You've probably seen or heard these sayings that go something like this, keep calm and, and then there's something at the end, fill in the blank, whatever it is. Keep calm and something that comes after that. And what it's trying to communicate is whatever comes at the end. You can personalize it. You can make it say whatever you want. This is what's important to me. Maybe this is an interest of mine. Some people take it more seriously than others. It can also communicate when everything else is falling apart, I can rely on this. Or I can always kind of come back to this. So here are a few examples. The first one is keep calm and be in love. That's sweet. Keep calm and draw. Not sure how that helps anything, but that's what that one is. Keep calm and cook on. Probably helpful if you're hungry. Keep calm and don't forget to be awesome. Kind of sounds junior high-ish maybe. Keep calm and destroy the ring. Tolkien reference. Keep calm and eat chocolate. Always good advice. And keep calm and rock on. Probably one of my favorites from that list. But we can kind of see the pattern as we look at a few of those. It's something that people can turn on in the midst of everything else. It's something that's important to them that says, OK, here's what I'm all about. And you can fill in the blank with whatever you want. In any sort of crisis, you can always kind of love, or chocolate, or maybe rock music. As we approach the first half of Daniel chapter 2, we're going to see something. Daniel and his friends just completed their training. Remember last week we looked at that assimilation processing time where Daniel and his friends were being trained in the Babylonian ways. That's done. And as soon as they're done with that, things begin to unravel. In fact, they're confronted with a major crisis that comes up out of nowhere. It's very sudden. It erupts without warning. And in the face of that crisis, some people might be tempted to panic, some people might be tempted to flee, other people might be tempted to take up armed resistance, but what we're gonna see is that Daniel and his friends keep calm, and they turn to, not chocolate or music, but God. They keep calm and they turn to God. This passage is about turning to God in a time of crisis. And it teaches us a lot of different things, but this is the main point. So let's take this passage in three sections. The first one is verses 1 through 11. A Disturbing Dream. In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dream. So they came in and stood before the king. And the king said to them, I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, O king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream, and we will show you the interpretation. The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The word from me is firm. If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. But if you show me the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore, show me the dream and its interpretation. They answered a second time and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation. Then the king answered and said, I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is firm. If you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you. You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation. The Chaldeans answered the king and said, there is not a man on earth who can meet the king's demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asked is too difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the God whose dwelling is not with flesh. So a disturbing dream. Remember, we're picking up right where we left off, or very close to where we left off. Daniel and his friends completed their three years of training. And they're ready to serve. And we begin in verse one, it says, the second year of King Nebuchadnezzar's reign. And immediately, some hands of objections might shoot up, especially if you're prone to be critical of the Bible. And they'll say, well, no, hold on a minute. If King Nebuchadnezzar began reigning when they came and brought the Babylonians out, that's only been a couple years. But I thought it took two years to complete, or excuse me, three years to complete the training. Here's one thing we need to understand. This is kind of a side issue. In the ancient Aries, when they reckoned or counted the king's years, they did not count the accession year as year one. The accession year was the year that the king came into power. So when they would recount and record the length of a certain king's reign, they would say accession year, and then they would count year one, year two, year three, all the way down to his last year. So if 605, 604 was the accession year, 604, 603 first year, 603, 602 second year, then we can see how that fits. It could be the second year of the king's reign as they reckoned it, but it could also be three years after they were deported. So in this second year and probably three years after they were through their processing training period, He had a dream and it troubled him. It says the spirit was troubled. We