Daniel 2
So our reading tonight will be
the whole chapter of Daniel chapter two. There are 49 verses. And so let’s give our attention
to the reading of God’s word. You’ll notice in chapter two, verse four, it says, then the
Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, and then it goes on
from there. From that point forward, for a little ways, Daniel, it’s
not written in Hebrew, but it’s written in Aramaic, and then
it picks back up with Hebrew at another point. Just a fun
little fact for you to know. So let’s give our attention to
our wonderful English translations and pick up at verse one of chapter
two. It says, in the second year of
the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His
spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded
that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans
be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in,
they stood before the king, and the king said to them, I had
a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans
said to the king in Aramaic, O king, live forever. Tell your
servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation. The
king answered and said to the Chaldeans, the word from me is
firm. If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation,
you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid
in ruins. But if you show the dream and its interpretation,
you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor.
Therefore, show me the dream and its interpretation. They
answered a second time and said, let the king tell his servants
the dream and we will show its interpretation. The king answered
and said, I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time
because you see that the word from me is firm. If you do not
make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you.
You have agreed to speak lying words and corrupt words before
me till the times change. Therefore, tell me the dream
and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation. The
Chaldeans answered the king and said, there is not a man on earth
who can meet the king’s demand. For no great and powerful king
has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks
is difficult. And no one can show it to the
king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. Because of
this, the king was angry and very furious, and he commanded
that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. So the decree went
out, and the wise men were about to be killed, and they sought
Daniel and his companions to kill them. Then Daniel replied
with prudence and discretion to Ariok, the captain of the
king’s guard who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon.
He declared to Ariok, the king’s captain, why is the decree of
the king so urgent? Then Ariok made the matter known
to Daniel. Daniel went in and requested
the king to appoint him a time that he might show the interpretation
to the king. Then Daniel went to his house
and made the matter known to Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah,
his companions. and told them to seek the mercy
from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that Daniel and
his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men
of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision
of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of
heaven. Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever
and ever to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and
seasons. He removes kings and sets up
kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and
knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things.
He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him.
To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for
you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known
to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the
king’s matter.’ Therefore Daniel went in to Ariok, whom the king
had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went
and said thus to him, Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon.
Bring me in before the king, and I will show the king the
interpretation. Then Ariok brought in Daniel
before the king in haste and said thus to him, I have found
among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king
the interpretation. The king said to Daniel, whose
name was Beltshazzar, are you able to make known to me the
dream that I have seen and its interpretation? Daniel answered
the king and said, no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers
can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked. But
there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has
made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days.
Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are
these. To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what
would be after this. And he who reveals mysteries
made known to you what is to be. But as for me, this mystery
has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I
have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation
may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts
of your mind. You saw, O king, and behold a great image. This
image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you,
and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was a
fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs
of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron,
partly of clay. As you looked, a stone that was
cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image of its feet
of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the
clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold altogether were
broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing
floors. And the wind carried them away
so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that
struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole
earth. This was the dream. Now we will
tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings,
to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power
and the might and the glory, and into whose hand he has given,
wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beast of the field,
the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all, you are
the head of gold. Another kingdom inferior to you
shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which
shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom,
strong as iron, Because iron breaks to pieces and shatters
all things. And like iron that crushes, it
shall break and crush all these. And as you saw, the feet and
toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall
be a divided kingdom. But some of the firmness of iron
shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay.
