Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 1 * PART 3 * BOOK 78
Christ as the Rock of Scripture – Part 3
Various Scriptures
Okay, it’s good to have everybody back from their break. We’re glad you’re back. And for those of you joining us on television, you don’t know what you’re missing by not being able to come in on a Wednesday afternoon. Because we just have a good time, don’t we? It’s a good afternoon, well spent.
But again, we want to thank those of you out there for all your support and your kind letters. My, how we love the letters and your financial support and your prayers. We can’t do it without it. Now that’s all there is to it.
All right, we’re going to continue our study, for the third time now, on the various descriptions of the Rock or the Stone of Scripture, which is always Jesus Christ. Not Peter. It’s Jesus. We have to keep that straight. Because there is only one verse that we looked at in the first half hour, where there is a possibility of confusion that it could be Peter. But it isn’t. Again, I always tell people on a lot of these things—even though Scripture may not affirmatively say something, what does the big picture tell us?
That’s what we have to learn. What’s the big picture in Scripture? The same way with this Rock and Stone deal when you look at the big picture. How often all through Scripture under various circumstances Jesus Christ is the Rock and the Stone.
We’re going to look at the Stone of Judgment this half hour. We’re going to start back in Daniel chapter 2 with Christ as the Stone of Judgment. At the end of days it’ll become a reality. When the final seven years have run their course, and it’s time for His Second Coming, then He will fulfill this symbolic prophecy.
All right, Daniel chapter 2 and, again, just for a little background, you want to remember that Daniel was one of the young Israelites taken captive after Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion. The Temple was destroyed, and they were taken captive down into Babylon, present day Iraq in the area of Baghdad. That is why all this is in the news. We’re coming full circle as we’re going to see in a little bit.
Daniel was a young Jewish lad and was part of the slave system in the palace of the king. Nebuchadnezzar, of course, as you all remember, had a dream. He had no idea what it meant, but it disturbed him. So that meant it must be serious business. He tried to recover the dream, and, of course, none of his wizards and magicians could do it. But somebody thought about little Daniel down there. So they bring Daniel up, and Daniel not only recovers the dream but interprets it. It becomes, then, the benchmark of prophecy as we understand end-time events.
So we’ll drop down to chapter 2 verse 31 as he recovers the dream. We’re going to take the time to read it. Because even though most of you have heard it a dozen times, we know there are a lot people out there in TV who have probably never heard it. Because these things aren’t covered in church in Sunday school, are they? No. I’ve never heard of it. So we’re going to take advantage of our audience out there. Daniel is speaking.
Daniel 2:31-32
“Thou, O king, sawest, (in his dream now) and behold a great image. (Or likeness or we would say today a statue.) This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. (Or frightening—for whatever reason) 32. This image’s (Or this statue. Now picture in your mind the statue of a man—probably a military type.) head was of fine gold, his breast and arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass.”
Now we’re coming down through the torso. Just picture this in your mind. If I were an artist, I’d love to put it on the board. But I’m not an artist. But you start with the head, and you come down through the torso all the way down to the feet and the toes.
Daniel 2:33-34a
“His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. (And Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar,) 34. Thou sawest (Or you watched in this dream) until that a stone (Here it comes now.) was cut out without hands,…” Now, whenever the Bible speaks of something as being done without hands, what does it indicate?
Well, it’s a work of God. Whatever it is. Whether it speaks of the Temple up in Heaven that was not built with human hands, or something else. It’s something that was constructed by God Himself. All right, the same way here. Nebuchadnezzar sees a stone.
Daniel 2:34b-35a
“…which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 35. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together,…” In other words, it starts at the feet. So, you’ve got to put all of this in your mind’s picture now. This stone cut out without hands strikes this statue on its feet, rolls it over, and like a steam roller crushes it to pieces.