could also translate it as his spirit was struck. And then the meeting has originated as if an anvil or a bell is struck, this kind of solid connection reverberating. He was so disturbed by the dream he couldn't sleep. I think we've all been there, right? Have we lost sleep over something in our life? I think we can understand what that's like. Something that really dominates our thoughts. The idea of this being struck is also traced back to the rapid heartbeat due to extreme agitation. Extreme agitation. So it seemed like the dream was causing him to be in panic, so he called in the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers. and the Chaldeans. These are all different people that served in the court of the king, and this was their job. He had them kind of on retainer. He had them on staff, and whenever he needed an answer to something or to read the stars or to read the dream and give an interpretation, he called these people in. Chaldeans is another name for this. It's general wise men. Chaldeans can mean Babylonians. It's just a general term for the Babylonian people, but it also could mean this group of this wise men, these enchanters, these astrologers, these diviners. And so they're on staff and these are the guys that should be able to give them an answer. And they don't, we don't know exactly how often they get called upon, but I mean, they're getting called upon now. He's like, all right guys, you're up. I've got a dream. It's bothering me. You're the ones that I'm supposed to go to. I want an answer. And then it says in verse four, the experts addressed the king, and then it says in Aramaic, and we can just take this two different ways. We can take it to mean that they started speaking to him in Aramaic. Aramaic was an ancient Near East language. It eventually took over, even for the Israelites, the old Israelite language of Hebrew. If you remember in Jesus' day, Jesus spoke Aramaic. It was the popular, kind of Israelite language. Now Koine Greek at the time of Jesus was the broad general lingua franca kind of language of the whole empire, but the Jews and everybody around there were speaking Aramaic. And so we can already start to see that creep in. So maybe it means that they were speaking to the king in Aramaic, or it could also mean A parenthetical note inserted by Daniel because everything from this point forward, Daniel 2.4 through chapter 7, is, in the original languages, in Aramaic. It's one of the very few places in the entire Old Testament that's not in Hebrew, which doesn't have a whole lot of significance for the meaning of the passage, but there are two ways to go with that in Aramaic. Either way, this is what they're saying. Oh yes, great king, your majesty. You tell us the dream, and we'll give you the meaning. And the king responds, you know what, let's try something different this time. We always do it that way. We always, I tell you the dream, and you give me the meaning. How about this time, you tell me the meaning, but you also tell me the dream. How about that? The king wanted both and you can understand why the king's a smart guy He wanted to be sure they were telling him the truth. He wanted to be sure that they had some kind of real insight He didn't want guesses. He didn't want closest approximations. He wanted to know what this dream meant So in his mind the only way to be sure is to make these guys tell me both the dream interpretation, but also the dream Okay That's the real trick, isn't it? Anybody can offer an explanation. I want you to tell me what I dreamt. And oh, by the way, if you don't, I'm going to tear your limb from limb, and I'm going to destroy your house. This was common practice. They would either hack somebody, take their limbs off, or they would pull them apart, and then they would level the person's house and sometimes make it into a trash heap or a latrine. Kind of a real public statement. They would let everybody in the kingdom know this is what happens when you don't deliver for the king. On the other hand, verse six, gifts, rewards, great honor. So let's get to it. I want the dream and its interpretation. Notice in verse seven, they might be starting to panic at this point when they hear the fact that they have to give both and the consequences for not giving it. So they come back a second time, say, no, no, no, no, no, let's do it the old way. Let's do it the old way. You tell us the dream, we'll tell you the interpretation because they had, These enchanters these sorcerers these diviners. They had a grid they had a Algorithm if you want to call they had a system where certain things stood for other things So if you saw a star in your dream, okay a star means this or if you saw a body of water in your dream Okay, that means this and they would just plug it in and then they come back with an interpretation. They said no Let's do it the old way. I don't I don't like the new way where we have to tell you everything and In verse 8, you can see the king's anger starting to begin. He basically says, you're stalling. If you think you're going to drag