Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Daniel Chapter 2

Chapter 2. There are handouts available, of course, and maybe this would be a good time just before we read the sermon text for you to open the binders you may or may not be using and insert this week’s handouts in the binder. So, if you’re keeping these in a binder that have been provided, please go ahead and insert today’s handouts there. Apologies for last week not having enough for everybody. We have more in the literature rack from last week.

Also, the children will recognize that on today’s handouts, I inadvertently say that these are the questions for children from Daniel 2 when in actuality it’s Daniel 1 when in actuality it’s Daniel 2. By the way, children, I know I’m making it a little tougher for you. Last week I didn’t explicitly go over the questions, but if you listened carefully last week, you would have been able to answer all the questions in the questions for Daniel 1 for young hearers.

And I’ll try today to make sure that’s the case as well. You can follow along with the reading from the handout today. I provided it for you in a format that helps us to see how the structure of the text focuses us on the middle. It’s something that is very important for us to see the centrality of prayer and praise in the life of the Christian. So please stand and we’ll read all of Daniel chapter 2. As we read it, you may remember once more that she said last week, these chapters were probably sent back chapter by chapter to Jerusalem by Daniel from his place in captivity and then read by the faithful terms of what was happening with the captives that had first been taken to Babylon.

They all didn’t go at once. Daniel was among the first group. And so, one way we can think about this text as we read it and hear it is to think about how we would have heard it if we were sitting in Jerusalem and part of some group of captives have been taken to Babylon and we were being threatened with all of us being taken there. Additionally, while it doesn’t indicate it in our text, in verse 4, after the Chaldeans speak to the king, the text says the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic. The Hebrew text there changes in verse 4 and it begins to then be recorded in Aramaic.

So most of the Old Testament of course is written in Hebrew. Most of the rest of the book of Daniel through the next six chapters—that is, chapters 2-7—are written in Aramaic. And that begins right in verse 4. So as we hit that note of Aramaic there, from then on, if you were in Jerusalem you would have heard this text not in Hebrew. You would have heard it in the language of the Babylonians, Aramaic. Okay, let’s attend to the reading of God’s word in Daniel chapter 2.

Now in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him. Then the king gave the command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. And the king said to them, “I have had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream.”

Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, “Oh king, live forever. Tell your servants the dreams, and we will give the interpretation.” The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “My decision is firm. If you do not make known the dream to me and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a ash heap. However, if you tell the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts, rewards, and great honor. Therefore, tell me the dream and its interpretation.”

They answered again and said, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will give its interpretation.” The king answered and said, “I know for certain that you are trying to gain time because you see that my decision is firm. If you do not make known the dream to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the time has changed. Therefore, tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can give me the interpretation.”

The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can tell the king’s matter. Therefore, no king, lord, or ruler has ever asked such things of any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean. It is a difficult thing that the king requests, and there is no other who can tell it to the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh. For this reason, the king was angry and very furious and gave the command to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

So the decree went out and they began killing the wise men, and they sought Daniel and his companions to kill them. Then with counsel and wisdom, Daniel answered Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. He answered and said to Arioch, the king’s captain, “Why is the decree from the king so urgent?” And then Arioch made the decision known to Daniel. So Daniel went in and asked the king to give him time that he might tell the king the interpretation.

Then Daniel went to his house, made the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, that they might seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning the secret, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. So Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his, and he changes the times and the seasons.

He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness and light dwells with him. I thank you and praise you, oh God of my fathers, 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 demand.”

Therefore, Daniel went to Arioch, which 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. Take me before the king, and I will tell the king the interpretation.” And then Arioch quickly brought Daniel before the king and said thus to him, “I have found a man out of the captives of Judah who will make known to the king the interpretation.”

The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation?” Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, “The secret which the king has demanded the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king. But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets. And he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head upon your bed were these.

As for you, oh king, thoughts came to your mind while on your bed about what would come to pass after this. And he who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be. But as for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but for our sakes, who make known the interpretation to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart.

You, oh king, were watching, and behold, a great image. This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you, and its form was awesome. This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. And then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found, and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

This is the dream. Now we will tell you the interpretation of it before the king. You, oh king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. And wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heaven, he has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold.

But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, and then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, in as much as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything. And like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.

Whereas you saw the feet and toes partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided. Yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, partly fragile. And as you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. In as much as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain and its interpretation is sure.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face prostrate before Daniel and commanded that they should present an offering and incense to him. The king answered Daniel and said, “Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets since you could reveal this secret.” Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief administrator over all the wise men of Babylon.

Also Daniel petitioned the king and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel sat in the gate of the king.

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Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your wondrous word. We pray that your word would transform us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray, Lord God, that you would use this word to sound forth the good news of the kingdom of our savior filling the earth in this congregation, that we may take this good news into all the world. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Please be seated.

Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, a most troubling dream. The text tells us that he was thinking about the future as he drifted off to sleep. What would happen in history, in the history that he was part of, that he was a very important factor in, what the future would hold. God sent Nebuchadnezzar a dream—a dream that troubled him greatly, that unsettled him so much he could not sleep. And in the middle of the night, he has to call forth men to tell him what this dream was all about.

You know, often today we speak of dreams as great visions of the future. And sometimes the scriptures use the term that way, but dreams are, or can be, and frequently are terrifying things to men. Dreams are a picture of our impotence, our inability to control our affairs. Every night, the Lord God lays us down in a helpless state. And we have these dreams, some remembered, some not. These dreams are frequently terrifying, scary to us, troubling to us.

They’re a picture of our inability to control our events, or even at times to know if we’re dreaming or not. In the midst of these dreams, dreams are frequently a reminder of our guilt of things we’ve done in the past. They’re certainly a reminder of our inability to control our present. And frequently, as they were with Daniel, they’re a picture of frightening revelation of what might happen in the future.

