For the past two weeks the world has witnessed the unfolding tragedy of military conflict, loss of life, and material devastation in eastern Europe. All of God’s people must unite in prayer for a speedy end to the bloodshed and for the continuing proclamation of the three angels’ messages in those countries affected by the crisis.
A prominent church official who spoke with me this week reported that so far, to our knowledge, no Seventh-day Adventist has been injured or killed in the struggle still in progress. Let us pray that none who bear the name and faith of the great Advent movement will be found taking up arms against one another.
No calamity of this sort can arise without reminding God’s people of the inspired predictions of those events which will take place just before Jesus comes again. Our Lord Himself said to His disciples, speaking of the last days: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass: for the end is not yet” (Matt. 24:6). In a general forecast of so much that we see happening just now, Ellen White has written:
In the last scenes of this earth’s history war will rage. There will be pestilence, plague and famine. The waters of the deep will overflow their boundaries. Property and life will be destroyed by fire and flood. We should be preparing for the mansions that Christ has gone to prepare for them that love Him [1].
“The Sure Word of Prophecy”
Many are presently fearful that what is happening in Ukraine might be just the beginning, that other European nations belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could suffer similar consequences. It isn’t the first time such fears have swept the world. But when we turn to the Sacred Writings, we find the assurance that God has set limits to the ambitions and foibles of even the most powerful human beings.
The story is a familiar one to Seventh-day Adventists, but one we can’t repeat often enough. We find it in the second chapter of the prophetic book of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a fearful dream one night, whose details he simply couldn’t remember (Dan. 2:1-3,5). So he called his wise men together and commanded them to tell him what in fact he had dreamed (verse 3). But of course they couldn’t (verses 10-11); the Bible declares of the God of heaven: “Thou, even Thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men” (I Kings 8:39). At once the king issued a decree that all the wise men, astrologers, and soothsayers in his realm be put to death (verse 12).
But four of the wise men hadn’t been summoned to the king’s presence (verse 13). Their names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Asking Nebuchadnezzar for time (verse 16), Daniel and his friends bowed in prayer, pleading that God would reveal the king’s dream to them and thus spare their lives from the king’s death decree (verse 17). That very night, God answered their prayer and revealed the secret to Daniel (verse 18).
The following day Nebuchadnezzar sat spellbound as young Daniel disclosed the details of the king’s dream—an image made of gold, silver, brass, iron, and clay, broken in pieces by a stone that would fill the whole earth (verses 31-35). This metal image, beginning with its head of gold, represented the four great empires and successive kingdoms—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the nations of western Europe—whose destinies would interconnect with the story of God’s people across the centuries to follow (verses 36-44).
Regarding the ten toes of the image, representing the tribes that would conquer imperial Rome and become Europe’s leading powers, the prophet declared:
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 seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay (verses 52-43).
Through efforts both martial and marital, kings and emperors have sought—most of them unwittingly, perhaps—to prove this prediction false. Charlemagne and Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV and Napoleon of France, Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler of Germany—all attempted to bring these nations under their rule. All failed. In Queen Victoria’s time, nearly all of Europe’s royal houses were bonded by intermarriage. Historian C.L. Sulzberger writes:
Among other things, Victoria established herself as the matriarch of royal Europe. Eventually her descendants and their close relatives were connected with almost every important ruling house on the Continent [2].
How precise a fulfillment to the Bible’s declaration that “they shall mingle with the seed of men” (verse 43)!
Military, financial, and political initiatives in the same direction have proved equally futile. The past century has witnessed two of the most notable efforts at Europe’s military subjugation, both at the behest of Germany. The late C. Mervyn Maxwell, in his commentary of the book of Daniel, writes of his father’s experience as an evangelist at the height of Hitler’s assault on western Europe in 1940:
After Dunkirk and the fall of France, some students of prophecy cautioned my father, Arthur S. Maxwell, editor of Signs of the Times, not to continue writing editorials on Hitler’s future defeat. “How do we know that the prophecy of Daniel 2 will apply in this case?” they asked. My father replied by dedicating his issue for July 2, 1940, to the interpretation of Daniel 2 and inviting his readers to preserve their copies!
“This prophecy is the only one in the Bible,” he wrote buoyantly, to which the words ‘sure’ and ‘certain’ are both attached” (Daniel 2:45). If for no other reason, with these two seals upon it we can surely trust it with complete confidence. It cannot fail” [3]
It took great courage for Elder Maxwell to utter these words, especially at the very moment when so many were sure the swastika would be fluttering over Westminster within weeks. But the prophecy held firm, the Luftwaffe failed to bomb Britain into submission, and in time the wrath of an enraged world brought to the end to the Nazi warlord’s dream of world conquest.
Many decades later, when the British people voted to leave the European Union [4], when Switzerland withdrew its currency from the euro [5], the prophecy of Daniel 2 again reverberated in the hearts and minds of Adventist prophetic students. The anchor of faith represented by this prophecy has held repeatedly. And it will do so again.
Conclusion: “They shall not cleave one to another” (Dan. 2:43).
As I write this, Europe is embroiled in the fiercest conflict since World War II. Fears abound that the war will spread westward. But while we can’t know the future in all its detail, we can be certain that no conqueror will weld the nations of Europe into a new empire. The ten toes “shall not cleave one to another” (Dan. 2:43). The “sure word of prophecy” still stands (II Peter 1:19). While our hearts, prayers, and deeds of love must extend to all sufferers in the present crisis, we retain our confidence that the next world empire is coming not from this earth, but from heaven. In the ancient prophet’s words:
And in the days of these kings 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 (Dan. 2:44).
The dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure (verse 45).
REFERENCES
1. Ellen G. White, Last Day Events, p. 24.
2. C.L. Sulzberger, The Fall of Eagles (New York: Crown Publishers, 1977), p. 87.
3. C. Mervyn Maxwell, God Cares: The Message of Daniel for You and Your Family (Boise, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Assn, 1981), p. 38.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan