And turn in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 2. When we sung these psalms, I think back and I wonder how much Daniel and his three friends sang these psalms to encourage their hearts while they were in Babylon, to keep that perspective of the Lord reigning. That perspective certainly comes out in our text today, Daniel chapter 2. We're really continuing on where we left off last Lord's Day. So for those who were not able to be with us last week, we hope that this is still intelligible for you. We're covering Daniel chapter 2. Your kingdom come, seeing here the God of wisdom and might. We saw before how God revealed a mystery specifically in order to draw out grateful praise from Daniel. Daniel chapter 2 opens with the story of how Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream and it struck him. It troubled him in his spirit. He could not make sense of this. And so he called all the wise men in his realm to come and to not only give him the interpretation, but to tell him what the dream was. This was something so important to him that he wasn't going to take any chances with anybody giving him something they just made up. You have to be able to tell me the dream as well as what it means. Of course, his Chaldeans and magicians and enchanters tried to beg off, we can't do this, this really isn't even fair, king. In effect, they were saying, you're asking for superhuman knowledge. This is only things the gods know and their realm is not with flesh. We can't know these kinds of things. Well, Nebuchadnezzar didn't take to that so kindly and threatened to execute all of them unless they told him what he wanted to know. Daniel, hearing this, of course, that sentence of condemnation came upon him and his three friends because they'd been trained to become wise men in the king's court. Daniel, hearing this, went to his three friends, asked them to pray for mercy from the God of heaven. And God answered and God revealed the dream and its interpretation, this mystery to Daniel. What did that provoke from Daniel? Well, we saw it last week in verses 20-23, this psalm of praise, where Daniel praises the Lord as the one to whom belongs wisdom and might. He's the one where all that comes from. You see, the purpose God is coming out already in this chapter, the reason God is making this revelation, the reason God is making known this mystery now, is not just to titillate us about, oh, what's going to happen next? This is really interesting. It's all about bringing glory to himself and showing the kind of God that he really is as he works in this world's history. So, we have yet, however, to see what happens when a proud pagan king is confronted with the revelation of God's glory, the revelation of the mystery of God's kingdom plan. So let's just get right down to business here today in our text. We've been waiting a long time to find out what is the dream. And the text just keeps going on and on and on. It doesn't tell you, right? What's this dream? What is so troubling to Nebuchadnezzar that he would threaten to wipe out his whole court over it? And so exciting to Daniel that he would just stop and praise the Lord in song because of this wonderful revelation. What is it? Well, we come to verse 24 where we left off. Verses 24 through 30. We see Daniel honoring the Lord, honoring God, before the king. Daniel takes this opportunity to point to the all-knowing, all-wise God who powerfully controls history. After receiving this revelation, verse 24 says, Therefore Daniel went into 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." Well, now here comes the crucial moment. The king stands face to face with Daniel and says, are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation? That's quite a moment. God's reputation, in a sense, is on the line here when Daniel says to the king, I can tell you. But before even answering the king, Daniel makes sure to set all that he's going to say in the right context so that Nebuchadnezzar really understands what's going on here. Daniel replies to the king in verse 27. No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked. You know what, king? You are asking for something that is impossible for men to tell you. Nobody can. And by the way, in that, he's including himself. I don't have the power here. I'm not some special person that just has this ability that these other wise men don't. Some secret source that maybe they don't have. And I can tell you these things. I'm a really wise guy, after all, King. Nobody says, no man can tell you this. But, verse 28, this wonderful confession that Daniel confesses before the human king of the world at this point. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. But there is a God in heaven. You're asking for something that is beyond men, but there is a God in heaven. A wonderful confession that Daniel makes right here. Beautiful. There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. What a marvelous way to honor the true God before this pagan king. You see, this is the God who knows all things, and then who graciously shares of that knowledge with us. Just contrast that with yourself. I mean, how much of your life is spent trying to figure things out? Quite a bit of it, actually, right? How does this work? I've got to figure this out today. I've got to make that... And we've got to learn something. We've got to figure it out. But not so with God. God never has to figure anything out. God knows all things, to quote 1 John 3, verse 20. His knowledge is perfect and eternal and good. It's always active in all the fullness of His divine life. He does not learn things over time as if he had to wait to find out and experience what would happen to see if he could learn this or figure it out. He knows everything in one immediate flash of intuition, we might think of it. He knows it. That's the kind of God he is. It's that kind of knowledge that he is making known. Sometimes when fear grips our hearts about the future, Because we can't know it, because we can't figure it out, we can't say, oh, this is what's going to happen. God thankfully comforts, glorifies himself by comforting our hearts. He's the one who knows the future. It is his. He is the Lord of the future. You see, even in this text, as Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, God does not just know the future in the sense of it being facts out there. He knows it in the sense of it being His plan that He is revealing to men. One hint of that here comes out even in verse 28 when Daniel says, 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. This is not what God is taking a really good guess at will probably happen in the future. because he's watched people a lot and he knows how they react. And so he can pick a really good guess at, well, this is probably what they'll do given these circumstances. He's not saying that's probably what's going to happen, O King. He said this is what will be. Not only that, but he calls it the latter days. By that very fact, he's ordering the days. Some days are former, some days are latter. And in order to know which ones are which, you have to know there's an order to them. There's a plan being worked out here. You can't apply ordering language to something that has no plan, no purpose, no direction to it. Daniel says the king, he's telling you what will be in the latter days. In other words, God has this plan for history. God knows the feature exhaustively because he knows his own plan and his perfect his own purpose perfectly. Some people, even in our day, have said that God cannot know the future because the future is inherently unknowable. I mean, how can you tell the future actions of free men when they haven't even, maybe they don't even exist yet, or they haven't even made any decisions about what they'll do yet? How can you know what's going to happen in that realm? That's impossible, right? Wrong. That is impossible for us. but not for God. God says, Isaiah 46, verses 9 and 10, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning. And from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose. God knows the future because He knows Himself. He knows His plan. He knows His purpose. He knows what He will accomplish. And that's exactly what will come about. And so by seeing God's perfect plan, we realize that God's knowledge that's being displayed here is not merely a conglomeration of facts, as if God was the trivial pursuit champion of the world. He just knows all these random facts out there. And like a computer, you can Google them. That's not God. God is not Google. Rather, His knowledge is ordered by moral purpose. To put it a different way, He is wise. He has wisdom. There's always a direction and a purpose and a goodness in what He knows because He is working out of the fullness of His character. That's who our God is. And when God's people, when we as God's people see His perfect knowledge and His wisdom, what we're able to do then is take it to heart ourselves and then from that glorify our God before men. This is exactly what Daniel was doing in this case. But to pick another example from Scripture, David. He derived comfort in the midst of turmoil from God's knowledge of him. For example, Psalm 56 verse 8, you have kept count of my tossings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? God, you know everything about me. Why was that comforting? Because he wasn't just a random assortment of facts to God at that point. It wasn't just as if, okay, I feel a whole lot better now because I know that somebody somewhere out there knows something about me. It's that God knows me, and this God is wise, and He has a purpose, and He has a plan, and everything is taking place. And I'm seeing that through my life, and I'm coming to know that. He doesn't have to come to know things, but I do. And as I go through these trials and challenges of life, I come to experience now and understand more of His wisdom. So David could reassure his heart that God knew him. What he experienced was not meaningless oppression, but it was truly part of a good plan. We've already seen that Daniel knew and experienced that back in Daniel chapter one on a personal level. But now really in chapter two, what we're seeing is the revelation of this mystery of God showing his wisdom on a worldwide level, on a scale encompassing all of space and time and human history. And you know the only appropriate response for creatures, when we come into contact with that kind of knowledge and wisdom, is praise, is worship, is adoration, is submission and entire devotion to Him. Praise to the God who knows all things. Again, Psalms, the Psalm 104. O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. Everything about what God does shows wisdom. So as you walk through life with the new experiences that come to you each day, you're confronted time and time and time again with demonstrations of God's wisdom. And you get the joy then of finding them out as you walk through life and learning more and more and coming to experience more and more of In fact, you'll get to do that for all of eternity, because how long will it take for a finite creature to explore the infinite wisdom of the Creator? Forever. There will never be a time when we'll stop learning of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. You get the joy of doing that. And then each one of these days of your life fits into a larger pattern of God's sovereign rule, bringing about His kingdom purposes, and then what do you do? You praise Him for that. You praise Him for that. So let me urge you even today to publicly praise the God of wisdom and might before the world, even before the world's powers. Start off each week just like we're doing today, every single Lord's Day. Start off the week by gathering with God's people to do just that, to publicly praise God for the knowledge of His wisdom that you've experienced and now come to know in ways that you could not know otherwise. And then do it throughout the week, wherever you are, whatever you're doing. We should be, I think, like the Apostle Paul, who when he considered the grand sweep of God's redemptive work through Jews and Gentiles in Romans chapter 11, What did he stop and say? He said, oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out. You see, it made Paul praise God's wisdom and His knowledge. Why was God revealing this mystery right now in Daniel chapter 2? Why did He pick this time to do this? drawing out the praise of his own people, as we've seen from Daniel. But now then, he's also doing something else. Through Daniel, he's confronting a proud pagan king with that same revelation of truth, of who this God is, this God who reveals mysteries. You see, God revealed this mystery, even just to pick a verse from our text here, not to show that Daniel was so much wiser than all of his contemporaries or than anybody else. but so that Nebuchadnezzar would know who God was. Daniel actually said this, verse 30, to Nebuchadnezzar, But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living. God didn't pick me because I'm especially wise, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king. God wants you to know something, Nebuchadnezzar. This is for you. And then, God wants to compel humble acknowledgement, even from the proud powers of the world. And that's what we see as Daniel goes on to explain the dream on to the end of the chapter. So verses 31 through 35 show the dream. Probably familiar with this story, but let me just say it briefly here. Daniel says, verse 31, You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This is a statue of a human. human form, an image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold, all together 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. So here's what Nebuchadnezzar saw. This image, human image, four primary sections composed of different metals. There was the head of the statue, fine gold, the chest and arms of silver, the middle section of the belly and thighs of bronze, and the legs of iron connected to feet of iron mixed with clay. And Nebuchadnezzar saw this image destroyed by this stone, and the stone then becoming a great mountain. The image obliterated, so there's no trace of it left. and the stone filling everything. What was going on here? Well, Daniel says, verse 36, that was the dream. Now, we will tell the king its interpretation. Here's how it works. Verse 37, you, O king, the king of kings, interestingly enough he calls him, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory. Almost sounds like the book of Revelation here. and into whose hands he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all, you are the head of gold. In other words, what Nebuchadnezzar was seeing represented in this image was kingdoms. This is the first one representing himself and his kingdom. After him then would another kingdom arise, and yet a third kingdom would also arise, which would rule over all the earth. and then a fourth kingdom. In other words, God was telling Nebuchadnezzar what would be the course of history through these kingdoms of decreasing glory but increasing strength until the end when the kingdom was partly strong and partly brittle. God gave these kingdoms their authority just like Daniel is clear to say God gave to Nebuchadnezzar his authority. But what would happen here? These earthly kingdoms would not be able to endure. They would rise and conquer and then they would in turn be conquered. Pardon me. They would never endure. Now, the only kingdom here explicitly identified is the first one, the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar. You are the head of gold, as we read. Daniel does not name any of the other kingdoms here in this text. Now, we're going to get more information about these kingdoms in chapter seven when we get to that. And just to give a little For taste the most likely historical reference here are the silver chest and arms being the Medo-Persian Empire the bronze belly and thighs being the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great which conquered the Medo-Persians and then the Roman Empire the iron at the bottom of the statue which arose on the disillusion of the Greek Empire and Daniel doesn't talk about them all that much, though, in this dream right here. He doesn't spend a lot of time on how all these will work out. Again, more information will be coming later. But he does pause to give a little bit more information about the fourth kingdom. This fourth kingdom represented by the iron. It will be strong as iron in crushing its opponents. And yet, it will be, he says here, internally divided. It will be a mixture. iron and clay. And even through intermarriage, he mentions, it will not succeed in becoming truly unified. It will never be able to do that. But we stop right there and say, is that really the story of human history? Just one kingdom after another? Kingdoms rising, kingdoms falling, just going on and on with no point and no purpose. Is that, I mean, you could actually look back on human history from our vantage point, even today, and feel like it looks like that, right? Sure, one, it's always that way. One kingdom arises, and then they get weak, and somebody else comes to power, and then they get weak, and somebody else comes to power, and somebody else conquers them, and it just goes on and on and on and on, and that's life in this world. Really no point, no purpose, no meaning to all of it. Of course, if Daniel had stopped his interpretation there, perhaps he would think that. But he doesn't. Pardon me. It's clear what he goes on to say that, no, that's not the whole story of human history. There is a final kingdom that's going to arise. which Daniel has made clear does not owe its origin to human hands. It doesn't come from, say, a great leader like Nebuchadnezzar conquering his enemies and making this kingdom great. There's something significant about this. This is the stone which smashes the image to bits. In fact, it so completely pulverizes the image, as it says here, that it leaves not a trace of it left. The wind blows it away. So there's nothing left of all the rest of the image. Dust blown by the wind. By the way, that's significant, I believe. Those powerful earthly kingdoms, which seem so all glorious and significant in their day, what do they end up being at the end of history? You can't even find them. They're gone. It's as if they never even existed. They're blown away by the wind. Nothing but dust. That, too, is wisdom. But the stone, then, that smashed the image grows into a huge mountain that fills the whole earth. Isaiah. had already spoken of God's dwelling place in this way in Isaiah 2. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it. There was coming a time in these latter days, this mystery of these latter days that God was making known to Nebuchadnezzar, in which God would establish His kingdom. This is the God of heaven setting up His kingdom that will never be destroyed and that will endure forever. Daniel describes it to Nebuchadnezzar this way, beginning in verse 44. And in the days of those kings that 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 in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a 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. What does Daniel emphasize again at the end of this dream? A great God has made this known. What do you think is the main thing Daniel 2 is trying to get across to us? It's showing us the greatness of God. It's showing us who He is by how He will work and by what His plan is like. He's a God of wisdom and might. And so when we get to verse 46, when Daniel finished giving the interpretation of the dream, we find an amazing thing happening. We find a proud pagan king acknowledging the supremacy of the God of heaven, actually saying, He is God. And Abednezer fell on his face, verse 46 says, and paid homage to Daniel. Now here's the monarch of the world on his face, before a young Judean captive. What's he doing there? Why would he be doing this? What does he say? Well, what he says helps us understand what's going on in his heart. 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. Folks, Nebuchadnezzar is not converted here in this chapter. He does not become a worshipper of the one true and living God and renounce all false idols and all that sort of thing. We'd love to hear that that's what happened from Daniel's powerful witness in this situation. That's not what happened, as the next chapter will make very clear. However, God is being praised here. God is being acknowledged, even from the lips of pagans. Your God is really the God who is the God above all gods. He's the Lord of Kings, Nebuchadnezzar says. He's acknowledging there's someone, as hard as this might be for him to imagine, there's someone more powerful than I am. There's somebody who has more control than I do. And Daniel, it's your God. I recognize that. It's your God that has this kind of power and this kind of wisdom. I would just ask you today, as God's people here in 2015, Doesn't that not resonate in your heart as what you desire? Don't you long for men around the world to recognize the true God as King? To say, yes, He really is the true God. God is working all of human history in such a way that that will happen. Whether in judgment or salvation, it will happen. And every knee will bow. Everyone will acknowledge that He really is the true God. But what we need to see, if that's the longing of your heart today, is just in a