this out, I'm going to change my mind. I'm not. My mind is made up. My word is firm. You're going to keep making things up until I give you the option of just telling me the interpretation. It's not happening. I want both. He wants proof that someone can actually deliver. Verses 10 and 11. Here's their response. It's their defense, really, and it's threefold, a threefold defense. Number one, you ask the impossible. Nobody can do that. That's impossible. Number two, you're being unreasonable. No king has ever asked this. We've not ever been asked this. No king before you has ever asked this. Don't do anything that anybody else hasn't already done. You're kind of stepping out of bounds. And number three, only the gods can do such a thing. They're telling the king, look, this is beyond human ability. It's not that we can't tell you the dream, King. Nobody can tell you the dream. So don't take it out on us. Nobody can do this. It's beyond human understanding. Let's look at verses 12 through 16. Daniel keeps calm. Because of this, the king was angry and very furious and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. So the decree went out and the wise men were about to be killed, and they sought Daniel and his companions to kill them. Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Ariok, the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. He declared to Ariok, the king's captain, why is the decree of the king so urgent? Then Ariok made the matter known to Daniel, and Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time that he might show the interpretation to the king. The king is angry, very furious. We could translate it as exceedingly filled with wrath, exceedingly filled with wrath. He's not satisfied with the answer that he's receiving from his counselors that he kept on retaining for just this type of situation. And so the answer is this. All right, if you can't tell me this, then what good are you? Why am I paying you guys? Why do I even keep you around? This is what you're supposed to be able to do. If you can't do it, well then, I guess we don't need you, so let's just kill them all. That's his rather rash answer. So he's gathering all the wise men, the enchanters, the sorcerers, the astrologers, the diviners, and he's gathering them together because it appears there's going to be some kind of formal public execution of all these people, including Daniel and Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah. Well, it might be time to panic, but Daniel keeps calm. He responds with prudence and discretion. It could also be translated as tact, good taste, appropriateness, with suitability for the circumstances wisely. And also, we might add, calmly. He's not losing his cool. He's responding calmly. So he asks a man named Arioch, which tells us is the captain of the king's guard, The king's guard were a bunch of these kind of elite guys that he kept around him to guard him and also to perform executions at will. These were the king's guard. They were very good at protecting the king and they would kill on order. And that's what he's doing. He's sending out the head executioner and Daniel asks him a question. Why is the king's decree or order so urgent or so hasty or so harsh? What's going on? Ariok fills Daniel in on what's happening, and Daniel acts. He sets a time with the king to make an appointment so he can go in and give the king what he wants. I'll do it. I'll be able to provide you with the dream and the interpretation. So Daniel's keeping calm in the midst of a fairly intense crisis. Lastly, 17-24, Daniel turns to God. Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and and have now made known to me what we asked of you. For you have made known to us the king's matter. Therefore Daniel went 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 before the king. I will show the king the interpretation. So Daniel turns to God immediately, reports back to his three faithful friends. These are the same three faithful friends that were with him on the veggie and water only diet in chapter one, remember? Going out of their way to trust in God with no backup plan. So here are all four of them. He informed them of what was going on. He said, seek mercy from God. Ask God. Turn to God in prayer. Ask him for an answer. Ask him to reveal the dream and its interpretation. Save us from being executed. Our lives are on the line. Verse 19, God answered their prayers and revealed the unknown dream and its interpretation in a vision of the night. It's not a dream. God didn't answer them. God didn't reveal it to Daniel in a dream. It says a vision of the night. They could have very easily used the word dream here. They didn't. So you understand that Daniel and his three friends have gone back and they began seeking God in prayer and they didn't stop until they got an answer. They began seeking God in prayer and they're still seeking God in prayer at night and he delivers the answer in the form of a vision. They're not sleeping, they're praying, turning to God in prayer. What follows is poetry, it's a