Bible Text: Daniel 2:1-23 | Preacher: Steve Wakeford | Series: In His Hands | Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. Daniel co-operated with the despot but did not compromise. And God was faithful to him.
Are you someone who has lots of dreams and remembers them all? Or maybe youâre someone who doesnât remember hardly any of your dreams? Or maybe youâre like me. I know that I have dreams. Sometimes I remember bits and pieces of them. Occasionally Iâll remember all of a dream. But sometimes I donât remember if I had any dreams at all. Dreams are weird things, arenât they?
Sometimes dreams are romantic. I remember a dream I had when I was in year five. There was this girl at school I liked but she didnât seem interested in me, Then one night I had this dream of rescuing her from being attacked by a shark at school camp! Naturally, she fell in love with me. Lifeâs pretty simple when youâre eleven.
Then there are dreams that are just really fun. Whatever puts a smile on your face is the thing youâre dreaming about. For me, those sort of dreams usually involve a 911 GT3 RS. Itâs probably different for most of you. But some of you probably also dream about 911 GT3 RS like me. But whatever floats your boat, the dream starts, and youâve got a smile on your face. Youâre having a great time, but then you wake up because youâve got to go to the toilet! And youâre so disappointed because the dream was so cool. So you go as quickly as you can, you donât turn the lights on, and you rush back to bed. But itâs dark so you trip over a shoe or something on your floor. Youâre still trying to not wake up properly. Then you do your best to get back into the dream. And you canât. Itâs gone. Thatâs so frustrating!
Then there are those dreams you donât understand. Theyâre so weird that you wake up and think about explaining it to someone, but decide not to because it would sound like you took acid before you went to sleep.
Then there are dreams we donât like that much. Those dreams are usually related to whatâs going on in life, so if thereâs something really stressful going on, itâs hard to sleep anyway. But when we do get to sleep, our dreams are really tense. So we wake up feeling anxious instead of refreshed. In times of high-level, long-term stress, our anxiety affects our sleep and our dreams, and we just wake up drained. I donât know if thatâs happened to you but Iâve experienced that a bunch of times, and itâs horrible. Thatâs usually when you have that dream where youâre falling and you canât grab hold of anything? You want to yell out for help, but nothing comes out of your mouth. You can feel your heart beating faster and faster. Then you wake up with a jolt. Youâre panicking. Your eyes dart around your bedroom looking for danger. Then you lie back down with your eyes wide open. You want to go back to sleep because youâre tired. But youâre almost afraid to go back to sleep because you donât want to get back to that dream.
I reckon thatâs probably how Nebuchadnezzar felt after he woke up in Daniel 2. I reckon he completely freaked out. Verse 1 tells us that his mind was troubled and he couldnât go back to sleep. This dream has him spooked. Now, at the time, Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man on the planet. What is it that powerful people fear most? Losing power. Heâs not sure what the dream means, but heâs scared.
So he calls in his wise men: enchanters, astrologers, diviners, and magicians. These guys advise him about all sorts of stuff: from foreign policy to civil law to interpreting dreams. One of the resources the wise men have is their dream de-coding book. Back in the day, people thought that dreams were the godsâ way of telling you things. So over the years, the wise men had built up a library of reference books. It was a pretty simple system. The dreamer would tell the wise men their dream. The wise men would look up that that particular type of dream in their book. Then they would tell the dreamer what the dream meant. Easy.
In the past, Nebuchadnezzar has done this plenty of times. But this time is different. This dream isnât normal, and he knows it. He doesnât want an answer out of a book. He wants the truth. But deep down, I think he knows his wise men are fakes. He thinks heâs never going to know the real meaning of the dream. Thatâs scaring him more than he wants to admit. Sometimes when people are scared they get angry and irrational.
In verse 5 and again in verse 9, Nebuchadnezzar tells them that he wants one of them to not only interpret the dream but tell him what it was first! Theyâre stuffed and they know it. The wise men donât actually have any power. All the stuff they do is smoke and mirrors. In verse 11, they admit it.