sense how that comes about. I would call upon you today to acknowledge the sovereignty of God in His knowledge, in His wisdom, and His power. Not only a sovereignty of power, but a sovereignty of wisdom who brings all of human history to right in His eternal kingdom of peace and truth. I call upon you to acknowledge that today. not simply for your own benefit. In other words, praising Him like Daniel did that we saw last week, but also as the demonstration of His glory to all of those who live around us. How does God make His glory known? Well, He does do it in all of His providence, even His special revelation that He chooses to give, like He gave to, revealing this mystery to Nebuchadnezzar at this time, but He always makes it known through His people. Just think with me. What kind of a God is this who directs all of human history with perfect power and wisdom, raising up kingdoms and taking them down? What kind of a God is that? And then think of this. What people admire, they will praise. And that's true of you as well as of anybody. What you admire, you will praise. It will come out in what you talk about, in how you talk about it. Some of you guys think a particular car is really neat. You're going to praise it and say, look at this. Wow, look what it can do. That's pretty neat. I like that. Let me show you. What about God's revelation of his power and might to you? And how do you respond to that in the face of a watching world? Do you praise it? Do you say, look at this. Do you see what I see here? This is God at work. Do the people around you know that your God is a great God by the way you are able to praise Him for the outworking of His kingdom plan? Do they know that? And I think sometimes the reason they don't know that from our lips. It's because of our own lack of wisdom and insight. That is, we don't very well see our lives connected with the outworking of God's kingdom plan, and therefore, we don't even know how to express what's going on in my life in terms of praising God. Sometimes, to our own shame, it's more like complaining and grumbling. Kind of like Israel in the wilderness. Like, this is really bad and I don't like this. And God, why did you put me here? And I wish I was back in Egypt. And what kind of a testimony is that to the greatness of our God? Moses, in fact, recognized that when he pleaded with God to be with them. God, don't judge your people, wipe them out here for your own namesake. The other nations are watching what's going on here and they're seeing what kind of a God you are by the way you deal with your people. And yes, they're not being faithful. But God, for your own namesake, Save them. God always works in perfect justice and might, perfect wisdom, but He always works to honor His name. And He works in us, in His people, to do that. And so if that's your challenge today, that is, you have difficulty connecting your life to God's kingdom plan, and therefore difficulty praising Him for the power and the might that He really is working out all the time. Perhaps in light of what we're just looking at here in Daniel 2, you need to go before the Lord and simply confess, repent, turn to Him. Say, God, I want my life to be a seeking first Your kingdom and Your righteousness. I don't want it to be all about me right here and my wisdom and my might. Because that's not the way to wisdom, is it? On the other hand, I think the more we are in that sense like Daniel, although of course this is a particularly special situation in which God revealed this, but with that same heart, that same character, that same total dependence upon Him for His truth in our lives, then we will gain the wisdom. to be able to see God aright and thus be able to praise Him, and thus be able to honor Him before a watching world. God has placed this congregation right here, right now, in this spot, 2015, so that we will do that. And folks, you know what? The world around us, they're not going to interpret God's providence in the right way. They don't know God. They don't understand His plan. They're not going to see how this connects to Jesus Christ and what this means. A presidential election coming up next year. What does that have to do with God's kingdom plan? Haven't the faintest idea. It's all about the economy, right? What are Christians here to say? What are we here to show? And even through our praise, what moves us, what we admire, what we delight in is what will come out in our praise. Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, a great God has made this known to you. That's what you need to see. You see, folks, this revelation we're reading about in Daniel chapter 2 really is good news. It tells us that all the kingdoms of this earth, as they constantly try and fail and try and fail to achieve eternal life and true glory and power and dominion, they're not the end of the story, are they? They're not where it's all going. God's eternal kingdom is the end of the story. Now, this particular chapter doesn't tell us any more than that. But it does tell us that, and that's good news. What is Daniel 2 teaching us? Ultimately, I think it's giving us a revelation of the glory of God Himself. He is a God who reveals mysteries. Why? Because He's the God of wisdom and might. That's who He is. And may that provoke all men and especially provoke us as his people to give him the praise that is due to his name.