And as the toes of the feet were partly iron, partly clay, so
the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw
the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another
in marriage, but they will not hold together just as iron does
not mix with clay. And in the days of those kings,
the God of heavens will set up a kingdom that shall never be
destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It
shall break in pieces all the kingdoms and bring them to an
end, and it shall stand forever. Just as you saw that a stone
was cut from the mountain by no human hand and that it broke
in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the
gold, a great God has made known to the king what shall be after
this. The dream is certain and its interpretation sure. Then
King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, paid homage to Daniel
and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to
him. The king answered and said to Daniel, truly, your God is
God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries for
you have been able to reveal this mystery. Then the king gave
Daniel high honors and many great gifts and made him ruler over
the whole province of Babylon and made him chief prefect over
all the wise men of Babylon. Daniel made a request of the
king and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the
affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king’s
court. Amen. This is God’s word. Back
in 1979, a tyrant, rose to power, and he rose to
power and would have a 24-year reign of terror. He lived in
many lavish palaces. In fact, you’ve probably seen
pictures of his palaces. They were lined with gold, gold
in the bathrooms, gold everywhere, marble floors, vast wealth. But his people, the subjects
under his rule, lived in abject poverty. He came to power by
patience. uh, got into, uh, parliament
as it were. He stayed in and began to grasp
the whole of the nation’s power structure. And at one particular
cabinet meeting when the leader of that country revealed that
he was ill, he sent men out one by one calling their name. They
met their executioner and the loyalist remained and they became
the power structure of Saddam Hussein in the country of Iraq. And you could say, like father,
like sons. Maybe you remember Uday and Qusay. They had charge over, at least
one of them did, over the athletes of the nation. And so football,
as they call it, soccer, was their big sport. And if they
did not play well, perform well, and win on the national stage,
these ruthless sons of Saddam Hussein were awful tormentors
to those who played for their country. They not only terrorized
nationals, but they terrorized the international world. I can
remember in middle school the invasion of Kuwait. We don’t
have to think too far back in history when we invaded their
country in 2003 and Saddam Hussein went on the run. We entered their
country in March and he disappeared and was found about Oh, seven
months later, eight months later, and where was he found? He was
in a hole. He was disheveled. He was no
longer the great and ruthless leader. He no longer lived in
a palace, but he lived in a hole with spiders. He was tried and
he was hanged within three years. How the mighty fall. And isn’t
it ironic that on the same piece of land, in the same geographical
country, 2500 years before that, we have our story of a tyrant,
a maniac, Nebuchadnezzar. And we come to the problem in
our passage, or maybe we should say problems, And if you’re following
along, maybe taking a note or two, we got all Ps tonight. So
you got problems, not just a problem, but you have many problems. Nebuchadnezzar
has had a rough night of sleep, to say the least. He’s had a
rough night of sleep. He’s in the third year of his
reign. Now, I’ve got to stop here a minute and explain things.
In Babylon, they had their first year, their year of ascension.
And then their first year would be year two. Their second year
would be year three. So you can imagine Nebuchadnezzar
barely getting started. He hasn’t even hit midterm elections
yet, right? If they were to have those, tyrants
don’t go through elections generally. They just take power. But he’s
barely been the ruler over the vast empire which he has risen
to power. And it’s a rough night for Nebuchadnezzar
in the third year of his reign. And he says, I had a dream and
my spirit is troubled to know it. And you can imagine all those
in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, a big gulp, a big, uh-oh, this
man is a tyrant. This man is a maniac. Whatever
he demands, he will make good on it. And if he says, if we
don’t, interpret the dream. He will rip us limb for limb.
He will trash our houses, destroy our homes. He means it. And so there are many problems. There’s the dream. There’s the
demand on his court enchanters. There is the greater problem.
The dream will come true. God makes good on his threats,
just as Nebuchadnezzar does. There are significant political
realities in this set of problems. For Nebuchadnezzar, he won’t
be king much longer. And you can imagine his plans
for a 30-year reign, a 50-year reign, for his dynasty, one of
his children to be on the throne, for the borders to be extended,
for the beautiful 15-square-mile city of Babylon to be extended
and to be made more and more beautiful. This was the prettiest
place in the world if they had Channel 4, if they had Rick Steves,
You would have Rick Steve’s Babylon, prettier than Europe. But there’s
a great problem. This dream and Nebuchadnezzar
is scared. He won’t be sleeping much. Humpty
Dumpty is about to have a great fall and all the king’s horses,
all the king’s men won’t be able to put Nebuchadnezzar back together
again. And so there are many problems
in the land. of Babylon and Ariok, who is
his chief executioner, is given the decree, go through the palace,
go through the kingdom and destroy every one of the sorcerers, the
enchanters, the magicians. They cannot tell me the dream
or its meaning. So there’s Ariok on his way to
execute, to put to death the soldiers. Now it’s interesting,
isn’t it? Daniel and his companions probably were not called in.
