The Kingdom of Promise and ProphecyWhiteside, Robertson L.
Religion
The Kingdom of Promise and Prophecy
Whiteside, Robertson L.
Bible -- Prophecies
This dream and the interpretation have furnished a starting point for
many sermons by gospel preachers. Till recently they all contended that
the kingdom of this prophecy was set up in Jerusalem on the first
Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ, and then and there entered
upon the work which Daniel said it would accomplish. It is now argued by
a few brethren that when Jesus comes again the kingdom of this prophecy
will then have its real beginning, and will then destroy the image of
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. But is there anything in the interpretation to
warrant such a radical change from a century of gospel preaching?
The four world kingdoms represented in the image—Babylon, Medo-Persia,
Greece, and Rome—came and fell in the order mentioned. Yet
Nebuchadnezzar saw them in the image, as if all existed at the same
time. The stone is represented as breaking in pieces the whole
image—that is, the kingdom of God is represented as destroying all of
the four world kingdoms. “It broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the
clay, the silver, and the gold.” In truth, it was an image of world
empire, and that was broken in pieces, never to be made whole again.
Every attempt at world empire, since Rome, has ended in failure, and
will continue to fail.
It is also plainly stated that in the days of these kings—that is, while
the image still remained—the God of heaven would set up a kingdom, and
that this kingdom would destroy the image. The Roman Empire embodied all
that was in the other three kingdoms of the image. So long as Rome
existed the image stood. The stone smote the image on the feet, but
destroyed every part of the image. Every kingdom represented in that
image has ceased to be; the image has been entirely destroyed—not a
vestige of it remains. It follows, then, with the force of a
demonstration, that the kingdom of God has been set up. Even though it
be claimed that another world empire is yet to be, it cannot, by any
juggling of words or flight of the imagination, be made a part of the
image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. In that image each kingdom merged into
the one following it till Rome; then the stone smote the image and
destroyed it. As the kingdom was to be set up during the existence of
that image, and as that image has been destroyed, it proves beyond a
doubt that the God of heaven has set up his kingdom.
So far as the interpretation of the dream shows, the kingdom of God was
to destroy only the kingdoms of the image; and it could destroy the
first three only as they were represented in the Roman Empire. World
Empires died with Rome. The principles of the kingdom of Christ have so
modified human thinking as to destroy the possibility of world empire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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