Daniel 2:35b
“…and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them: and the stone (Here we come back now to the crushing stone.) that smote the image became a great mountain, (And a mountain in Old Testament language is a Kingdom. So here this stone now becomes the head of a great kingdom. Doesn’t just fill the Middle East, but what?) and filled the whole earth.” It’s going to be an earth-wide kingdom.
Daniel 2:36-37a
“This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. 37. Thou O king, art a king of kings:…” Now, again, you have to know your ancient history. Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar was the first great military consort. There had been tribal wars, sure, for hundreds and hundreds of years. But Nebuchadnezzar ruling there in Babylon became the first visible Gentile Empire. And, of course, they had conquered many of the countries around them. But they were the first. He had absolute dictatorial rule. He didn’t have a Congress. He didn’t have a Cabinet. He had nothing. He was absolute in his own power. All right, so consequently he’s called:
Daniel 2:37b-38
“…art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, (In other words, he had absolute control like no one had ever had before.) and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.”
All right, then you come down. It’s just a quick review of the unfolding of Gentile history. That’s why history and Bible study go so well together. You’ve got to get a little glimpse of history, or this is “all Greek” to you. But as soon as Babylon became a great, glorious nation—an empire with one of the most beautiful cities of the then-known world with all of its hanging gardens—then naturally what boils up amongst the enemy? Envy. Jealousy. They’re going to want it.
That’s why I am a proponent of defense. If America was to lay down our defense with all of our natural resources, with our system of living; the world would come in and take us in a minute. Because that’s the way it has always been, beloved. And these pacifists can go fly a kite. They’re as wrong as wrong can be. You have to defend what you’ve got, or you will lose it.
All right, it happened to Babylon. The greatest empire at that time, but bubbling underneath was this envy from the other areas. Up comes another empire, the Medes and Persians, right next door.
Daniel 2:39
“And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another (We skipped over the second one, which was the Medes and the Persians. We jump right over to another one, which was down to the brass part of the image, or the statue, the Greek Empire.) third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.”
Now, let’s just reconstruct. After Babylon became the great beautiful city and empire, then next door, which is present day Iran and those Arab nations—they rose up, defeated the Babylonians, and established their kingdom—the Medes and the Persians, Artaxerxes and Cyrus and some of those guys.
But as time went by, according to the dream, a third empire would come up and overrun the Medes and the Persians. And that was Alexander the Great. You’ve all studied Alexander back in grade school. Well, he was the third of these prophesied Gentile empires. Alexander conquered everything clear to the Ganges River of India and all the way back west as far as Turkey and Greece. He didn’t get to Rome, but he got as far as Greece.
Then what? Well, his empire held for a couple to three hundred years, and then it began to weaken. Up came the Romans. That is the fourth empire. All right, now that’s the next one in verse 40, the fourth empire.
Daniel 2:40
“And the fourth kingdom (Speaking of this statue in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar’s.) shall be strong as iron: (Now I think you all are aware of the power of the Roman military.) forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.” And then verse 41:
Daniel 2:41
“And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, (In other words, it was fragile. It did not have the strength of pure iron itself. But it was an admixture.) the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.”
Now if you know anything about metals, you know that iron mixed with clay is like trying to mix cement with plain ordinary dirt. It just won’t work, will it? If you’re going to mix concrete, you have to have the right kind of sand or you won’t have concrete that’s worth anything. Well, it’s the same way with metals. If you’re going to mix iron and clay, it’s absolutely impossible to have any strength. It’ll crumble. All right, so this is a picture of that particular empire. Now verse 42:
Daniel 2:42
“And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.” All right, now Bible scholars and the people who teach eschatology are convinced that the fourth empire was the ancient Roman Empire. But this next empire is what we see coming on the scene today, and I still hold to Western Europe.
A lot of the prophecy people are now moving to the Middle East because of Islam. But I refuse to do that. I still maintain that Western Europe is going to be this final empire—the mixture of iron and clay—because even the original ten nations that started right after World War II have all been so nationalistic that they cannot work together. They have various ethnic backgrounds. They all have different languages. They finally got a common currency, but they are still an admixture of people. So consequently, they will not have that singleness of purpose like the Nazis did in Germany and so forth. And that’s what I feel will be the end-time empire.
