Pagină:A-great-image-part-I-1930.djvu/5

Avevust 1, 1930 shall stand up’. Danicl therefore specifically repre- sented the faithful remnant, those who are anointed of the Lord God to do his work. The record of the dream and the interpretation given by Daniel the prophet follows: 4 «<Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, a great image. This great image, whose brightness was ex- eclicnt, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible, This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshinefloors ; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a ercat mountain, and filled the whole earth. 16 «This is the dream; and we will tell the inter- pretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. And after thee: shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth, And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: 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 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 of the strength of the iron, foras- much as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 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, And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the .sced of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 17 *¢ And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven sct up a kingdom, which shall never be de- stroyed: 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, Foras- much 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 clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter; and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.’’—Dan. 2: 31-45, %8 For many years those who have loved God have tke WATCH TOWER 229 sought for an understanding of the prophecies, and particularly those written by Daniel and Ezckiel. God has never been displeased with this effort, as is indicated by the Scriptures; nor should it be expected that God will permit the true understanding of these prophecies to be had until his due time. The holy men of old who prophesied concerning God’s purpose of the salvation of the human race sought diligently to understand the meaning of what they wrote down. Even the angels desired to look into the meaning there- of and have an understanding of it. God did not ex- press his displeasure because of the efforts thus made to understand, but it was not his due time to make his secrets known. Nor would it be at all improper for anyone who is devoted to God to diligently seck to know the understanding of his Word at any or all times. This observation is here made to empkasize the fact that only in God’s duc time ean a prophecy be understood by men. More than fifty years ago some good, honest Christian people who were called Adventists published an interpretation of the foregoing prophecy of Danicl which in substanee states that the terrible image that Daniel saw represented the successive world powers, to wit, Babylon, Mcedo-Persia, Greece and Rome; ihat the golden head of the image represented Babylon, the breast of silver represented or pictured the Medo- Persian empire; that the copper (mistranslated brass) pictured the Grecian world power; and the legs of iron pictured the Pagan Roman world power; and the feet composed of iron and clay pictured Papal Rome or what is otherwise called the ‘Holy Roman Empire’’. The Watch Tower publications, having no better explanation, practically adopted the foregoing interpretation. There are some good reasons why the above interpretation of the prophecy is not correct, and these are, to wit: 70 (1) That the true meaning of the terrible image could not be understood by any of those whom Daniel represented until after the coming of the Lord to his temple. The foregoing interpretation having been made long before the coming of the Lord to his tem- ple, it is hardly likely that it would be correct. That would not mean that any criticism is leveled against any of those who thus interpreted it. Without doubt God was pleased with them because they sought the truth. Danicl’s propheey says: ‘‘This seeret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation.’’ And furthermore that ‘the God of heaven revealeth seerets of what shall be in the latter days’, (Dan. 2: 28,30) These ‘‘latter days’ must refer to the ‘‘day of the Lord’’, which means the time beginning when God places his King upon his holy hill in Zion. (Ps. 2:6) That event occurred in 1914, and surely then the understanding could not be had until after that time. It was after the Lord