 |  |
Day of the Lord; consequently he could say, "five are fallen", namely, Babylon, Persia,
Greece, Rome and Turkey, and "One is", viz., the dominion of the ten kings. The
seventh is the kingdom of the Lord, but antichrist will present himself as the seventh--
"The order is not yet come"; "he is of the seven and goeth into perdition."
Much that is mysterious in these verses is to be understood only in the light of the fact
that at the time of the end the human merges into the superhuman and satanic. Although
we have already occupied considerable space in this article, the solemnity of the subject
and need for clearness forbids undue brevity, and we shall therefore continue for a little.
The ten toes of the image.
The word "broken" in Dan. 2: 42 should be "brittle", and shows that the "clay" is
pottery. Pottery of sufficient thickness would stand the weight of the image, but would
shiver to pieces at a blow. It is impossible to fuse iron and pottery together in the same
way that two metals may be fused, yet when we reach the feet of the Gentile image, metal
gives place to pottery. Some radical change is here indicated. The feet are composed of
both iron and clay:--
"But they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay" (Dan. 2: 43).
This does not mean that the communist will not mingle with the monarchist or the
democrat with the autocrat, for this same verse in Dan. 2: contains a deeper
explanation:--
"They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to
another."
"The seed of men."--Are not communists and kings the seed of men? Are democrats
only the seed of men and the ruling classes not? To ask the question is to answer it.
Gold is a metal superior to silver, but of like nature. So also silver is superior to brass,
brass to iron, yet all are metals. But at the feet of the image the altogether different
materials used indicate that the "they" of 2: 43 and "the seed of men" are beings of two
different orders.
Now the Lord revealed that at the time of the end it should be as it was in the days of
Noah. Gen. 6: contains enough to enable us to see in the clay feet of the image the
revival of the seed of the wicked one. There are two seeds in view, and the book of the
Revelation makes it clear that at the end demon-possessed rulers under the satanic beast
and antichrist will have full, though brief, sway.
In Dan. 2: 44 the prophet says: "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven
set up a kingdom." In the days of what kings? Are they Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, or
Alexander? Any one of the three is historically impossible. What kings reign at the time
when the kingdom of the Lord is set up? We find from Dan. 7: 24 that ten kings shall
arise at the time of the end. We read in Rev. 17: 12:--