? We do not need anything from God. We do not ask him for anything except that He may let us alone; we want to
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“fight our own war with our own guns, without God. We want to gain our victory without the help of God.” Adolph Hitler
He knew he couldn’t do it WITH the help of God, and neither can anybody else. A few years later, he died in a bunker.
Why? It’s not because he wasn’t smart enough. It’s because GOD said, “They shall not adhere to one another.”
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After World War Two, the Soviet Union tried it. They knew that for communism to work, they would eventually have to conquer the entire world, and a huge portion of Eastern Europe fell under their control, including East Germany.
At one point, they actually controlled one-third of the earth’s geography - but then in 1989, it all fell apart.
Why?
It’s because God said, “They shall not adhere to one another!”
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Some people point to the European Union as evidence that the Western Roman Empire CAN be reunited - but that experiment is falling apart in front of our eyes.
Some nations WON’T join, others won’t STAY. Some nations aren’t ALLOWED to join. Some nations have all the money, and other nations have gone bankrupt.
It’s not a political empire - it’s just an economic alliance - and even THAT’S falling apart.
Why? Because God said, “They shall not adhere to one another!”
Now, does that mean that there will NEVER be another world empire? There will never be a new world order?
Not quite. The Bible tells us something else. Don’t forget the rest of the prophecy:

44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed;

and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

There IS one more kingdom coming.
It’s a different kind of kingdom - it’s not corruptible. It never needs to be replaced, and it never passes away.
Why?
Because this is God’s kingdom - the one that lasts forever.
And when can we expect that to happen? Jesus tells us in the gospel according to Matthew:

31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.

Now think about this carefully. Everything in Daniel 2, except for THIS, has already happened.
We’ve already had the head of gold, the chest of silver, the belly of bronze, the legs of iron, and the feet of iron and clay. All of it has already happened.
You and I are living in the toenails of that statue . . . and THIS is going to happen, too.
Jesus is going to come again!
Is there a direction to world history? You’d better believe it.
History MEANS something and it’s GOING somewhere.
So here’s the question for you:
What are YOU banking on for the future?
Everything that NEBUCHADNEZZAR built? It’s all gone. All those other kingdoms are gone, too.
And everything will be replaced by the kingdom of God.
That’s true for everything I build - and it’s true for everything YOU build.
So what are you banking on for the future?
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Take a look at your life and you KNOW there’s GOT to be something better - there’s got to be something more reliable than what you have.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been traveling and gotten sick, but it’s awful. You’re all alone in a motel someplace, by yourself, running a fever.
You take an aspirin, but it doesn't help.
You curl up in the blankets, but they’re not YOUR blankets. You can’t get warm, and you can’t get comfortable.
So you sit there, shivering, sweating, aching all over, and you KNOW you have a home somewhere else.
Somewhere else, you have a wife - a husband - kids. Somewhere else, you have a warm, familiar bed - and people who care.
And you would do ANYTHING to go back home.
Right now, the whole world is sick and shivering. It’s becoming a worse place by the minute, and God is saying to you, “I’ve got something better. Your heart is aching because THIS place is not your home.”
Let me ask you: are you homesick for something more? Do you sense that history is going somewhere, and that this place is not your home?
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Let’s pray.
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“Heavenly Father, no wonder the Bible says that You know the end from the beginning. This world is NOT an accident. We believe that You are out there, and You are steering history toward that moment when Your kingdom will replace every worldly government.
Teach us to trust You with the future. Teach us to trust You with our lives. And above all, come quickly, we pray - in Jesus’ name, amen.”
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Don’t forget: tomorrow’s subject is Planet In Upheaval. Good night, God bless, and we’ll see you tomorrow.
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