A lot of people are getting the idea that the anti-Christ has to be a Muslim because of the increase in all they’re doing. Well, it could well be. Because what is Europe fast becoming? Muslim! It’s so fast, it’s scary. England especially. So, if I’m going to hold to these Ten Nations of the Common Market as they first came about, and I still do. Even though there are 15 or 20 others, those original ten still have the core of power in that European Community. All right, if indeed the anti-Christ comes out of that and he’s a Muslim, no problem, because Europe is mostly Muslim already. So don’t fall for the idea that it can’t be the Ten Nations of Europe anymore because it’s going to be a Muslim anti-Christ. No problem.
Now I’ll tell you, while I’m on that, because I’m getting so many letters. They’re beginning to ask me now, “Well, Les, is something else going to come up besides the European Community?” No. I do not think so. I didn’t intend to do this, so this is free for nothing. Come over to Daniel chapter 9. I want to set people straight. Don’t fall for all of these little gimmicks. The final empire is still going to be Western Europe, because it’s out of Western Europe that the anti-Christ will come, albeit, he may be a Muslim. And we understand that that’s no problem. But come down to Daniel chapter 9. Now this may be throwing me off schedule, but I can’t help it.
Daniel chapter 9, here we have the final 490 years of prophecy concerning the Nation of Israel. Most of you know all about this. Come all the way down to verse 26. We’re getting ready now to be introduced to the anti-Christ for the first time, if I’m not mistaken, in the Old Testament.
Daniel 9:26a
“And after threescore and two weeks, and Messiah is cut off, (In other words, after 483 years of the 490 years of prophecy, which still leaves7 years.) but not for himself:…” He didn’t die for anything He had done. Now here it comes, and we take this slowly.
Daniel 9:26b
“…and the people of the prince that shall come (Now who’s the prince that’s coming? The anti-Christ. All right, the anti-Christ is going to come out of this people. And what is that empire going to do to Jerusalem? Destroy it!) shall destroy the city (Jerusalem) and the sanctuary; (the Temple) and the end thereof…” Which happened in A.D. 70.
All right, so what that verse tells us is that the coming anti-Christ will come out of the same empire that destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70. Well, anybody knows what empire did that? Rome. No doubt about it. All right, even though Rome as an Empire went into the dustbin of history, as I usually put it. Yet since World War II what are we seeing? It’s coming back up. Only it’s not coming back up as a Roman Empire headquartered in Rome under a Caesar. Instead, it’s coming up more or less as a democracy of Ten Nations. And that’s where the ten toes come in.
All right, now they’re already up to what? Twenty-eight or thirty nations? But you know what? Those original Ten are still at the core of everything with the European Community. I read one time not too long ago that they have veto power. So they’re still in total control. All the others are just satellite nations. All right, so here we have it. We have to have a revived Roman Empire coming out of Western Europe. And out of that empire will come the anti-Christ. He, in turn, of course, will become a world ruler. All right, so much for that.
Come back with me to Daniel chapter 2. So what Daniel is really prophesying here is the unfolding of the Gentile Empires beginning with Nebuchadnezzar in 606 B.C. So between 600 B.C. and Christ’s first advent, all four empires came and went. Well, Rome hasn’t gone yet, but they will. The Babylonians came and went. The Medes and Persians came and went. The Greeks came and went. And Rome was holding forth during Christ’s first advent, and then they disappeared.
All right, but now here we are 2,000 years later. And if you know anything about everyday news, what four empires are again in there? Iran. That was what? That was Persia. That was the second empire. Baghdad—our boys are over there fighting every day. What is it? That first empire. And then what was the third empire? Greece—and Syria was the key player so far as Israel was concerned. Syria is in the news every day. And then our Common Market or the European Union is the fourth, and it’s in the news every day. So here we are 2,000 years later, and we’ve come full circle. All these empires are now evident in the business and the production of the world. They’ve all got their fingers in the pie.
