Greetings and Good Morning on this Lord’s Day morning.  My name is George Sinkie and I am so glad that you have joined us this morning.  I want to thank those of you who have made comments and have asked questions concerning this program.  Let’s have a word of prayer and then we will consider the topic of the kingdom of God.

Great God in heaven, we thank You for this new day, and the beginning of this new week.  We pray that we will use this time, to grow in a knowledge of Your will.  And, dear God, we pray that each of us will, apply this new knowledge into our lives.  We thank You for Your word, which gives us everything that we need to know to be pleasing to You.  Be with us today as we study about the kingdom, and we pray that we are pierced in our hearts, to obey Your will so we can be a part of that kingdom.  In Jesus’ name!!!  AMEN !!

     On a previous Berean Break we looked at the prayer that Jesus gave to His disciples as a model of how to pray.  One of the things that we stated was that this model prayer was, “how to pray, not what to say.”  And before we go into today’s study, I want to remind you that these programs are available on audio cassettes.  For the lessons dealing with the model prayer ask for the lessons entitled “disciple’s prayer.”  Jesus never intended for this prayer to be repeated and repeated, as it is so often today.  We saw that part of the prayer does not even fit in our day.  Jesus says in that prayer in Matthew 6 and the first part of verse 10, “Thy kingdom come.”  Now it was accurate at that time to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, but it is inconsistent with the Scriptures to pray for “the kingdom to come” since Jesus died on the cross.  Some want more information on this truth from the word of God that the kingdom has already been in existence for over 1900 years.  I felt that we would benefit from a study of the kingdom.  I wish that we had the time to look at every passage in the Bible and I encourage you to continue to check the word for other passages that apply to the kingdom.  What we are going to do today is to establish some very basic truths surrounding the kingdom.
     Hundreds of years before the kingdom became a reality, it was prophesied about in the Old Testament.  God was continually giving the prophets a glimpse here and there concerning this important group that would be known as the “kingdom.”  This morning I would like to look at one of those glimpses that we have recorded for us in the book of Daniel.  We usually think of Daniel being the one in the lion’s den and he is known for that but he is also spoken of in relationship to a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had and wanted interpreted.
     Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the Babylonian empire and he was troubled by this dream that he had.  Being the king he called for all the wise men of his kingdom to explain to him the meaning of his dream.  This was not an unusual request and so the wise men were not too worried.  Perhaps the king had made this request of them before and the king told them what he saw in his dream.  Listen to what the wise men say in Daniel 2:4

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

     First they hear what the king dreamed, then they gave an explanation of it that seemed to fit the details the king had told them.  This time would prove far different for them though.  This time the king did not tell them what the dream was, and he demanded that they give the dream and the interpretation of the dream.  Listen to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2:5-6

   5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The command from me is firm:  if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be made a rubbish heap.
   6 “But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a reward and great honor;  therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation.”

     Because this is far more than just a dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had … it is also a prophecy from God … Daniel is given the dream and the interpretation of the dream to give back to the King and to give us instruction as well.  Let’s read this dream and its interpretation, the dream is found in Daniel 2:31-35

   31 “You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue;  that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome.
   32 “The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze,
   33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
   34 “You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them.
   35 “Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found.  But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”

     It is easy to see why the King was so troubled.  Here is this great statue, that was large and impressive.  And yet it was very unusual as well.  Rather than being made all of one material, it was made up of several material.  These material varied from very valuable to very common, from very strong to very weak.  And yet they seemed to flow and mold together to make one statue.
     Then as if this was not strange enough there was this stone that was cut out of mountain that came and crushed the entire statue.  This stone too was strange in that is was not made with hands and it grew bigger and bigger until it filled the earth.  It is plain to see why the king wondered what this dream meant.  We have this dream recorded for us that we can learn some important teachings from God.
     Now what does this mean?  We are not left up to our own reasoning to see what this is referring to because God records the interpretation for us.  First the interpretation of the statue is in Daniel 2:36-43

   36 “This was the dream; now we shall tell its interpretation before the king.
   37 “You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory;
   38 and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all.  You are the head of gold.
   39 “And after you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.
   40 “Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron;  inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.
   41 “And in that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay.
   42 “And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle.
   43 “And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men;  but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.”

     The Scriptural understanding of this statue is that it represents four empires or kingdoms.  The first, which is shown as the head of gold in the current empire of the Babylonians as we can see from verse 38, where Daniel says, “You are the head of gold.”  Daniel also reveals for us the kingdom that was going to come after the Babylonians and was seen as the silver arms and chest in the statue.  Listen to Daniel, in Daniel 5:28, where he interprets the writing on the wall for the king of Babylon.

   28 ‘PERÊS’ — your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.

The Babylonian empire lasted until about 539 BC at which time it was conquered by the Medo-Persian empire, which is seen as the silver.      The next part of the statue was made of bronze and from history we know that the next major empire was the kingdom of Greece.  Daniel also speaks of this in Daniel 8:21, in regards to another vision,

   21 And the shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

     The Medo-Persian empire ruled until about 331 BC.  Then the Greeks ruled until the fourth kingdom took over control in 133 BC.  This fourth kingdom, seen in the statue as the iron and then the iron mixed with clay was the Roman empire.  The Roman empire ruled until about AD 476.  It was during the time of this Roman empire, 133 BC until 476 AD, that something very important was to take place.  Let’s read what Daniel tells us in Daniel 2:44-45

   44 “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people;  it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.
   45 “Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future;  so the dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy.”

     This stone that begins in the days of those last kings is the eternal kingdom of God.  Listen to how John the Baptist referred to this kingdom in Matthew 3:2

   2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And also Jesus in Matthew 4:17

   17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

What Jesus and John the Baptist meant by “at hand” was that it was very close to coming into existence.  And then note what Jesus says in Mark 9:1

   1 And He was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

     That kingdom came into existence when Jesus died on the Cross and He ascended to Heaven to sit upon His throne.  That kingdom and His church are the same thing and you can be a part of that kingdom if you will submit to the will of God.  If you have faith that is based on the word, will repent of your sins, confess Jesus, and be immersed in water for the forgiveness of your sins then as Paul wrote God will transfer you into the kingdom of His Beloved Son, Colossians 1:13

   13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,