Simply teaching the Bible, simply

This study was given by pastor Barry Forder on 9th May 2021 at Calvary Chapel Portsmouth’s online family service. DANIEL 3:1 Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. As we move into this chapter most scholars place these events about 15-23 years after the events of Chapter 2. This would make Daniel and his Hebrew friends around 33 years old, and the year would be around 587 B.C. Although it is only conjecture, the following is provocative: 587 B.C. was the year Nebuchadnezzar laid the final siege against Jerusalem and carried Israel’s last king – Zedekiah – away to Babylon in chains. But back at the end of chapter 2 Nebuchadnezzar was shown that the God of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael & Azariah, the God of Israel, was not only a God who answers dreams, He was the one who appoints kings and is Sovereign over all. But 17 years had past and king Neb’s fear of the Almighty God had no doubt waned. Time has a way of dulling the senses. Jerusalem had been a thorn in his side and despite that niggling voice that told him to leave God’s people alone, he boldly marches to Jerusalem in 587 B.C., lays siege to it, then overthrows and destroys both the city and the Temple of God within it. Bolstered by this success his mind may well have turned to consider the dream of the statue he had had 17 years earlier, where he was depicted as the head of gold. But if he had now defeated the Jews and destroyed the temple to their God, why couldn’t Nebuchadnezzar be the whole image, not just the head? What nation could defeat the might of his Babylon? Why couldn’t his kingdom be an everlasting one?