Our fear of the future, our impotence in the present, and our guilt over the past frequently is rolled up in our dreams, and our sleep becomes troubled. Nebuchadnezzar awakes out of this dream and is so troubled that he demands that his wise men tell him what the dream was and what it does. After that encounter, he sends out the decree to kill all of those wise men who are advising him. Every one of them, including Daniel and his friends, who by this time are now done with their three years of schooling and are now serving the king in the group of wise men that he has.

Even though it’s the second year of Nebuchadnezzar, the schooling began at the end of his first year and the beginning of his second year of reign and comprised his first year. So it all works out if you think of it that way—that he’s worked three full years. But in any event, Nebuchadnezzar is so troubled over what this dream has done to him that he ends up having this decree of killing off all those who would advise him.

He’s a young king, you know. He’s probably twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two years old by this time. And like us, he’s troubled by his dream. Like us, he is frightened over his loss of control. What is the meaning of history? I don’t know for sure, but Daniel certainly makes it clear that the head of gold is a picture of Nebuchadnezzar himself. And one would think that probably Nebuchadnezzar, at least unconsciously, recognized this in his dream—that somehow this was him and his future was not just going to be a diminishment.

What he would build would be crushed to pieces and become like chaff before the wind. A very troubling thing to a man who was ruler over all the world. His empire would be destroyed. History had no meaning for Nebuchadnezzar in the context of this dream. Without its interpretation being told apart from God, all Nebuchadnezzar was thinking of was a progression of political events and political powers, and he knew that his political power was going to be destroyed.

Nebuchadnezzar was not seeing things from the perspective of the God of heaven. And whenever we do that—whenever we see things through the eyes of sight as opposed to the eyes of faith—fear is really the unconscious result of that, and this fear can well come up in our dreams. We try to suppress those dreams because we don’t want to be reminded of who it is we are. We want to think that we’re the masters of our ship, so to speak, that we’re the commanders of our own lives.

And the dreams every night, the Lord God tells us, “No, I’m in control.” Now, when Nebuchadnezzar hears the great story that it is God who is determining the events of history—this is in the words of R.G. Rushdoony—the rescue of history. This interpretation by Daniel shows that history has no meaning from Nebuchadnezzar’s original perspective. And in the meaninglessness of it all, he strikes out and begins to kill and destroy.

If he tastes of death in his dream, he will cause death to come to those around him. If meaning has been taken away through an understanding of the destruction of what he will build as a great empire and is in the process of obtaining already, then he will strike out at any meaning in the context of the world mediated through wise men. That’s the way men are. We don’t want to come to epistemological self-consciousness.

We don’t want to recognize the creaturehood of who we are. And our dreams then are suppressed. And when they do come to the fore, we try to turn about and change them or give some other interpretation. But Daniel brings the true interpretation that saves Nebuchadnezzar from death and from a loss of meaning. He gives back to Nebuchadnezzar meaning to history by telling him that the history of the next five hundred years is history that is sovereignly overseen by the God of heaven to his particular purposes. It all has meaning and purpose.

Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, and we need to hear the message of this text. We need to know that our lives have meaning and purpose. We need to know that our dreams are part of the mechanism whereby the Lord God reminds us of our impotence, but also his great strength and power, his sovereignty in history, reminding us that our sins are forgiven. Yes, we remember them to the end that we might appropriate the grace of God.

Daniel doesn’t receive the meaning of the dream and the dream itself because he’s wise. It’s the grace of God that has first revealed the future to Nebuchadnezzar, secondly reveals it to Daniel, and third graciously reveals the meaning of it to Nebuchadnezzar. God is gracious and God is in control of the future. And our dreams are a reminder that while we cannot control the present, and apart from that we may fear the future, yet the Lord God is in control of all things and he is determining whatsoever comes to pass for the purposes of his kingdom.

This is a text of tremendous comfort to us as we struggle with dreams, sleeplessness, anxiety over our past, our present, and our future. More than that, it’s a text that again brings to mind many great truths. It’s interesting that this text is so often used to talk about the political progression of empires. And yet, as we’ll see with careful looking at it, it is so important to recognize the religious perspective on history.

Without a religious perspective, without seeing history through the sovereign lens of a God who determines whatsoever comes to pass for his purposes in the earth, history loses its meaning. The providence of God is our core. Kings Academy classes start this Wednesday. Elder John S. will be showing that apart from Christ, meaning and purpose, science loses meaning and purpose to us. And I’ll be showing you in my history class.

It’s a wonderful introduction for talking about history because this dream, interpreted, means that God is the sovereign determiner of history. And to study history from the past as a series of political or humanistic events is to totally misread history. And what I’ll be trying to do is show the progression of history from a perspective of God’s work in men’s lives and whether they’re obeying or not obeying, and what he’s doing to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus Christ.

Just as this image moves down to the ground, the big picture of this story is that God is in the process of preparing the world for the next five hundred years over this series of four empires for the advent, the coming down of the Lord Jesus Christ, the stone whose empire now will grow to fill all the world. That’s what history is. The story of the preparation and movement of history toward the coming of Christ and then the establishment of his kingdom for his purposes—it’s a wonderful story.

So this text will help us to understand these things, to interpret history right from a religious perspective, not simply from a political perspective, although of course it has tremendous implications for that as well.

Now, if you’re hearing this text, you’re back in the times of Daniel. A few people have been taken off to Babylon. Daniel is sending back these prophecies that God has written through him, these accounts of what’s going on. As you begin to read this text, you’ll think of particular things.

Now, one of the big structuring devices we’ve talked about is that in a very real sense, what we read in Deuteronomy—that God is, “I am the Lord your God who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Daniel, representative of God’s people, had been brought out of the land of Egypt once more, out of the house of bondage. Jeremiah tells us that what’s going on in Jerusalem is suffering the judgment of God and his punishments of the Babylonians, that they’re enslaving one another and the house of bondage is now in the promised land and it’s become Egypt. And so Daniel and the church of God come out of that, being delivered out of the house of bondage. They go into this wilderness to go back into the promised land ultimately in seventy years and then ultimately with the coming of Christ.

And just as Moses led the people out and then they were given the Ten Commandments, it seems like Daniel is deliberately structuring these ten sets of writings going back to Jerusalem to comport with the Ten Commandments. We saw in the first chapter, we’re to have no other gods. God is stressed over and over again as opposed to the gods of Nebuchadnezzar. While we’re in this wilderness period, God says, “Serve in the context of what I’m doing, but do so ultimately showing your submission to me.”

In the second chapter, we have this great image of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the stone that fills all the world. Jesus is the only mediator between God and man. And the second commandment tells us not to worship through any other mediation of things that we’ve created. And so the true mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, is shown here in this second chapter.

Another thing we’ve talked about with the progression of these chapters is they also seem to track the seven days of creation. In the second day of creation, God establishes the firmament as the mediation between heaven and earth. And again here, Jesus Christ, the ultimate culmination of these kingdoms, the coming of the great kingdom that will fill all the world, the advent, the descent of Jesus Christ and his incarnation. This is again the true mediator, the firmament, heaven and earth being brought together in the context of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is both Son of God and Son of Man. He is faithful to Yahweh and he is compassionate to mankind.

And so these great truths are pictured here. Again, there’s a new creation going on in the book of Daniel. This is a picture of the new creation to come when Jesus arrives, but it’s being given to us in summary form as we go through the book of Daniel as well.

Let’s go over this particular story now in a little more detail. I’ve given you the text with particular highlights that I want to address or speak to as we go through it. So let’s just look now at the text itself and understand we’ve been given the general idea here. This dream came, its answer and meaning, and history—from a sovereign perspective.

But recognize a couple of things here. In the first section, of course, Daniel—or rather, Nebuchadnezzar—has this dream. His spirit is so troubled that sleep leaves him. So we’ve got a troubled king at the beginning, and by the end of the text we have a king who has been brought to praise God, who has been brought to rest and thanksgiving for what has been given to him.

And then, as a result of this dream, the king then gives the command and he calls four groups of people. It’s important to notice this. I think he calls the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans. And what we see then is it’s the Chaldeans who actually speak and represent the other three groups. So there are four groups of wise men that are instructing Nebuchadnezzar that he brings in.

These four men are powerless to interpret the dream. Their head group, represented by the Chaldean or the subordinate groups. And in contrast to this, we know that Daniel will interpret the dream, but Daniel’s interpretation is set in the context of him gathering together his three mighty men, so to speak. And so we have Daniel and his three men as opposed to the Chaldeans and their three groups. We have the old order, the old creation that is impotent to help the king and to truly advise him and to understand the meaning of history.

And we have Daniel and his mighty men. We have the new order established through the four-fold foundation of Daniel and his friends. And as I said, in verse 4, this is the beginning of the Aramaic section of this particular book of the Bible which runs through the end of chapter 7, and then there’s a return to Hebrew. And so things change and we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But consider this.

You’re in Jerusalem. You get this first chapter from Daniel in chapter 1, all in Hebrew. Now you get the second chapter and it switches to Aramaic, the language of the Babylonians. Remember that as we continue to think about what this text is telling us.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar insists that his wise men don’t just give the interpretation. Anybody can make up an interpretation if he gives them the dream. By the way, as you’re hearing this text read to you, that you’ve got a ruler who is troubled by a dream and he’s trying to find out what the meaning of the dream is, and you’ve been raised in those great schools teaching you the Old Testament, the book of Genesis, the Torah, and all these other books that have been written to date—what story would you remember?

Remember, we said that last week: when you hear about the instruments of God’s temple being taken into the house of Nebuchadnezzar’s gods, you’re ready for a victory tale because you knew that when God’s ark goes to the house of the Philistine gods, he won. And when you hear the reference to Shinar and Babylonia, you’re reminded of Babel, and you know that there may be a confusion of tongues coming as happens in chapter 2, and you know that God’s going to destroy the effects of men. So you’re ready for a victory story.

What story do you get ready for here? What tale from the Old Testament do you remember? Well, I think it would clearly be the story of Joseph and Pharaoh. Another ruler, another place where God’s people are housed for a season in the providence of God for their well-being. Egypt. Another ruler who has a dream. A man of God, another type of the Lord Jesus Christ, who interprets that dream and is exalted to rule in the context of the kingdom.

So that’s what’s going to happen here. So he says, “You have to make known to me the dream as well as what the dream means, or if you do this, good things will happen to you. But if you don’t, I’m going to kill you all because there really is no knowledge in you.”

Now death is an important part of this text. Death begins to happen. He sends his lion, Arioch—whose name means lion—out to destroy and kill all of his wise men. And the killing begins. It’s the middle of the night. The right-hand man of the ruler is going out and beginning the killing as he goes through the land. And death is something that’s going to come to Daniel and his friends as well, unless they’re rescued. And Daniel, in a night vision—the same thing, nighttime picture—is given the interpretation that will save him and actually extend salvation to those of the rest of those people that were advising the king as well.

And if you’re again a young lad or woman knowing the scriptures so far as they’ve been given to you in Jerusalem by this time that Daniel writes these things, and you’re hearing tale of a midnight massacre and then a rescuing from that death. Another probable link you’re going to make in your mind is Passover. When the angel of God goes out and starts killing off all the children of the Egyptians and anyone that didn’t have the mark of Jesus Christ or Yahweh, the blood of Christ applied to their doorstep.

But this is a text that brings ultimate consequences to bear—death. And there has to be a recovery from death granted through the sovereign God.

Now, I also highlighted in verse 8 that he tells them that you’re going to try to gain time. They want to stall. They want to gain time. And then he says, “You want to gain time till the time has changed, till I change my mind.” The changing of times is stressed over and over again in this text.

Because what’s happened here is a pivotal event in history. God now is establishing an empire that will house his people. The times are changed and they’re being pictured as being changed in this dream. And ultimately, the times will change definitively. The new creation will come to pass. The times will change definitively when the rock cut without hands, the Lord Jesus Christ, establishes his kingdom with his advent at the end of this period of time.

Well, the Chaldeans answer the king correctly. “There’s not a man on earth who can tell the king’s matter. It’s only the gods who can tell you what you actually dreamed, king.” And that’s correct from one perspective, right? Nobody can know what somebody else’s dream is, but God knows it. The transcendent God. And notice here, “There’s not a man on earth.” And then they speak that “the God whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

This is where the dream has to come from. And ultimately, that’s where the dream and its interpretation come from to Daniel—the God who is in heaven, transcendent. And yet, the dream is a picture, as we’ll see, of the advent of Jesus Christ. God’s revelation of truth is given to Daniel, a man on the earth. And what’s going to happen is at the end of the dream, we see that Jesus Christ is descending from heaven and he becomes the man on the earth to reveal the knowledge of God through the gospel and to his people.

And all of this is pictured and set up for us in these opening sections of the text. From the mouths of unbelievers, God speaks forth truth.

Well, then Nebuchadnezzar gives the order to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. And so we have this picture of the destruction of the old order, the destruction of those who had knowledge not based upon revelation from Yahweh. They’re going to be destroyed.

The next section then involves Daniel. So the king has a dream and he’s troubled. And then he calls the wise men. They can’t do it. He starts the killing order. And then Arioch, the lion man, goes out to talk to Daniel and to kill off all the wise men. Arioch means lion. And Arioch goes and he’s going to kill the wise men, and Daniel then wants to know what’s going on. They’re going to kill him, too. He’s part of the wise men by this time. He’s graduated from college. The king has placed them in the context of the wise rulers, his advisers that is.

And so Daniel says, “What’s going on?” And Arioch tells him what happened. And then Daniel immediately goes in and asks the king to give him time.

Now notice the connection here again. Time. By the way, as soon as you’re hearing this and you’re that kid again in Jerusalem and you hear the reading of this text and you hear that what’s going to happen is a lion is going to come to kill Daniel—Arioch—and God rescues Daniel, as you read on in this text. The lion won’t kill Daniel. You’re set up for the later chapter of the book, right? When it gets around to Daniel chapter 6 and Daniel’s thrown in a lion’s den, well, you know right away you’re not going to get too worried because you’re going to be delivered just like he was from this lion.

You see, and it’s interesting because chapter 1 is about Daniel’s training. Chapter 2 is about Daniel’s beginning service to the king. Now he actually begins his service to Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter 6 is in the context of Daniel serving the next emperor of the next empire, Persia. And in the context of that, we’ve got another threat to his life from another lion. And he’s delivered once more. So it sets up the service of Daniel to both the Babylonian Empire as well as to the Persian Empire that will follow him.

So Daniel entreats the king to give him time. See, now he is using wise words to the king. He goes in first. “Please give me time.” Now remember, the king knows who Daniel is. He knows that he was ten times brighter than these other guys that can’t interpret the dream. He knew that at the end of his training. And so the king is exposed to give Daniel time. But Daniel petitions the king. He doesn’t come in with an attitude. Again, he petitions the king to give him time.

And again, time is placed before us here as an important factor of what’s going on here. Daniel uses this time in the way that we all should use our time. What does Daniel do? Verse 17. He goes into his house and he makes the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, right? Who we’ve already been introduced to in chapter 1. He holds a prayer meeting is what he does. He says, “Here’s what’s going on. We need to figure out what the king dreamt and what the interpretation is. Let’s pray. Let’s get to our work of petitioning the God on high to be merciful toward us.”

Now, notice that Daniel goes to his house. And we’ve said before that one of the great pictures that’s set up in chapter 1 is the house of Nebuchadnezzar, his gods and the house of God itself. He takes articles from the house of God into the house of his gods. And we know the house of God is going to conquer the house of the false gods. We know that a new house is being established and all that’s brought back to us here because Daniel goes to his house. And what’s going to happen is Daniel’s house is going to become—or he’s going to be used to show Nebuchadnezzar that his house is actually Yahweh’s house, as we’ll see as we go on in this.

But notice that Daniel goes to his house and then he calls on his three friends and they petition—verse 18—that they might seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning the secret, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

So they’re going to seek mercies. They’re going to seek an answer from the God who is in heaven, who alone knows what the dreams of men are.

Verse 19: God answers this prayer. “Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision and Daniel blesses the God of heaven.”

So at the very center of this text—the way I’ve shown it for you in your outlines, in the way the text actually is written—is this: petition the answer to the petition, God revealing his secrets, and then Daniel and his friends praising God. That’s at the very center of this narrative. At the center of an understanding of history, a determination of knowing what is going to come to pass, at the center of the calming effect on men’s lives that the sovereignty of God brings to bear—at the center of this narrative about all those things is this petition of God, his answering the prayers graciously, and then God’s people praising his name for his mercies.

