Do You Worship at the Feet of Nebuchadnezzar's Statue?

Nearly half a millennia before Christ, a new era dawned.

The scriptures call it the "Times of the Gentiles" and it was inaugurated by God in part as penalty for Jewish disobedience. It began with the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the exile of the Jewish nation into the land of its first in a succession of Gentile conquerors: Babylon.

There, God gave the Jew's new pagan overlord a remarkable vision that foretold the entire history of this new era in advance. And, fortunately for us, He also gave a faithful Jew named Daniel (then laboring in his conqueror's service) its proper interpretation. That prophet recorded this amazing event in the second chapter of the book of Daniel. We would do well to take note of it, for it speaks not just of ancient times already long past, but of our own time as well.

King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a dazzling and awesome statue. It was a great statue of a man, and it was forged of metals, both precious and base. Specifically:

...its head was pure GOLD,

...its arms and chest were SILVER,

...its belly and hips were BRONZE,

...its legs were IRON,

...and its feet were an odd mingling of IRON and BAKED CLAY.

Then the King beheld an amazing sight. A ROCK was cut out, but not by human hands. The ROCK struck the IRON and CLAY feet of the statue, and the statue in its entirety --- the GOLD, the SILVER, the BRONZE, the IRON, and the IRON mixed with BAKED CLAY -- all simultaneously shattered into pieces and, then, like chaff on a thresher's floor, was swept away by the wind. Not even a trace of it remained.

Then the ROCK that struck the statue became a huge MOUNTAIN and filled the earth.

Daniel then explained to King Nebuchadnezzar the meaning of this strange vision as follows:

The statue's four distinct metal sections each represent four successive GENTILE EMPIRES that shall rise up and rule. Each one shall rise up, and then be conquered by its successor.

Specifically:

...the head of GOLD is Nebachadnezzar's own empire, the one that became the first instrument of God's judgment against the Jewish Kingdom: BABYLON! Note that Babylon is the HEAD of this great statue. That means that the entire statue is in some way directed and guided by Babylonian thought forms. As we'll see when we look back at the statue in its entirety, this is indeed the case.

...the arms and chest of SILVER is the future conqueror of Babylon, which Daniel says will be an empire inferior to that of its predecessor. We know this now to be MEDO-PERSIA!

...the belly and hips of BRONZE is the future conqueror of Medo-Persia, which Daniel says will eventually rule the whole earth. We know this now to be GREECE, and, indeed, Alexander's Empire was vast, reaching as far east as India. But, also note that since those times, Greek ideas and Greek ways have indeed come to rule the whole earth, thanks in no small part to the fearsome power of its successor...

...the legs of IRON and the feet of IRON mixed with BAKED CLAY is the future conqueror of Greece, which Daniel says will be "strong as iron" and "as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others." We know this now to be ROME. But, curiously, unlike its predecessors, this fourth empire is never conquered by a man-made rival. It, instead, only changes its form...

...the feet of IRON and BAKED CLAY is the end-times form ROME will take. Daniel explains that the original UNITY OF IRON will eventually become a DISUNITY, only partly strong like the IRON legs from which it came, but also partly brittle, like the BAKED CLAY intermixed with the IRON in its feet. And the mixture of these two elements which do not naturally mix well portends that this one-time UNITY OF IRON will metamorphose into a mixture of peoples that will not remain united, any more than IRON mixes with CLAY.

Friends, this is as succinct a summary of the history of what we call Western Civilization as any ever written.

The Empire that was ROME never really fell. It instead metamorphosed into an IRON and CLAY disunity of many "little ROMES", each like the IRON UNITY from whence they came, but also unlike it in their brittleness, their proneness to break apart, their characteristic of being a difficult-to-unify mixture of peoples.

These are the civilizational children of ROME. We know them well. They have each gone forth to conquer the world, in part: Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Russia, and, yes, even the United States of America.

This last EMPIRE of IRON and then IRON and CLAY will indeed be the LAST. Daniel tells us that it will reign over men until God draws the "Times of the Gentiles" to a close with a watershed event. God will Himself intervene directly in the affairs of men and SMASH this FALSE IDOL of GENTILE EMPIRE to SMITHEREENS with the ROCK hewn not by human hands.

Daniel explains that the ROCK is GOD's KINGDOM and that it is ETERNAL, for it "will never be destroyed nor will it be left to another people." Furthermore, it will SHATTER all those GENTILE EMPIRES and bring them to an end, and it shall endure FOREVER.

This amazing dream lays out all of human history from Daniel's time to our own and beyond in advance.

So, where do we stand in this panoply? Where is America? Are we to be found in this dazzling and seductive man-made idol of EMPIRE? Or are we the ROCK?

George W. Bush would like you to believe we are the rock. He would like you to believe that American Empire, in effect, is nothing less than the Kingdom of God advancing in the world.

But America cannot be the ROCK, for the ROCK is not made by human hands. God's Kingdom will not be established by human works. Rather, it will be established by the UTTER NEGATION of humanity's most seductive work of all. Daniel tells us that the GREAT AND AWESOME EDIFACE THAT IS EMPIRE will be SMASHED INTO NOTHINGNESS by the ROCK, not that it will become the ROCK, or the MOUNTAIN. These two rival claimants of humanity's love, loyalties, and affections stand unalterably opposed to each other for all time, even to the end of time, and the GREAT IDOL that is EMPIRE shall not prevail. The ROCK will crush it. And it will smash it UTTERLY.

It could not be more clear, then, that America is among the many shards of IRON mixed with BAKED CLAY in the great statue's feet. We are one of many end-times heirs to ROMAN CIVILIZATION. But we are not only heirs to ROME. We are also heirs through ROME of the three empires which preceded it. This is why, from God's perspective, these four empires are seen as a UNITY, and the HEAD OF THE STATUE that still directs WE WHO ARE OF IT'S FEET is BABYLON.

If you doubt this, consider the way we order time. There are sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day, and twelve months in a year because Babylon so established it, and we follow it still today.

But it goes even deeper. Easter, Christmas, Lent...all now nominally Christian celebrations are actually rooted in Babylonian paganism. Why else do you think Easter bunnies and eggs have been co-mingled with what purports to be an annual remembrance of Christ's resurrection? Because it first was a Babylonian spring fertility rite celebrating the goddess Astarte, that's why.

We are still the children of Babylon, as much as we are still the children of Persia, Greece, and Rome.

And we are among those whom God foretold would be partly strong and partly brittle, having the qualities of the original UNITY OF IRON that was ROME, but also having weaknesses stemming from disunity caused in part by a mixing of diverse peoples.

We are among the many disunified "kingdoms" represented by those FEET OF (partly) CLAY, and, as such, we are destined together with all the rest to be SMASHED TO PIECES by the coming ROCK.

So, whom do you worship? The man-made idol with a head of GOLD and feet of IRON and CLAY? Or the divinely hewn ROCK?

Whatever you do, don't confuse the two. Despite what anti-Christ George W. Bush says, they are not one and the same. In fact, they are unalterably opposed to one another in a fight to the death. And guess what? George W. Bush and his minions who lust after EMPIRE don't have a prayer. Their IDOL shall be SMASHED to SMITHEREENS by the ROCK that will come. It's not a question of if, only when.

I can't wait.