Okay, now let’s read on in chapter 2. Let’s see, I got down to about verse 41, I think.
Daniel 2:41
“And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it the strength of iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.” All right, now verse 42:
Daniel 2:42-43a
“And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 43. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men:…” In other words, those nations are coming together and making a loose-knit democratic government. Then come down to verse 44.
Daniel 2:44
“And in the days of these kings (In other words, when all these Gentile Empires are back in the news every day, as we see them as I stand here.) shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”
Daniel 2:45
“For as much as thou sawest that the stone…” Here we go again, the complete repetition of what the first part of the chapter talked about – that this coming Stone will hit that empire that is ruling at the time, which will be the Revived Roman Empire headed up over in Western Europe under an anti-Christ that will come out of it someplace. Then all these others—Iran, Assyria, Iraq—they’re all going to be smashed to smithereens like the dust of the threshing floor.
Daniel 2:45
“Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, (The Common Market as we now know it, which will be ruling during the Tribulation under the anti-Christ.) the clay, the silver, and the gold;…” And it will be completely annihilated, so that now you can come over to chapter 7 verses 13 and 14. As a result of that crushing stone coming down on these end-time governments and economics or economies, whatever you want to call it, the world’s system under the anti-Christ is at its final end. This is the crushing of the stone.
Daniel 7:13-14
“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. (God the Son comes before God the Father. And the Father now in turn–) 14. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
All right, now in the few minutes we have left, let’s jump all the way up to Revelation chapter 19. Now we see the same stone, but we have different language. Revelation 19—but it’s the same crushing stone of Daniel. And my, we can get excited. Because I think we can just about see it coming over the horizon. Revelation 19 verse 11 and this is just another way of putting the “stone cut out without hands.”
Revelation 19:11
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.” Oh, it’s going to be totally fair.
You know, let me stop a minute. The unbelieving world—they hear this and they think—what kind of a God is this anyway? A God that’s going to kill millions and millions of people, that’s not a God of love. Well, of course not. He’s been a God of love for 6,000 years. He has never brought in that kind of judgment until here.
Now even the flood—you know, I’ve said this before. The flood was a judgment, absolutely, because of their ungodliness. But I read again the other night in a scientific journal where their description of the flood was almost identical with what I taught in Genesis 6. Twenty years ago, wasn’t it? It was a long time ago.
You remember how I made the point that it wasn’t the forty days of rain that drowned the people, for goodness sakes. But what happened? Within the first 24 hours the fountains of the deep opened up. It was instantaneous destruction. Instant! They never knew what hit them. Well, this scientist was explaining it. How the tectonic plates were moving underneath and all this. You know, I just get goose bumps. Well, that’s what I’ve always said. It wasn’t the 40 days of rain. It was that breaking up of the fountains of the deep.
All right, now here we have the judgment of God, because His Grace has run its course. Nobody has to go to that horrible place we call the Lake of Fire. Nobody. Everyone’s sin is already paid for. And all they have to do is believe it. But they will not. I mentioned in my seminar in Charlotte the other day, and I made it a point. Don’t get discouraged when we realize that people who think like we do are in a small minority. It’s always been that way. God has never had the majority.
Eight people in the flood. Isaiah said, “a very small remnant.” And the other one – Elijah – he thought he was the only one. And so it’s always been. God has never had the “many.” But anyway, here we come to that Smiting Stone. Who is going to now come, not as the “stone rejected of the builders,” but He’s going to come as the Stone of Judgment.
And the Second Coming, of course, says it all. I haven’t got time enough to read it. But you can read Revelation 19 when you get home. The Second Coming of Christ is when He’s going to come and become absolute Sovereign King of Kings and Lord of Lords, not just over Israel, but over the whole world.