iron and of molded clay and crushed them. At that time the iron, the molded clay, the copper, the silver and the gold were, all together, crushed and became like the chaff from the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried them away so that no trace at all was found of them. And as for the stone that struck the image, it became a large mountain and filled the whole earth.”​—Daniel 2:34, 35.

69. What does that mean for all human rulerships?

⁶⁹ The fulfillment of this dramatic part of the prophetic dream is immediately ahead of us. According to this, every vestige or trace of the political world powers of human history, including the Eighth World Power, the United Nations, must forcibly be dissipated beyond reconstruction. All subsidiary kingdoms and human rulerships must likewise be cleared off the earth.

70, 71. By what agency does Jehovah bring about that worldwide destruction?

⁷⁰ That is God’s word, not man’s. It is not the work of the anointed remnant of spiritual Israelites, neither the work of the “great crowd” of fellow worshipers of Jehovah. The agency that the Almighty God Jehovah will use in bringing about that worldwide destruction was pictured in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as a “stone” that was cut out of a mountain without the aid of human hands. Hence, the “stone” must picture something that is produced by the Creator, the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. What the “stone” symbolized He inspired Daniel to explain, saying:

⁷¹ “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people [as successors]. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite; forasmuch as you beheld that out of the mountain a stone was cut not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the copper, the molded clay, the silver and the gold.”​—Daniel 2:44, 45.

72, 73. (a) What is the “mountain” from which the “stone” is cut without hands? (b) The “stone” itself represents what, and what is taking place in connection with it now?

⁷² As the “stone” pictures a kingdom that the God of heaven sets up, the “mountain” must picture the source of kingdom power and authority, namely, the Universal Sovereignty of the King of Eternity, Jehovah God. The stonelike kingdom thus becomes a subsidiary part and agency of His universal sovereignty. It is his Messianic kingdom in the hands of his only-begotten Son, who became the Lord Jesus Christ. (Daniel 7:13, 14) This kingdom is the one concerning which Jesus Christ made the following prediction in his prophecy on the “conclusion of the system of things”: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14) In that same prophecy Jesus Christ envisioned himself as being in that kingdom, when he said:

⁷³ “When the Son of man arrives in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him.”​—Matthew 25:31, 32.

74. With what assignments has that Messianic kingdom been entrusted by Jehovah?

⁷⁴ All hail to the Messianic kingdom of the Son of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah! It is the heavenly government that is entrusted with ushering out “the heavens and the earth that are now” and introducing the promised “new heavens and a new earth” for the glory of God and the endless blessing of all the obedient of mankind.

Chapter 17

The Creating of “New Heavens and a New Earth”

1. (a) Why are we today interested in a dream had by Emperor Nebuchadnezzar of ancient Babylon? (b) In reminding the emperor of the details of the dream, what did Daniel say about a particular “stone” and what it would accomplish?

WHAT the imperial ruler of the Babylonian World Power saw in a prophetic dream more than two thousand five hundred years ago, we are seeing fulfilled today! That God-sent dream helps us to understand what is taking place in our time of deepening world distress. Thankful can we be that this dream, which Emperor Nebuchadnezzar completely forgot beyond recall, was revealed to the prophet Daniel for him to recall and interpret with Almighty God’s help to the much-disturbed emperor. In reaching the climax of his account of the dream “image” that pictured the succession of political superpowers of world history, from the Babylonian Empire to the Anglo-American Dual World Power of today, Daniel went on to say:

“You kept on looking until a stone was cut out not by hands, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and of molded clay and crushed them. At that time the iron, the molded clay, the copper, the silver and the gold were, all together, crushed and became like the chaff from the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried them away so that no trace at all was found of them. And as for the stone that struck the image, it became a large mountain and filled the whole earth.”​—Daniel 2:34, 35.

2. What was symbolized by that “stone”?

² There can be no other explanation of the matter. That “stone” symbolized the Messianic kingdom in the hands of the anointed Son of the Sovereign Lord of the universe, Jehovah God.