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What the King asks is too difficult. No one can reveal the dream to the King except the gods and they do not live among humans! (NIV)
I donât know if youâve ever been into horoscopes, but theyâre in the back of every magazine and newspaper. If you Google âhoroscopesâ, you get 130 million results in .3 of a second. Itâs human nature for us to want to know the future. Thatâs why people read horoscopes. But theyâre absolute rot.
Before she was a Christian, a friend of mine used to write horoscopes. She wasnât an astrologer and she didnât know much about star signs. But she was, and still is, a really good writer. So she wrote a horoscope that was in a bunch of magazines and newspapers. She just made the whole thing up. I reckon Nebuchadnezzar knows his astrologers and enchanters and wise men are like that. Theyâre just making stuff up. And Nebuchadnezzar is right.
Heâs so angry with them that he orders to be executed every wise man, enchanter, and magician in Babylon. But the trouble is that Daniel and his three friends are in that group. Theyâre part of the wise men of Babylon. From verse 14, Daniel hears that heâs to be put to death. So he carefully asks why. Then once he hears whatâs going on, he goes in to see Nebuchadnezzar and asks for time to interpret the dream. And when he gets home, have a look at verse 17:
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Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. (NIV)
Letâs just have a think about this for a moment. When weâre faced with a crisis, what do we do? We could panic. If youâre a bloke, you usually try to fix it yourself, or just hope that the problem goes away. If youâre a woman, maybe you talk about it over with friends. Maybe you freak out or cry or get angry. We all have different ways of dealing with a crisis. But look at what Daniel does. In a crisis, he finds his mates and they pray. They plead for mercy from the God of heaven that they might be saved.
It seems to me that if you want to get anything done you have to pray. All the way through the Bible, Godâs people are people of prayer. When theyâre not people of prayer theyâre usually in trouble! Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9, and Daniel 9 are all prayers that each of those blokes prayed. Every letter Paul writes in the NT starts with him praying for the people to whom heâs writing. Jesus prayed heaps, and youâd think that heâd be the one bloke who probably didnât need to pray!
You can go to Martin Lutherâs house in Germany and walk through it in the top room is his study his desk is against a wall under a window that looks out over the city. There are two grooves worn into the floorboards where he would kneel and pray. The last 500 years of church history were shaped by a bloke who prayed so much he wore grooves in his floorboards. Iâm not convinced I could wear a dent in my carpet! John Wesley once said that he had so much to do each day, he simply had to get up at 4am so that he had enough time to pray about all the stuff he had to do.
Pray first, then act. This is what Daniel and his friends do. They pray, hear from God, then act. I need to hear this because I get the order messed up. I encounter a problem. Sometimes I think then I act. Sometimes I act first and then think later. Either way, I so often pray last! Which is a bit like saying to God, âAre you OK with what Iâve decided to do after Iâve done it.â Weâve probably all done that! Daniel shows us the order itâs meant to be: a crisis, so pray, and get your friends to pray with you. Being a Christian is a team sport. Weâre not in this alone. Hear from God then act.
God answers this prayer immediately and positively. He reveals the dream and its meaning to Daniel in a vision that night. In verse 29, Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar what he saw in his dream. He saw a huge statue of four parts: a head of gold; arms and chest of silver; a belly and thighs of bronze; and legs and feet of iron mixed with clay. Then thereâs this rock, cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands. The rock strikes the statue, which crumbles to dust and is blown away by the wind. The rock remains and grows. It gets massive and eventually fills the whole world.
Nebuchadnezzar wants to know what part of the dream represents him. Does the whole statue, or part of the statue, or the rock, represent him? So from verse 36, Daniel gives Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation of the dream.
The four parts of the statue represent four kingdoms. Babylon is the head of gold. You can see that in verse 38. Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, âYou, King Nebuchadnezzar, are that head of goldâ. Three other kingdoms will follow the Medo-Persian empire. Then comes the Greek empire. And lastly, the Roman empire is represented here by the legs and feet of iron and clay. Daniel doesnât identify the kingdoms here in chapter 2. But he does identify them later in the book of Daniel, so we know these are the kingdoms to which the dream refers.