The secret is revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Again, this is Passover. Remember, Passover is the second feast in Leviticus 23. Remember that Leviticus 23 tracks the seven days of creation—Sabbath, and then Passover, first fruits, et cetera. So here in this second chapter, we have these references to Passover: nighttime deliverance of Daniel and his friends. Many nighttime deliverances in the scriptures—that old saying, “the darkest hour is always just before the dawn”—is revealed for us here again.

And it reminds us over and over and over again: when the nighttime fear comes upon us, when the darkness comes into our lives, when we’re in the middle of the night and have scary dreams, or we’re in the middle of a dark period of time and we cannot understand what’s happening, when things are difficult for God’s church or difficult for you as a member of God’s people—remember the nighttime deliverances in Daniel chapter 2 that are repeated from Passover on into Paul and the people in the jail throughout the scriptures.

Nighttime deliverances. For God reminding us over and over again that the darkest hour is always just before the dawn. That our job in the midst of the terror, in the midst of our impending seeming death, is to petition the God of mercies and then to praise him as he answers our prayer.

Daniel blesses the God most high. And then we have this delightful structure here of praise for God. “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever. For wisdom and might are his. Wisdom and might belong to God. He changes the times.” You see, that’s what’s going on. The times are being changed and they’ll definitively be changed at the coming of Christ. “He removes kings and raises up kings.”

We’re going to understand a little better as he explains the vision to Nebuchadnezzar, but God controls the events of history. History is not just one darn thing after another. History is not purposeless. Daniel rescues history from meaninglessness by showing us that God is the sovereign controller of all of these empires that will come to pass. And in fact, of all kings, he removes kings and raises them up.

And not only that, but “he gives wisdom to the wise, knowledge to those who have understanding. He is all wise. And at the center of Daniel’s praise, he gives that wisdom to his people. He reveals deep and secret things in terms of how kings rule. He knows what is in the darkness and light dwells with him.” Times and seasons, darkness and light, you see, match up. God knows what’s in the darkness. Light comes, dwells with him and then comes to mankind.

And then finally, “I thank you and praise you, oh God of my fathers. 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 demand.” God has wisdom and might. He gives wisdom and knowledge to men, and at the end he has given wisdom and might, power to rule and exercise authority, for his church, for his people, at the end of Daniel’s praise to God most high.

And so at the center of our narrative is this prayer and praise of God for becoming the one who gives gifts to men through giving us wisdom and knowledge.

Daniel then goes to the king. But first, he goes to Arioch, the lion, again, and he says—and again here the destruction of the wise men is pictured. In verse 24, they’re going to “destroy the wise men.” Destroy the wise men. Death is reigning. And Arioch, he says, “Look, Arioch, I can tell the king the dream. Get me an audience.” And Arioch then says in verse 25, “Quickly brought Daniel before the king”—into the presence of the king, the way the wise men had been before the king—and he says to him, “I have found a man,” says to the king—that is, “I have found a man of the sons of the captives of Judah.”

Unfortunately, our translations fail us here. What he actually says is “I found a man of the son of the captives of Judah”—so the son of the captivity, and “the sons” is stressed again deliberately, linking the story now in a very explicit way to Passover, because of course the angel of death went out to destroy the sons, the children of Egypt, and the children of God’s people, if they didn’t put a submission, a sign of submission and the covering of the blood of Christ on their doorway.

And so Daniel is one of these sons of the captivity who is going to be delivered by God through his sovereign intervention. So Passover is referred to again.

King says to Daniel, “So Daniel comes into the king. He says, ‘Well, okay, what is it? What is my dream?’” And in the interpretation, Daniel says, “There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets. He says, ‘Your wise men were right. They couldn’t do it. I really couldn’t do it. But there’s a God in heaven who can make known to Nebuchadnezzar what is going to happen in the latter days and what’s going to happen in the history of your empire and the ones that follow it.’”

And he says that “as for you, you are the one who has been given knowledge from God. But as for me, the secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom.” So Daniel is saying: it’s just the grace of God to give you this dream. It’s the grace of God to give me the interpretation of the dream. And of course, then we’re fairly familiar with the details of the dream.

I have a chart for you in your handouts. And if you want to take a look at that chart now, this would be a good time to look at that. Daniel says there are going to be a series of empires that are going to happen here. And he first tells the king his dream and then he gives him the interpretation of the dream. And in your handouts, this interpretation is really going to be reiterated several times in the book of Daniel.

This chart shows us the correlation of this image that Nebuchadnezzar sees to chapter 7, and then chapters 8, and then ultimately the details given to us in chapters 10 to 12. So there is essentially the setting up of Daniel’s prophetic word about the history of the next five hundred years given to us in summary fashion in the picture of this image.

And we’re all pretty familiar with this. We know that this image has this gold head. It has then a chest and arms of silver. Its belly and thighs are of bronze. Its legs are of iron. And then its toes and feet are of mingled iron with clay.

Now, a couple of things that we want to point out in the context of this. At the end of this, of course, then comes the stone. The stone that strikes the image is cut out without hands. Now again, if you’re a good student of the Old Testament and you hear that in this dream there was a stone, a particular kind of stone that crushed the other four empires, what are you going to think of? What kind of stone?

Well, in Exodus, we’re told that it is an altar stone itself that cannot be cut with human hands. The altar used in the tabernacle had to be a stone, but it couldn’t be a stone that was cut, that human work had been done to. And so ultimately, this is the work of Jesus Christ, but it’s specifically his work at the altar that is being addressed here, and that you would have understood as you heard the story being read to you being a student of the Old Testament.

Notice as well in verse 35 that this image is destroyed and crushed together. There is a unity to these four aspects of this one person. It’s a person, and it is destroyed together by the kingdom of Jesus Christ. The stone cut without hands, and that stone then becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth.

