The prophet Daniel is a good example of a man whose words are trustworthy. 2,600 years ago, he interpreted a dream for a Babylonian king. The focus of the dream was a huge statue with a gold head, a chest and arms of silver, a bronze belly, iron legs, and feet and toes of iron mixed with clay. From this dream he predicted a succession of empires which would dominate the earth. And history has proven him right. The Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires followed one another, corresponding exactly to the statue, strikingly in the legs of iron, which depicted the split of the Roman Empire.

As for the feet and toes of iron mixed with clay, many scholars have imagined that this would be a revival of the Roman Empire in a modern form. Their speculations carry weight, since Roman law and culture undergird all of Western civilization.
The renaissance of “Rome” is like a seed waiting to sprout. The West is obsessed with a united world, recalling the peace and prosperity that the Roman Empire enjoyed in its heyday, but sadly forgetting the seeds of decay that caused it to fall.

In the dream, a stone was mysteriously hewn out of a huge mountain.  Without human hands it was chipped away, little by little, until it broke free and plummeted toward the statue, striking it on the feet. The iron and clay mixture shattered, and the entire statue fell and disintegrated.
Then a mighty wind blew away the dust until no trace was left of the once-mighty statue. Only the stone remained, and its essence filled the entire earth.

Daniel made it clear that the stone is not merely a religion, but a kingdom.5 And it is not just any kingdom, but the kingdom which the God of heaven will set up in “the days of those kings” — the ten kings of the world federation represented by the toes of the statue. This can only happen in the last days of this age — obviously so, since when that stone falls on the toes, it brings this age to an end.