Then, from verse 44, Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar the meaning of the rock. At some point in the future, God is going to break into history in a massive, earth shattering way. His kingdom will expand and fill the earth and will endure forever. As Daniel says in verse 45, the dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy. Daniel didnât know how this was going to happen. He just knew it would.
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We are a bit different to Daniel. From where we stand in history, we know how God did this and we know when. During the Roman empire, Jesus turned up. Heâs the rock that was cut out of the mountain, but not by human hands. Jesus brought Godâs kingdom to earth not by military might but by love. He did not come with the pride and arrogance of an earthly king, but with humility. Although Jesus is the king, he came to serve. He came to live the life we havenât lived and die the death we deserve to die. From our vantage point, we know about the cross. We know that Jesus died. We know that Jesus didnât stay dead. We know about the empty tomb. We know Jesus won the victory over Satan, sin, and death. We know that one day every eye will see and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Daniel said it like this to Nebuchadnezzar in verse 45:
âThe great God has shown the King what will take place in the future.â (NIV)
Daniel spoke not about what might happen in the future, or what Daniel wants to happen in the future, but what will happen in the future. You and I would say, âWhat has happened in the past.â
Well, Nebuchadnezzar is pretty shocked. He knows his own wise men couldnât have done what Daniel just did. So he promotes Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And the rest of the book is now set up for us.
I want us to notice a couple of things as we wrap this chapter up. One of the things Daniel teaches us really well is how we live in a culture that is opposed to God. I think itâs easy to forget this, but Daniel worked for a ruler who had destroyed his home and his city after a siege that lasted around two years. We donât read anything about Danielâs family so there is a good chance that Nebuchadnezzarâs soldiers had killed Danielâs parents, brothers, and sisters. He was taken from Jerusalem when he was a young teenager, and he never made it back home. I think itâs easy for us to forget the tears Daniel cried when he thought about his home and his family and his friends who didnât make it to Babylon. He would have cried when he remembered the temple in Jerusalem where God met with his people.
And yet Daniel treats Nebuchadnezzar with great respect. In verse 36 he calls him âthe king of kingsâ. He calls him âyour majestyâ. He says that the kingdoms following Nebuchadnezzarâs are inferior. He respects the king, while at the same time he never shrinks back from his primary allegiance to the God of Israel.
Someone wiser than me says it like this: Daniel cooperated but didnât compromise. I think that helps us figure out how we interact with our culture as it becomes harder and harder for us to be outspoken for our faith. We can still cooperate with our government and our workplaces and our employers and so on, but we need to make sure we donât compromise. Exactly where we draw that line will be different in each circumstance. Itâll take a great deal of prayer and wisdom to know where to draw the line. But this is one of the things that stand out. Daniel and his friends draw the line clearly and early. And they donât cross it for anything. Itâs cooperation without compromise.
Daniel 2 also tells us something that all of Godâs people need to hear from time to time. Kingdoms rise and fall. Empires come and go. Human history is littered with tyrannical rulers who rise up, one after the other, but in the end they all amount to precisely nothing. Godâs kingdom is different. It turned up about 2,000 years ago when Jesus conquered Satan, sin, and death. It will outlast every king, ruler, dictator, kingdom, and empire. The Roman empire was knocked over by the Visigoths and Vandals, who were knocked over by the Byzantines, who were knocked over by Muslim expansion, who were knocked over by the Crusaders, who were knocked over by Muslims again. Then the Portuguese were the world superpower, then the Spanish, then the French, the Turks, the British. Hitler had shot at it. So did Stalin. Chairman Mao revolutionized China and right now, weâre all holding our breath waiting to see if militant Islam, China, Russia or a revitalized USA will come out on top. Iâve left a few out but you get the idea.
Daniel would tell us that it doesnât really matter. Kingdoms come and go. They rise and fall. But Godâs kingdom just marches on. What does that mean?
