the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 5 of 5
Daniel 2:31-49
With striking brevity, the history of the nations is presented to the king by this strange statue of a man, composed from the head to the foot of different metals. The head of gold represents the first universal empire, that of Babylon, after God had withdrawn His throne from the midst of Israel. Brilliant, but of short duration, this monarchy gives place to the Medo-Persian kingdom (the breast of silver), which is succeeded in its turn by Alexander’s Grecian empire (the belly and thighs of brass). Finally the legs and the feet of the image represent a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, brutal, destructive, in which it is not difficult to recognise the Roman empire. Its history, of which the first stage was terminated by the Barbarian invasion, at present gives place to what has been called "the parenthesis of the Church." But according to the prophecy, the Roman empire must soon be reconstituted for a short time. In it there will be an element of weakness represented by the mixture of clay and iron (the ten kings distinguished from the Roman beast; Revelation 17:12), which will make it vulnerable (vv. 41, 42). Then the stone cut out without hands, that is to say the introduction of the Kingdom of Christ, will put an end to the rule of "the man of the earth" (Psalms 10:18) for the earth’s own blessing.
