You remember the story. Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, a troubling dream, a dream that he couldn’t remember. God told the prophet Daniel not only the dream but its interpretation.
Here was the dream: “You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.” (Daniel 2:31-35)
Daniel then explained the dream, how the Babylonian empire was the head of gold, to be followed by three lesser kingdoms. Then would come a kingdom that wouldn’t just coexist with the other kingdoms, it would blow away every trace of them. This would be the eternal kingdom, as Daniel explained: “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” (Daniel 2:44)
Then what? Did the rock join itself to a new statue? Did it become part of the Holy Roman empire or the Spanish empire? Did it join itself to Gran Colombia or to the United States? No, the rock stands alone. God’s kingdom crushes the kingdoms of the world and endures alone. Forever.
Why didn’t God reveal more? Why not show Nebuchadnezzar the fall of the Romans and ensuing history? Because for us, the story ends there. God’s kingdom is established. Everything else is nothing more than a footnote.