It just seems they’re pro-Chaldean here, right? The exiles, though
they were 10 times smarter, 10 times better, we saw last week
in our study of chapter one, they were not called in. They
were not sought. Their wisdom advice or their
ability to interpret was not sought, but they were under the
death threat as well. Well, so you got problems, many
problems, and that leads us to prayer and praise. We’ll combine
these two in verses 17 through 19. You can imagine how unglued
the court servants of Nebuchadnezzar were. His threats were real. And you can imagine, they had
seen him make good. If he said, your neck is on the
line, they had seen him off with the head. If he says, I’ll tear
you limb from limb and destroy your house, they had probably
seen it done before. That’s how maniacs, tyrants,
despots, that’s how they rule. And so this is a time for confidence. And Daniel shows us his confidence,
not his confidence in Nebuchadnezzar’s ability to carry out his threats.
He probably is sure that will take place. In fact, that’s why
he goes to Ariok and says, Hey, hold up a minute. I think I can
save everyone. I can fix this great problem. He knows the God of gods. He’s
a man of faith, a man of action, but most importantly, he is a
man of prayer. And he says to his companions,
let us seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery. And so maybe like your television
shows that continued from one week to the next, what will happen
to our heroes? Will their necks be saved? or
will God rescue what will take place? Well, God is the revealer
of mysteries and he will make this dream known to Daniel. He will make it known and he
will interpret it. Can you imagine the night in
his room as the dream was revealed? It said it came to him in a vision
of night. He jumped up and down. He woke up his companions. They
were hooping and hollering and they break in to praise. Notice,
In verse 20, Daniels prays, blessed be the name of God forever and
ever. To whom belong wisdom and might,
he changes times and seasons. And then he begins to interpret
the dream, doesn’t he, here? He removes kings. He sets up
kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and
knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things.
He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him.
To you, O God of my fathers, I will give thanks and praise
for you have given me wisdom. You have given me might and now
you have made known to me. what we asked of you, for you
have made known to us the king’s matter. Now I’m pretty sure most
of us will never be in the president’s cabinet. We’ll never be sitting
in the capital city of a large nation as powerful as ours or
as Babylon. But nevertheless, you won’t be
interpreting dreams, most likely. If you are, good for you. Don’t
forget us in your fame. But the Bible does say if we
lack wisdom, We can ask for it. And so we pray for it. And here’s
a wonderful example of the humility of Daniel. God had blessed him.
He’s 10 times better, 10 times smarter, 10 times faster, 10
times everything superlative to the Chaldeans. And don’t you
think that could have gone to his head? But he says, it’s not
in my wisdom. It’s a God. There’s a God in
heaven and he reveals these mysteries. So there’s prayer. and there’s
praise. Well, there’s also provision.
That’s the third P we want to look at. You find it in verses
19 and then 24 to 30. Verse 19, you don’t wanna miss
that little verse there. It says, the mystery was revealed
to Daniel in a vision of the night. And Daniel’s response,
he blessed the God of heaven. And then if you skip down to
verse 24, it tells us that Daniel went to Ariok, the executioner.
You can imagine Ariok, he’s… This is kind of medieval, right?
He’s in there in his chief executioner’s office and he’s pumping the stone
and he’s sharpening the ax or the knife. He’s going at it. He’s gotta kill a hundred or
two of these wise enchanters. And so he’s pumping away, his
legs worn out, he’s got his knee brace on. And Daniel says, hey,
I got this all figured out. I’m gonna save you a lot of work.
You’re not gonna have to chop off anybody’s heads or cut off
anybody’s limbs. You’re not gonna have to bulldoze
anybody’s houses. We got this all taken care of
because God has provided. Now, some of you are, you’re
smart, aren’t you? You’ve already looked back at
chapter one, verse 21. And not only because you’ve read
your Bibles before, but you were here last week, you saw verse
21, Daniel was there, meaning in Babylon until the first year
of the reign of King Cyrus. So we already know Daniel is
going to be alive. He’s going to live about another 70 years.