hymn of praise, praising God, thanking God. It's a short God-directed prayer of praise and thankfulness. Did you hear the repetition of the he, he, he? I tried to put a little emphasis on that each one. All the praise and glory belongs to God. You're the one God. This is none of us. This is all you. We want to acknowledge that to you. He is the one who changes times and seasons. God is sovereign over time and history. That's one of the themes of Daniel. That's one of the things that God is teaching us in this book, is that he has complete sovereignty over the times and seasons that the world history, empires, kings. God alone has that. He removes kings and sets up kings, more of the same. Is Nebuchadnezzar there because of his own might and ingenuity and power and smarts and political ability? No. He's there because God wants him there at that point in time. He gives wisdom and wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. It all comes from God. Daniel, yeah, he's an intelligent guy. Remember, this is the best and the brightest out of the Babylonian exiles. But this knowledge of the dream and its interpretation, he didn't come by that on his own, it's from God. God knows everything, nothing is hidden from him. And then verse 23 is Daniel thanking God. Remember, this is a relationship between Daniel and his God. He came to God. He sought mercy. He asked for something and God answered him. And now Daniel's thanking him. We would expect to find something like that. He has a personal relationship with God. Thank you. You answered. You actually gave us what we asked for. Thank you. And then in verse 24, it's kind of a wrap-up. Daniel went to the head executioner, basically saying, look, stay that order. Don't execute everybody. I'm prepared to give the king what he's been looking for. Take me in. I'll stand before the king. Daniel kept calm, and he turned to God in prayer during a time of crisis. Keep calm and turn to God. We might wonder, where do some of these things get started from? You know, there's all these variations of keep calm and fill in the blank. And everybody kind of plugs in their own favorite thing. But I'm sure there was an original one somewhere in the past. And there is. The original one was in 1939. And it was keep calm and carry on. And it was made up by the British government, Department of Defense. And it was distributed to the general population. And the idea was, We want everybody to keep calm and carry on in the midst of this imminent threat of war and bombing and the war coming to our backyard. The proper response is not to panic or to flee. We want you to keep calm and carry on. It was kind of almost like a, I guess we could call it a propaganda type thing to their own people. Don't freak out. Instead, keep going to work. Keep doing your job. Everything will be fine. So it was designed to give people something to hold on to or something to do in a time of crisis and literally in a time of imminent attack. When we experience crises or times of crisis in our life, the answer is not to keep calm and carry on. In other words, the answer is not to keep calm and just kind of keep our head down, stay in our lane, Maybe pour ourselves into work, make sure we stay in the routine, and don't look to the right or left. That's really not the answer in a time of crisis. The answer for God's people is to keep calm and turn to Him in prayer. That's a much better answer than just simply to carry on. I want us to understand, this passage is not about Daniel. It's not about Daniel at all. It's not about Daniel saving the wise men in Babylon. It's not about Daniel interpreting the king's dream. It's about God saving the wise men in Babylon. It's about God interpreting the dream. It's all about God, not about Daniel. Daniel's part is keeping calm and turning to God in prayer during a time of crisis. It's part of the battle. This was spiritual attack. This was a direct and immediate threat in their life. I think that qualifies as spiritual attack. They were out of the blue, nowhere. They're just hum-da-dum-da-dum, going about their business day-to-day. All of a sudden, we want you to come to the wherever we're gathering place. You're going to be executed. So in a matter of minutes, they're going from totally unaware to you're going to die in a matter of minutes or hours. That's an attack. That's a time of crisis. Now the church collectively and individual followers of Jesus, we all go through times of crisis. And they come and go. But we're always in this battle. The Bible calls this a spiritual battle that we're in, spiritual warfare. It's real. It happens all the time. Now, it can increase at times, and it can decrease at other times. It can seem very intense, and then it can kind of dissipate. We understand that. There's an ebb and flow. But we're always involved in a spiritual battle. During this time of battle, and especially in times of crisis, keep calm and turn to God is not just a cliche. It's not just a take-it-or-leave-it piece of advice. It's a biblical response for God's people during a time