Now, again here, in Ezekiel, the altar is described and pictured for us. This is the altar, the bronze altar on which the ascension offering would be placed, is pictured as a mountain. It’s set in layers to be a picture of a symbolic mountain. So again here we have an altar stone that grows to become a mountain, and this is the altar and mountain of God’s worship.

And then he gives the interpretation of this, and he tells them first of all that—and this is very important for us—he says that you’re the head of this thing. Okay, you’re the gold. And he says that God is given you a kingdom. God has established you, oh king, in a position of rule. “You, oh king, are a king of kings. The God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory.”

You know, men want to treat this image as a series of pagan empires. There’s pretty much consensus that this flow is from first the Babylonian Empire to be succeeded by the Persian Empire, to be succeeded by Alexander the Great and the Greek empire, and then the Roman Empire. But what this is normally thought of is a series of political empires that are godless. But Daniel wants us to understand that these empires are begun by the God of heaven. It is God who has made Nebuchadnezzar a king of kings. God has established this empire. This image has been put in place by God. And that’s very important.

“Wherever the children of men dwell, they’re going to be in your empire,” he says, Nebuchadnezzar. “Your empire is a house for the world. And specifically, it’s become the house to protect and to house God’s people as they’re brought out of the Egyptian-like slavery in Israel into the protection of the Babylonian Empire. God is creating a series of empires here to protect his people until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s what Daniel is asserting here. He’s saying that God has created these things and the children of men will dwell in the context of this image, this empire that begins with you.

Now, verse 39. I have the word “inferior” highlighted. It’s important to put a note of interpretation in here, a translation. The word that’s translated “inferior” here does not say inferior. It is an Aramaic word that is found over and over again in this chapter, but it always refers to earth or land. And so what Daniel is saying is not that these series of empires will be inferior to you. He’s saying that there will be a series of empires earth-ward, toward the earth, from you.

And so again, Daniel is telling us that this picture of history for the next five hundred years is a composite picture of essentially one house that God is in control of. And there’s a series of empires here that progress, but they’re not to be thought of as a series of inferior one to the other.

You know, we think gold, silver, bronze, and iron, or iron rather, are inferior. But they’re not really. They are in one sense, but in another sense, they’re increasing in strength. Gold, pure gold, as this old one was, is very soft, can’t do much, can’t crush other people very well. And what we know is that the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire did indeed become progressively stronger and more powerful and used up and took over more and more of the known world. So the empires grow both in terms of stature and in their ability to control other people and destroy other kingdoms.

So the idea of this progression is not primarily a growing inferiority of political kingdoms. The idea of this picture is that this is an establishment by God of a house for his people. And what’s going on here is there’s a progression toward the earth from the beginning of this house, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of kings. And what really is the background picture here is that there’s a preparation for the descent of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings, the true King of Kings, to earth from heaven, and the world is being prepared for the advent of Jesus Christ who will establish the final house or dwelling place of God.

We’re the temple of the living God, aren’t we not? What was the temple made of? The temple was made of gold, silver, bronze, and iron. And I’ve given you the references on the handout. Gold, silver, bronze. We think of that. But Solomon in his temple adds iron to the gates and to the doors of the temple complex. And so in the list of materials and Chronicles for Solomon’s temple, the four ingredients are gold, silver, bronze, and iron.

And if you know this stuff, then you know that what’s going on in this image is it’s a picture of the temple of God. The temple is no longer the place in Israel. God has left there, right? Like he left there in the times of Eli. He goes to wage war against the world and his dwelling is someplace else. And now the temple, the dwelling place of God and his people, is now going to be a series of political empires.

But they’re seen from their religious perspective because the metals are the same metals in the temple. They’re a unit before God. And God has established the beginning of them with Nebuchadnezzar. He has given the children of men into the dwelling place of these empires. And essentially, he is preparing us for the true temple of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when Jesus comes and the Gospel of John, what does he say? “I’m the temple. I’m the gold, silver, bronze, and iron. My church will be that temple, and you individually are the temple of God. You’re a person just like Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. You’re a person, and God dwells in the context of you individually and his church corporately.”

The imagery here is not primarily political. That’s the road to the meaninglessness of history—to see history as a series of political movements. The imagery here is from a religious perspective. It is worship imagery. It is the temple of God. It’s the altar of Jesus Christ. It grows to become the mountain of God where we gather to worship him.

You see, and so it’s the descent of Jesus Christ, his advent to his people, this earth movement that comes finally with the stone cut without hands.

Now, there is this mixture at the end of clay mixed in, and we can’t speak about that much today. But what we’re going to say is when we get into the more prophetic passages of Daniel—the gospel that is—the false church, the Jews now who try to act like Romans and mix themselves with the Roman Empire. The idea is not that the foot is iron and the toes are clay. There’s a mixture going on, and two different types of clay are used. Clay is trying to stick itself onto this empire, but it is not going to stick.

But in the times of the coming of Jesus Christ, Herod and the false church is sticking itself to God’s empire of the Roman Empire in a false way. And we’ll develop that as we get on to the prophetic chapters of the book of Daniel in a more steadfast way. But that’s what’s going on here: the kingdom of Jesus Christ is going to come. Daniel gives meaning and purpose to Nebuchadnezzar, saying that what’s going to happen here is the establishment of Christ’s kingdom coming after you, being established as the house for God’s people.

Verse 43: “As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men.” Very important phrase as we get along in these prophetic visions. We’ll see again that the false church tries to become like Rome, like Greece, and like the empires, as opposed to being a distinctive priestly nation to these empires. And this admixture, this mingling with the sons of men will bring God’s judgment upon them.

