Old Testament # 46
“A Kingdom, Which Shall Never Be Destroyed”
Daniel 2
Introduction
I mentioned in Sunday School how it had struck me that Nebuchadnezzar somehow took the analogy to his kingdom being the golden head somewhat literally because, in the next chapter, we have this golden image of him that was now to be worshipped. Even after Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were divinely protected from the all-consuming fire, Nebuchadnezzar never directly acknowledged their God and the God of Daniel as his God. In chapter 2, he worships Daniel, and in chapter 3 he has the audacity to put his protection over Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s God. But presumably he leaves the idol standing. The Babylonians understood gods of wood and stone (and gold) not flesh and bone.
That being said, Nebuchadnezzar was the unwitting instrument of a vital prophecy for the Kingdom of God on earth. And it is hard to think of the stone cut out of the mountain which eventually will fill the whole earth, without thinking of Joseph describing himself “I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; … knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.”[1]The Kingdom of God will expand to fill the whole earth, but we will be refined to be effective instruments in His hands.
At the end of this blog, I have posted the statistics of the Church’s growth since 1830, published in the manual, with an addendum to bring it up to this year. It is an impressive graph, if you will, plotting the course of that stone. Again, I am reminded of Joseph:
“No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”[2]
But back to Nebuchadnezzar: like Pharaoh of Egypt he had a portentous dream, and none of his “wise” men could interpret it for him. Pharaoh was told of Joseph who was able to interpret it and avert disaster for Egypt and its environs. Nebuchadnezzar threw a fit when no-one in his immediate vicinity could divine what the dream had been, let alone interpret it, and condemned all his ministers to death. This included Daniel, and presumably all those young men he had brought from Jerusalem to be in his court. Wipe the slate clean; start over. His disregard for the sanctity of life was astounding.
When Daniel hears the decree, he goes to his friends (we are still using their Hebrew names in this chapter) and together they pray that the Lord will reveal the dream and the interpretation to them. Daniel seeks audience with the king, not only to save his and his fellow captives’ lives, but to testify to Nebuchadnezzar: “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days” (Daniel 2:28). But as I said previously, apparently Nebuchadnezzar’s declaration: “Of a truth it is, that your God is aGod of gods, and aLord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret” (v. 47, emphasis mine), he never intimated that he could accept God as his God. President John Taylor had an interesting commentary on this:
We find that, among the Babylonians and Chaldeans, behind their ideas, theories and mythology, they had ideas of a Supreme Being who governed the universe, who alone could reveal the secret acts of men, and who held their destinies in his hands; and unless there is some plan or law by which men can have access to him who, in Scriptures as well as by men at the present time, is termed the unknown God (Acts 17:2), we must remain ignorant of him, his attributes, designs and purposes, and of our relationship to him.
Once acknowledged as theGod, Nebuchadnezzar would have to give up his own supremacy. He obviously didn’t.
It is important to keep this prophecy, as revealed to Daniel, in our minds when we might be tempted to view current events and challenges as somehow halting the progress of the Church. It is inexorable and incrementally exponential. In October General Conference, 2013, just five years ago, the brethren expanded on the concept of the Lord hastening the work. I had been at a meeting with now BYU President Elder Worthen when he talked about hasteningand what it meant to the members of the Church. Here is President Ballard:
My message this afternoon is that the Lord is hastening His work. In our day this can be done only when every member of the Church reaches out with love to share the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.[3]
In Sacrament meeting last Sunday, Sister Pyne enumerated the changes that have happened just in the past year or so. Truly the stone’s progress is swift. And so, do we run with it, with speed beyond our own strength as we put our trust in the Lord, or do we risk being run over? That’s a bit melodramatic, but I think I am talking about how we embrace the directives we receive from the Lord through our leaders, with the overriding theme being “Come, Follow Me.”
2018
over 16 million members
188 languages with published editions of the Book of Mormon
30,506 congregations
407 missions
160 temples
Additional Material
No comments:
Post a Comment