of crisis. Turn to God. Well, what does turning to God look like? I'll draw a couple applications. Number one, turning to God means turning to God in prayer. Turning to God means turning to God in prayer. Remember last week we said there are some things that are left unsaid, but every once in a while we need to say them anyway. God expects us to trust him. That's one of them. God also expects us to turn to him in prayer. That's one of those things that's often assumed, but we need to say it. And prayer is a meaningful relationship. Did you notice that with Daniel? He asked God something, God answered, he thanked him. That's a personal relationship. Prayer is communicating on a personal level with God. There's a relationship there. Yet many Christians struggle with prayer, right? Why do we resist that? Why do we resist praying to our God? Why do we resist that relationship with him? I think there are a lot of reasons. One of them is, and test this, Life seems to kind of keep running along whether we pray or not. Have you noticed that? Well, I prayed real intensely for these few days, but then this whole month, I didn't really pray all that intensely. But you know what? Things just kind of kept moving along, and nothing really changed a whole lot. So maybe prayer doesn't make that much of a difference in my life. That might be one train of thought. especially when we have a lot of our needs provided for by God, especially when we live in a somewhat affluent area and we don't have a lot of day-to-day kind of hand-to-mouth practical needs? Could that be part of it? As long as we're not experiencing a crisis, prayer gets neglected. And here's something that kind of exacerbates the whole thing. As people who believe in biblical theology, as people who understand that God is sovereign, As people who believe that God has decreed everything from eternity past, we understand nothing is going to change God's decree. So sometimes I think we rationalize, now wait a minute, if God's got everything decreed from eternity past and nothing's going to change it, well then why should I, you know, invest too much time in prayer? It's going to happen, what's going to happen is going to happen. I think that's sometimes where we go as Christians. One of the themes of Daniel is that God is sovereign over kings and nations and times and seasons. God is in complete control. Prayer is making contact and speaking with that sovereign God of the universe. And, yes, he has a plan. Yes, he has decreed everything from eternity past. And yet, our prayers have an influence on the outworking of that plan. It's not either or, it's both and. We need to understand that. Even as people who believe in good reformed theology, that God's decreed everything in the past, there are things that happen in our life that only happen because we prayed for them. Likewise, there are things that do not happen in our life because we have failed to pray for them. I need to understand that. When we let that sink in, when we understand that our prayers have a real influence on the outworking of God's eternal plan, it's kind of scary. Because we think about all the times where we've neglected prayer, and we think about all the times where things might have happened if we had just prayed for them. How different would our life be? if we had spent time in private prayer. It's a lot to think about. Our prayers make a real difference on the outcome of events. Contemporary theologian Doug Kelly says this, whatever it is that prompts us to come to him, the fact is that God himself has ordained that these prayers of his people begin to release predestined blessings which would not have flowed down at all had the prayers not occurred. Prayer means something. Prayer plays a part in the outworking, not just of the things of the world. Prayer plays a part in your life and how it turns out. Daniel believed this. Now the good news is it's much more difficult to resist turning to God in prayer in a time of crisis, right? Even if we kind of, Neglect prayer and things kind of keep going along as soon as something happens as soon as we face a direct immediate threat and a crisis as Believers, I would hope that we turn to God in prayer And I want us to leave lead us with this question on this first point turning to God means turn to God in prayer Do you think that God uses those crisis times in our lives? To drive us to prayer to teach us to turn to him in prayer during the non-crisis Yeah, yeah, he does. He does. Well, turning to God means turning to God in prayer. Number two, as we turn to God in prayer, let us assume that God is going to use ordinary means. When we come to God in prayer, let's assume that God is going to use ordinary means. Now, God used a combination of ordinary and extraordinary with Daniel. All right, as we look at this, There's no doubt about it. God revealed something to Daniel directly. This is called direct revelation from God. God gave him information, revelation directly in the form of a night vision. That's extraordinary. That usually does not happen. But there are