Well, Daniel hears the vision. And in verse 46, Nebuchadnezzar falls on his face prostrate before Daniel and bows down to Daniel. You know, that’s not wrong in the Bible. A lot of guys bow down to one another. It’s a sign of submission and reverence. He’s not worshiping Daniel. And in fact, he tells them, “Your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings.” He gives an offering to Daniel. The kind of offering is a tribute offering. It’s a Leviticus 2 sort of offering. It’s the offering you give to a vessel, to a master that you are now vassal of.

Remember that Pharaoh, you know, worships the God of Joseph. He blesses the God of Jacob after Joseph’s exaltation and his dream sequence. And Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion to Yahweh is beginning to take place now in a very strong fashion. Won’t become complete until chapter 4. He still sees Yahweh as the God of other gods—you know, it’s kind of like that prayer service after 9/11 that everybody got so upset about, you know, or National Day of Prayer, whatever it was, and all these other religions were presented. But the most important religion. The sermon was preached from a Christian perspective. That’s the way Nebuchadnezzar is thinking of God at this point.

Yahweh, the God of Daniel, can do what no other god can do. But there are other gods still. But Nebuchadnezzar’s movement toward submission to Yahweh is beginning.

And then of course we know that Daniel is promoted by Nebuchadnezzar. The king gives him all these gifts and honor. Nebuchadnezzar remembers his friends and they then are promoted as well. And the last verse is kind of a linking verse to the next chapter that’ll discuss Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But notice that Daniel becomes the right-hand man of the king. He becomes the chief advisor. He is the administrator over all the wise men. And Daniel ends the chapter sitting in the gate of the king. Daniel is the advisor to the king. He is supreme. He is the chief justice of Nebuchadnezzar’s supreme court. He sits in the ruling function of the king.

Now, what is that king going to do over the next few years? What’s Nebuchadnezzar going to do? He’s going to be used by God to bring God’s judgment on Jerusalem. He’s going to go back to Jerusalem. He’s going to bring more captives back to Babylon. And he’s finally going to go back there and essentially destroy Jerusalem.

Now, you’re sitting in Jerusalem, and you know that you’ve got to pay homage now to this pagan king who believes in a multiplicity of gods. He may have brought Yahweh into his pantheon, but he’s still an idolater. And Daniel’s sending back these chapters. And now you know that Daniel’s the right-hand man. And the next time Nebuchadnezzar’s men come to your city and start warfare against you and start hauling you off captive to Babylon, who are you going to be ticked off at? You’re going to be mad at Daniel. You’re going to think Daniel’s a traitor.

Just like they thought Jeremiah was a traitor to say, “Don’t resist. God is judging you.” But essentially, He’s delivering you into this new house for his people in Babylon. You should not resist. You should be submissive, respectful toward the king. And the end result of that is Nebuchadnezzar be converted. We can understand that as we see this text unfold.

But see how hard it was for the people in Israel or in Jerusalem rather to see that’s what’s going on in this text. Daniel was a hated man. No doubt, just as Jeremiah was a hated man in the context of the kingdom because Daniel was advising Nebuchadnezzar even as Nebuchadnezzar began his warfare against God’s people in Jerusalem.

That’s the story of chapter 2.

Let’s go over briefly some lessons now.

First: Faithfulness to the God in the midst of empire is again stressed for us. The impotence rather of that which is passing away no matter how powerful it may appear is stressed. The Babylonian wise men are the order that’s passing away. They are impotent to do anything about it. And if Daniel ties himself to those men, if he stays tied to the old order of this empire, he will be destroyed with them.

If we living in the context of our post-Christian empire now that’s emerging led by America and this world, if we don’t have a distinctively Christian perspective even as we serve in the context of this empire, then we’re going to join with the impotence, the weakness, the destruction of the order that’s passing away.

Faithfulness to God. Young people, you know that we encourage engagement in our culture. But oh, do that ever so carefully. Oh, do that ever so carefully that you’re not drawn into the ways of this pagan world in which we now live. Understand your obligation to enter into service, enter into dialogue in terms of the recreation and the government of this world. But do not be sapped into the idolatrous mindset that this culture wants to bring you into.

Young men and women, you’re going to try to be seduced by other children your age as you go off to college and you go off to your own lives. It’s a picture of the seduction of the world. You listen to the music. Understand it from a Christian perspective. Don’t get sucked into the idolatry of this world. God has called us to serve here. We’re not retreatist. We don’t bar the doors and wait for everything to get over with. We engage it. God’s going to war against that our house as he wared against the house of Nebuchadnezzar. Not without our being involved.

He’s going to use his people to wage war through obedient service to him and to the ruling authorities. But oh, it’s so important not to link ourselves to the impotence of that which is fading away.

Secondly, the primacy of worship over politics is asserted again. And this will be repeated in chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6. Worship must be the beginning place. Ultimately, the food that we eat to set ourselves apart is the Lord’s supper every week. Worship is the way we begin the week. Worship is the thing that’ll enable us to have our prophetic ministry to the culture and to then think in terms of the kingdom of God as we go out into doing politics or other aspects of our service to the empire.

Third: The mission of worship to politics is asserted again as well. So worship is primary, but worship must have a mission speaking to the political arena as well. As maturing children, we the church have a prophetic responsibility to speak to the king. Daniel now begins his service to the king. He speaks prophetically to the king as a prophet of God. And we have an obligation to speak prophetically to Governor Kulongowski, to President Bush, and if need be, President Kerry. We have an obligation to speak to our modern-day Nebuchadnezzars, the prophetic Word of God.

In the same way that Daniel served in the context of empire, worship linked to what we do in the world. Worship resulting in mission, including mission to the political state, is what this vision is all about.

