Victim to Victor

Chapter 2 of the Book of Daniel is a panorama of extremes. It opens with Daniel and all the Magi (the Wise Men) of Babylon being threatened with execution, and closes with Daniel being promoted to head over all the Magi and Prime Minister of Babylon.

One night, King Nebuchadnezzar had a terrifying dream and brought the Wise Men before him to not only interpret it but also to tell him what his dream was. They were expected to use their supernatural powers to do so. However, they failed. God instead used this dream to show His power over all the Babylonian gods and to give us prophecy so we could understand what’s going on in the chaos of our world today.

This dream showed a colossal statue that represented an overview of world history from that day to the present. As we see world events unfolding today, we are watching this and other prophecies being fulfilled. Ours could very well be the last generation on earth as we know it, as we watch the New World Order being formed before our very eyes. The final victory, however, belongs to God, with the establishment of His Millennial Kingdom.

To give you an idea of who these Magi were and how they operated in the king’s court, let’s take a look at how Nebuchadnezzar “collected” them. The original Magi were a tribe of the most intelligent and educated men on the planet. In addition to them, Nebuchadnezzar took the cream of the crop from the nations he conquered and re-educated them into the Babylonian language, culture, and religion. Then they joined the council of the king’s advisors as members of the Wise Men, or Magi.

These advisors were usually astrologers, magicians, and sorcerers. Their religion was permeated with idols that represented the supernatural counterparts of the natural world. People lived in fear of the spirit realm, believing that the gods controlled all natural and human events.

The Wise Men excelled in science, astronomy, and mathematics – everything that gave them an understanding of the natural realm – so that they could use astrology, magic, sorcery, and dream interpretation to control the corresponding spirit world. However, that didn’t work for them this time.

In my next post, we’ll see what the dream was, how it describes today, and how God catapulted Daniel into being the most powerful man in Babylon next to King Nebuchadnezzar.