also ordinary things. God answered this prayer in ordinary means ways as well. If you notice, Daniel initiates the conversation with the head executioner. He started that. He asked the question. He contacted his friends. He started getting them He arranges an appointment with the king. He follows up with the captain of the guard afterwards, says, I want to be brought in. He took action steps. Daniel, as soon as he heard the news, didn't close himself off in a closet and start to pray and never come out and say, well, I hope you're going to do something soon, God. No, there was a joint effort here. He actually took real steps, ordinary means, but he also turned to God and God provided deliverance in the form of an extraordinary way. So it's both. But as Christians, we need to understand, God usually answers prayer in ordinary ways, not to rule out the extraordinary. Do miracles still happen? Absolutely. We're not denying that, but they're not ordinary. They're not usual and customary. It's usually in ordinary ways. There's a point that illustrates this. It's the man in need to be rescued. I know some of you have heard it. Just bear with me. I'm going to use it anyway because it's an oldie, but it's a goodie. There's a man on the top of a roof of a house. He's in the middle of a body of water, and it's flooding. It's storming. He's going to face certain death if he gets off. It's storming. There's debris everywhere. There's no land in sight. And so he decides to pray to God. God, please save me. And pretty soon on the horizon through the darkness, he sees a canoe and a man paddles up and he says, all right, get in. I've got room for you. He said, no, no, no. God's going to save me. So he argues with the man for a little bit. And finally, the guy in the canoe says, all right, you're on your own. And he paddles away. God, please save me. Soon, a life raft with a bunch of other survivors and a couple of guys. It looks like they know what they're doing. And they've got all the survival equipment and the strobe light going. He says, come on. Let's go. The water's rising. He said, no, no, God's going to save me. Again, they argue with the man and finally say, well, we've got to go. So they take off. The man continues to pray. God, please save me. Before long, a Coast Guard helicopter comes up and lowers the basket and says, get in. And they're signaling. And he says, no, no, no. He waves them off. He waves them off. God's going to save me. And they can't hear him very well. And finally, the pilot says, we're out of fuel. We got to turn around. So they leave. Well, the water comes up, and it washes over the house, and the man dies. He goes to heaven, and he comes before God, and he says, God, I prayed to you in faith. Why didn't you answer my prayer? God says, I did, three times. I sent you a canoe. I sent you the life raft with the strobe light. I sent you the Coast Guard helicopter, and you didn't listen to me. The point is, God uses ordinary means to answer prayer. Ordinarily. And that's what we should expect. We should assume it. Be surprised if God uses extraordinary means. Be very surprised and thankful. But assume he's going to use ordinary means. I saw a video clip of a, I'm just going to say, a bad teacher. of the Bible the other day and they were telling story and it seems like the story was a usual part of their talk and their teaching and the story was how they were praying and God spoke to them and told them to go do a task and so they went and they followed these really specific instructions that God had revealed to them and sure enough it happened just as they said and they met this stranger and money was exchanged and it was just for this right need that they had and it was this long story The idea was that God was speaking to them directly. I'm not a big fan of that. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I'm saying if that's part of a regular part of your teaching, first of all, is it verifiable? Can we go find this stranger and find out if all those things are true, or are you just making it up? The reason I think sometimes people say those types of things is to try to give themselves credibility. And what it does to the listeners is that it makes them think, well, that person must be really spiritually close to God. They must be like up here because I don't hear from God directly. I don't hear audible voices during my prayer time, but they do. They must be, you know, the elite. Be surprised if God uses extraordinary means, and he sometimes does, but the ordinary is what we should be assuming. What does this look like? If we're praying for God to provide for our family, we're probably going to have to get a job. If we're praying for God to heal our broken bone, we're probably going to have to seek medical treatment, have it set, put it in a cast, follow up instructions. Ordinary means, yes, pray to God. Turn to Him at a time of crisis, but expect ordinary means. Be surprised if they're extraordinary. Number three, always give God the glory and credit and thanks. It's all His. We don't deserve it. If