Kingdoms come and kingdoms go

You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. – Daniel 2.37-39

Nebuchadnezzar was a powerful king. He was possibly the most powerful king of his time. That kind of power tends to corrupt the holder of the power. Through his dream God made it clear that the king really was nothing more than another cog in the wheel of time.

‘You are the most powerful king there is,’ Daniel said, but you are not going to last forever.’ Daniel said that another, less powerful king would rise to power and after that another would come. Time goes on and kingdoms come and kingdoms go. No power lasts forever.

That’s important for us to remember. As believers our citizenship is in heaven and that is the only kingdom that will endure forever. No matter where our earthly citizenship is it is only temporary. We don’t have time to get entangled in the affairs of this world and if we are in a position to have an impact our constant goal should be to point others to our heavenly eternal home.

There is a God in heaven as Daniel said. He also pointed out that no kingdom lasts forever. We must keep our eyes on the eternal and not the temporal.