Every day people become Christians. Every day Godâs Kingdom expands and is filling the whole earth. A while ago a few mission agencies got together and crunched the numbers. They wanted to see what was happening across the world and how effective Christian mission work was. In the end they came up with what they said was a fairly conservative figure. Every day roughly 53,000 people are saved. They are transferred from death to life from all sorts of different religions and countries, many of them in places where Christians are horribly persecuted. 53,000 people every day! Most of us are surprised and delighted by that. But Iâm not sure our friend Daniel would be surprised. Daniel didnât know what that rock was that struck the statue and reduced it to dust. He didnât know who it might have been. But Daniel has been in heaven for a fair while now, and heâs known Jesus for at least a couple of thousand years. Heâs seen history play out exactly as God said it would. In that dream, Godâs kingdom grows bigger and bigger. There isnât a country on earth where there are no Christians.
Kingdoms come and go. Some are more powerful than others. Some are more evil than others, but in the end, all of them bend the knee to Jesus.
That brings me to the last thing that Daniel 2 gives us: it gives us an antidote for doubt. Remember what Daniel went through. His home and country were destroyed. Godâs temple had been flattened. His parents and family were almost certainly dead. He was living in exile. How often would doubts over Godâs goodness and power and sovereignty have gone through Danielâs mind? I reckon doubt would have been a constant companion for Daniel. I think thatâs why the message of the whole book of Daniel is that God is resolutely, absolutely, 100% in control of all that happens. Here in Daniel chapter 2, that theme would have been the one thing Daniel needed to hear more than anything else: kingdoms rise and fall, but Godâs kingdom goes on for all eternity.
All of us have moments of doubt. They can be caused by our own sin from time to time. But more often our doubts come when weâre really suffering through something: relationship breakdown, mental illness; emotional, physical, or psychological abuse; separation or divorce; serious illness; the death of someone we love; betrayal by someone we trusted. All of those things and more can cause us to doubt Godâs goodness to us and his sovereignty over everything. Iâm not sure Christians talk about this enough. So letâs go. Doubt is quite a normal thing in the Christian life. And there is an eternity of difference between doubt and disbelief. Disbelief cuts us off from Jesus. Doubt doesnât.
Doubts among Christians are quite normal. Just in case you doubt that, hereâs the end of Matthew 28, and a verse that I think gets almost no attention. Look at this:
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Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. (NIV)
Now, normally when you hear those verses read, whoever is reading them just keeps on going and gets to the bit where Jesus tells his disciples and us that our job is to tell the world about him and baptise the ones who believe! And thatâs great. But what about the bit where some of the disciples are still doubting? Theyâve just hung out with Jesus for the past month and a half after he died and rose again! Heâs got nail marks in his hands and feet and a decent stab wound in his side. He can walk through doors and just randomly appear here or there, and some of the disciples are still doubting! I donât feel so bad about my doubts now!
If those guys had doubts, I should probably expect to have doubts as well. They believed though, didnât they? All the apostles died for their faith. These guys believed in Jesus with all their hearts. So we have to know that thereâs an eternity of difference between doubt and disbelief. I think thatâs another reason why Daniel is here in the OT. Remember verse 45:
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The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy. (NIV)
God wants us to know that he knows what he is doing. He told Daniel this stuff almost 600 years before Jesus turned up and brought Godâs kingdom in. Jesus was always Godâs âPlan Aâ. There was no âPlan Bâ. It might look a mess to us at times. But from Godâs perspective it all fits together exactly the way he designed it to.
Itâs a bit like a tapestry. From the back it just looks messy and chaotic. But from the front itâs beautiful. Our problem is that most of the time, when weâre looking at life, itâs like we are looking at the back of the tapestry, not the front. I think Daniel gives us a glimpse at the front of the tapestry. It reminds us that yes, kingdoms rise and fall, empires come and go, but Godâs kingdom is eternal. And that is the kingdom of which every Christian is a part. We will still doubt from time to time, but as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus and what he has already done for us, those doubts will fade into the background as quickly as they surface.
Letâs pray.