IN Daniel 2 (see lesson on page 14) is the advance history of this world to all eternity. Herein are set forth the two antagonistic principles, which have waged such relentless warfare, and the sure result of their contest. God gives us the object lesson that we may choose on which side we will stand. The empire of this world from the earliest dawn of history is portrayed. It is essentially Babylonian. While empires and dynasties have differed radically in many things, as compared with each other, in their attitude to God and truth and the eternal well-being of man, each form and kind finds the germ of its existence in Babylonian principles. The prophet speaks truly of all historic time when he declares that Babylon has "made all the earth drunken." For even before her triumph in Nebuchadnezzar, she was the molding power even over the nations which conquered her. Sayce tells us: "In populousness and antiquity, Assyria was far exceeded by the southern kingdom of Babylonia. Here were the center and starting point of the civilization which afterward spread through Western Asia." And the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia declares: "The earliest religious, scientific, and artistic traditions of our present civilization were cradled in Babylonia." Putting man in the place of God, adding to God’s ways to make them better, perverting His ways and assuming His prerogatives, as well as open, flat rebellion against His government, were all of Babylonian origin, some or all of which have been characteristic of every nation since. Babylon’s life, in principle, tho overthrown as a world-empire, extends to the destruction of all earthly rule. Medo-Persia followed Babylon, but Medo-Persia was not in harmony with God. Grecia followed, but Grecia was Babylonian in character. Rome followed Grecia, and under Roman development Babylonian principles are dominant in the world as in no other age. See Revelation 17, 18. In the great system of world-empire, whatever form it may assume, there are the essential principles of decay, disintegration, utter ruin. The gold degenerated to the more brittle, less valuable silver; the silver to the less valuable and more brittle brass; the brass to the less valuable iron, the strength of which was soon marred by the intermixture of the clay in which it was cast. A united kingdom becomes impossible after this by any device of man; and out of the utter ruin of earth-born kingdoms the God of heaven by His own almighty power sets up His own kingdom of forever enduring existence. The principles of God’s kingdom have ever existed in hearts loyal to truth and righteousness. In the blackest days of earth’s history, despite the fiercest temptations and trials, despite the poisonous fogs of superstition and tradition, despite the fiercest opposition of combined apostasy and worldliness, the principles of God’s kingdom have existed in the lives of loyal ones, making these His living temples, their hearts His throne. Thus have they won; thus have they demonstrated their right to reign. If this were not so, earth would roll on forever a lifeless body, destitute of inhabitants; for the children of sin would inevitably reap their finished fruit—death. But in Christ all the children of righteousness, even tho sleeping for a little time, live, and soon shall they live eternally. Then “the God of heaven” shall reign, in a renewed earth, and His kingdom shall “stand forever.” To us who live in this end of the ages, who can see the demonstration of the truth of God’s “more sure word of prophecy,” there should be no doubt as to the future. To Nebuchadnezzar the dream was “certain, and the interpretation thereof sure;” how God’s children should be assured of it now. How partial past fulfilments have demonstrated the entire future unfolding. Who would not choose the kingdom of God and its righteousness rather than the throne of Babylon with its sin and its inevitable end, destruction?