Fourth: A proper respect for civil rulers is asserted. Again, we are to serve the king, being willing to suffer the potential hatred of other Christians, you know. We get involved in political matters. We speak prophetically to Nebuchadnezzar. We may even serve in the context of his administration. There may be Christians serving in the administration of Governor Kulongowski. And some of us would say, “How can you do that? That guy’s horrible. He’s pagan.” Or, “How can you serve the administration of George Bush who has a pantheon of gods and Jesus is the dominant one but just part of a pantheon of gods?”

Well, we’re supposed to do that. We’re supposed to be respectful and submissive to the governing authorities that God has placed in the context of our lives. Daniel was respectful. He petitions the king for time. He honors the king with his language, and he doesn’t say, “Oh, you better listen up or God’s going to destroy you.” He reminds him that God has set him in place for particular purposes. Daniel serves respectfully in the context of the empire.

And we’re to engage in political, recreational, and vocational involvements in our empire, in the world that God has placed us, speaking for Jesus Christ, but doing so in a submissive, respectful way. And when we do that, there’s an element of the Christian church that will hate us as much as some of the Jews in Jerusalem hated Jeremiah and threw him in a pit, and hated Daniel because he was cooperating with the very force that was from their perspective judging or being harmful to the cause of Yahweh.

God says that we should serve in the context of the party system of our country, in the context of the civil administration. We’re to serve respectfully, submissively, always maintaining witness for Jesus Christ, but doing so in a way that is respectful and submissive, enduring, if need be, the hatred of other Christians.

And then finally: The good news in a foreign language here is wonderful news for us as well. Why the move to Aramaic? Well, in Isaiah 28, they’d been told that God would speak to them through a foreign tongue, the good news of redemption and deliverance. Then God was now doing that very thing. He was speaking to them in a foreign language. This is the gospel.

The gospel is that God will care for his people. He’ll provide a house through these series of empires protecting his people and then he’ll create a kingdom of Jesus Christ that will grow to fill all the world and all these other kingdoms. This special time of provision for his people will be done away. This is gospel, and it’s gospel in a foreign language, and it’s gospel that comes to us in a foreign language as well. It doesn’t come to us in Hebrew. We’re not reading Aramaic. We’re hearing these things in English.

The message of God is that it goes out to all the languages of the world as Babel is reversed through the proclamation of the gospel in all other tongues. You know, the Muslims cannot lawfully translate the Quran into English. It has to be read in its native language or, you know, it’s wrong. Now, we can get English translations, but it’s by Muslims, done by people who aren’t really faithful Muslims. Their religion is locked up. They’ve got a God who doesn’t go out and minister to people the way our God does.

It’s good news to us that Jesus Christ has come. The stone without hands has come. His kingdom is growing. And it is a mountain now filling the whole world. It’s good news to us. And that good news, you know, this is the establishment. It is a unique changing of times that’s described in this dream. But this establishment is given to us in a way to help us to understand how we’re to go about impacting our empire, our state, our nation as well.

And at the very center of Daniel chapter 2 is a call to do the very things that we’re called to over and over again: to pray and to praise.

How is this great change affected? The great change is affected. Daniel is saved and the king is ministered to by his people praying about how they’ll advise the civil magistrate. His people pray, praying for an understanding of the times. His people petitioning God, calling prayer meetings together to understand what God is doing in our day and age that we may speak into our particular culture, our vocation, our recreation, our political matters from a perspective of God’s knowledge.

October 3rd we’re going to be having a prayer meeting for Oregon City. The pastors of Oregon City have banded together. We had a pastor’s meeting last week. Every area of Oregon City, every tax slot—and that’s the way we’ll be given these maps—will be prayed for by the churches of Oregon City. This church will join with the other churches in getting together that Sunday from I think 5 till 7. We’ll meet for an hour praying and praising God. And then we’ll go out praying for Oregon City, praying that God might use the churches, the body of Christ in Oregon City to impact this particular place where God has planted us.

What does God say when God puts you in a place? Pray for the peace of that place. Work for the peace of that place. God calls us to pray for Oregon City. And we’ll have an immediate application of this sermon: to petition God what to say to this city as we meet with other Christians from around this city on October 3rd to go through all the neighborhoods of Oregon City.

Two people will be assigned to each tax lot. We’ll need—I don’t remember now. I think two hundred seventy-eight people total. There’s one hundred thirty-nine tax lots in between all the churches of Oregon City we will volunteer people from our church. I’ll be part of that group to pray through a particular tax slot and begin to see how we can work to affect change, the manifestation of Christ’s kingdom in a fuller way here in Oregon City.

The good news is a call to pray. It’s good news. It’s a call to praise God through the only mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. God’s kingdom has come to earth. To finish, that stone is now expanding out. The mountain of God is moving to fill all the world. And God calls us to delight in that sureness that history has meaning and purpose.

That even though we may have a dark hour in our time, we may have a bad dream, we may awaken one morning as we did three years ago to buildings being crashed, to nightmares played out in front of our eyes. And yet the Lord God calls us to remember in all these things that his hand is sovereignly determining whatever comes to pass for his purposes. History has meaning and purpose from the perspective that God is establishing his kingdom, his son, and the rule of his son in all the earth.

Let’s thank God for that.

Lord God, we thank you that you are the sovereign determiner of history. We thank you, Father, for this wondrous dream that you gave to Nebuchadnezzar. And we thank you, Lord God, for assuring us in the midst of our history that your hand is in control and you love and keep us. Help us, Father, to remember as big an image as it’s portrayed for us in Daniel chapter 2—the small image is given to us as well.

The need for your people to pray, to seek to speak into our context the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, the knowledge that you surely give us as we pray and petition you, the God of mercies. Help us, Lord God, then to pray and to praise you in all that we do and say. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.