We already know how this works out. Ariok is not going to chop
off the head of Daniel and so we get a hint that he will not
be destroyed. We get a powerful reminder God
is in Babylon with the remnant of the tribe of Judah and he
will save them and he will return them to the promised land and
from them will come Messiah and he will save his people from
their sins and gather them into his heavenly presence someday. Well the provision that God gives
to Daniel is not only the dream, but its interpretation. Y’all
did catch that, right? The problem is the king wants
to know what is my dream and its interpretation. Usually he’d
say, I had this dream. It was X, Y, Z. Now tell me what
it means. He says, no, tell me both the dream and its interpretation. The king says to Daniel, are
you able? No, it’s by the God of heaven and it’s not by human
wisdom. and he is going to reveal to
you through my interpretation of your dream what will be after
this. Now there’s a little geeky bit
of language in chapter two of Daniel. If you were to study
how many times the word revealed is there, how many times the
word like tell the dream, interpret the dream, make it known, it
appears in this chapter about 30 times. And so what can you
guess is the central theme of chapter two of Daniel? There
are dreams, they need to be revealed, and only God can make them known.
And he does it through his servant, Daniel. And so the provision
here is God, through his servant, Daniel, he makes the dream and
its interpretation known, and he makes provision for the continued
life of these four Hebrew exiles, plus the Babylonian court. The
stay of execution has come. The governor has called the execution
house and the necks of all the enchanters of Babylon are saved. Well, there’s a fourth P, and
that’s prophecy. What is the dream? What is Daniel
told? What is the prophecy? I’m gonna
make this as simple as I can. Some of you remember talking
about Saddam Hussein just a little bit ago. You remember that after
the invasion of Iraq, there was a tank. And on the front end
of that tank, there was a rope and a chain, and they attached
it to one of the statues, you know, Saddam Hussein standing
there, hailing himself, and they yanked it over. And you remember
all the Iraqis jumping up and down and kicking it and, you
know, spitting on it and cursing at it and all the rest. It was
quite a symbolic thing to see a tyrant like him fall. Well,
same land, Babylon, same image, a statue. What is the dream? What is the prophecy? Well, the
prophecy is basically this. In his dream, he sees a statue.
It has a head of gold. It has silver next, bronze next,
and then it has iron, and then it has clay, and then the feet
are partially iron, partially clay. So Nebuchadnezzar is the
kingdom of gold. The second kingdom is the kingdom
of silver. The third kingdom is the kingdom of bronze. The
final kingdom is a kingdom of iron. but also of clay. And so much is made of Nebuchadnezzar’s
kingdom, it’s about to be over with, and then much is made of
the final kingdom, it’s one of iron and clay, it is weak and
strong at the same time. And not to overthink this, the
key to unlocking this is verse 44 of chapter 12. Two, in those days of those kings,
the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be
destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It
shall break into pieces all these kingdoms, and it shall bring
them to an end, and it shall stand forever. So you want the
Cliff’s Note version of the dream. The dream is of the statue. It’s
gold, it’s silver, it’s bronze, it’s iron, and it’s clay. But
out of a mountain, out of a great mountain, out of a stone comes
another kingdom. And it’s a kingdom that will
never end. It’s a kingdom that cannot fail. And that great stone
will do two things. It will bust up the other kingdoms
and they’ll be like chaff and the wind will carry them away.
And did you notice it says there will be no trace of them. But
this kingdom coming out of the great stone will be a great kingdom
and it will last forever. And so you begin to understand
really quickly, oh, I know my history. I know that after Nebuchadnezzar
and the fall of Babylon comes the rise of Persia. Then comes
the rise of other nations. Eventually it’s the Romans or
the Greeks. And then the birth of Messiah comes. And so we see
very quickly this simple prophecy. Kingdoms will fall, kingdoms
will rise, but there will be an eternal kingdom and it will
rise and it will never fall. That’s it. That’s the mystery.
Daniel’s caused so much trouble to so many people over the years.