we walked out into the parking lot after church today and amongst the salt granules we saw a diamond ring and we picked it up, would we keep it? I hope not. Why not? It's not ours. It doesn't belong to us. It's the same thing with all the glory and the praise and the thanks. It's not ours. Why should we take any of that? It all belongs to God. We wouldn't keep something that doesn't belong to us. And we wouldn't do that with God's glory and the credit and all the thanks. And that's what Daniel does. Look at this. He does it both to God and to others. And that's the principle for us. All the glory and thanks and praise goes to God. We do this to God in prayer, but we also do it before others. We don't want to claim it ourselves before other people. This whole prayer, he does this, he does this, he does this. He's directing all the praise and the thanks and the glory to God. Verse 23 is all thank yous. That's to God. And then the part that we didn't read, we're gonna cover it next week. Verses 25 through 30 is essentially a big long section where Daniel is saying, this is not me. He goes out of his way in front of the king to say, okay, just to be clear on this, I didn't have anything to do with this. I'm not the one telling you the interpretation, King. This is not me. This is all God. I want to be clear on that. And that's the pattern for us as well. Always give God the glory and credit and thanks when we turn to Him and when He answers us. Just as Daniel and his friends were saved from certain death by trusting in God, people are saved from certain death and eternity in hell by turning to God and trusting in this provided salvation, Jesus Christ. You've probably heard the phrase Christ in the Old Testament. Here it is. Here it is. They turn to God to save them. We turn to God to save us. Daniel was the mediator between the wrath of the king and the people who are going to be destroyed. Jesus Christ is our mediator. He is the only one who stands between the wrath of God the Father and all of us who are sinful and deserve it. And because salvation is all grace, we give God all the glory and the credit and the thanks to Him and to others. It's not because we're good enough. that we're saved. It all belongs to God. Why would we keep that? Why would we keep the credit? The message of salvation is a message of grace. It's not us being good enough to earn God's favor and forgiveness. We bring nothing to the table. God pours out his grace on us, calls us into his kingdom, forgives us. The righteousness that we have that God sees and is able then to declare us righteous is not our own. It is an alien righteousness that comes outside of us. There's not one scrap of righteousness in us or in the things that we do in this life that merit our declared righteous status before God. It's all grace and it all belongs to Jesus Christ. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. It's the biggest crisis we'll ever face. It's the biggest crisis anyone would ever face. A direct and immediate threat on their eternal life. The penalty of sin. And Jesus has made a way for it to be forgiven. That's a big crisis. The sin problem that we all have is a big crisis. We don't have to panic. Instead, we can keep calm and turn to God. Pray to the God of the Bible. Pray to the God that saved Daniel and his friends. Say, God, please save me from my sin. And he listens, he hears, and he grants us what we pray for. He says, yes, if you turn from your sin, if you trust in my provision, if you trust in my son, I will forgive you. not only will I forgive you, I'll declare you righteous, I'll bring you into my kingdom, I will raise you up, you will become my people forever. And nothing you can ever do, I know you've got sin in the past, and I know you're really trying to cling to me in faith now, but I know your heart better than you do, and I know there are gonna be times where you blow it big time. There are gonna be times maybe where you even turn away for a season, but I'm gonna call you back and you will turn back quickly, and I will forgive you because you're mine, and I promise you you will be mine forever. That's what a covenant promise from God means. It's unbreakable. Remember, when we are in Christ, if it is possible for God to, the Father, to disown Jesus Christ, then it's possible for him to disown those who are in Christ. That's the kind of covenant promise that God makes to us. That's the kind of promises that we have in Jesus Christ. Keep calm, turn to God in faith. Turn to Jesus Christ. Amen. Heavenly Father, as we look at this real account of ordinary people like Daniel facing a crisis, we see them turning to you, turning to you in prayer, and we see you answering. Father, teach us to turn to you in prayer, not just in times of crisis, but during all times. for that relationship, for that give and take, for that back and forth communication. We have the privilege of speaking with the God of the universe who is sovereign over all things. Father, help us to turn to you in prayer at all times and trust you with our salvation. Amen.