This is Daniel Made Easy. You’re welcome. Can you imagine, can you imagine
Daniel having to say, hey Nebuchadnezzar, I know you’re barely into your
third year. I know you’ve been thinking about
extending your borders here and building this wall there and
your hanging garden is going to be magnificent when it finally
gets built and all the gold and silver and domes and all the
amazing things you have plans for. Well, don’t get too comfortable. God is going to take away your
kingdom. Can you imagine Daniel having to say that to him? Because
you can imagine a maniac king. What if he doesn’t like the dream?
What if he doesn’t like its interpretation? It’s already bothered him for
days and nights, and now it is revealed to him. His court jesters,
you might call them, in the beginning said, Oh King, live forever.
And he said, you’re buying time. You’re just buttering me up.
But what does Daniel say? Oh King, you will not live forever. For after your kingdom falls,
there will be other kingdoms. And so as we look through human
history, as we look through the history of the world, we see
that kingdoms don’t last very long. They get greedy, they get
drunk, they get overly sexualized, they get into this, that, and
the other, and kingdoms don’t last. We are probably living
in a kingdom that won’t last too many more years, too many
more decades. Life as we know it in our own
nation will probably go the way of Rome, the way of Persia, the
way of some of these other great dynasties over the years. but
Jesus’ day for them, for these exiles, was coming. There were
400 years of silence. It was quiet, and then Messiah
was born, and the kingdom of heaven was at hand. It’s a good
reminder to us, isn’t it? History rolls. It comes in cycles. There have been tyrants. There
have been leaders. There have been big kingdoms,
small kingdoms, majestic kingdoms, little kingdoms. They all come
and they all go, but Christ and his kingdom remain true. Well, let’s think about two more
Ps very quickly. The fifth one here is promotion.
You see in verses 46 through 49, Daniel and his companions
are promoted. Success. Problem solved. The necks and the houses and
the life and the limbs of the enchanters of Babylon, including
Daniel and his companions, have been saved. There’s cheering,
there’s relief. They probably have a ticker tape prayed for
Daniel. He saved us. He’s our hero, hip,
hip, hooray. His picture will be on a coin
or something. They’ve all torn up their last
wills and testaments. They’re gonna make it a little
longer. They didn’t have to give away their favorite things to
their children or cousins or whoever else. But notice Nebuchadnezzar,
he pays homage to Daniel. You think Daniel wants to be
worshiped? No way. And do you think Daniel wants
to worship another man, beast or statue? Well, we know that’s
coming and he won’t do it. But Nebuchadnezzar pays homage
to Daniel and then he pays homage to God. He speaks, truly your
God, Verse 47, is a God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer
of mysteries. For you have been able to reveal
this mystery. This is a challenge for us. Again,
we’re not gonna be the prime minister of Babylon. We’re not
gonna be the chief of the court enchanters in a nation. Probably
not gonna happen for any of us. But remember the words of Jeremiah
to the exiles. Hey, you’re gonna be living in
a foreign land. put your roots down, get married,
have children, raise families, seek the welfare of the city. And that’s exactly what Daniel
is doing. He’s seeking the welfare of Babylon. Yes, it’s a pagan
city. Yes, of course, we understand
from the book of Revelation, it’s Babylon versus Jerusalem.
Babylon will be destroyed. Jerusalem, especially the one
from above, will last forever. But while we’re exiles, we should
seek the welfare of the city in which we live. And so we see
God and Daniel serving these ultimate purposes for this kingdom
that will last forever through his service to Babylon. Okay,
the last P, this is an easy one, the point. What’s the point of
all this? Read your history of the past. Watch the news, look
at the present, and wonder about the future. Want to know the
future? Well, God has just told us what
it is. Kingdoms of earth rise and fall. Big news, right? But there’s an everlasting kingdom.
It’s the kingdom of our Lord Jesus. And it has been inaugurated
through the person and work of Christ our Messiah. And it will
be fully realized someday. And nothing can stop or stay
God’s hand. And so have peace and confidence.
That’s what Daniel’s message to the exiles was. And that’s
our message to us as exiles today. Let’s pray together. Lord, bless
us with confidence because of these words. May the truth sink
deeply into our minds, our hearts, and our lives so that we can
live confidently in this upside down world that hates you and
your people. And so we pray for that in the
name of Christ. Amen.