All right, folks, let's turn to Daniel chapter 2. We've got a long way to go tonight. We have 43 verses, I think, so get your Bibles out, get your voices loose so we can read and get where we need to go. Very interesting chapter. Continuing the theme in Daniel of God is in control and God is going to move the hands of the king and the hands of his people to worship and to bring himself glory. All right, Daniel chapter 2. Someone read verses 1 to 2. In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. All right, so first of all, this gets mentioned in several things I've read about it. This is the second year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, and the Babylonians counted the years of reign a little bit different than the Jewish people would, so they were usually off by a year. Second year would probably be the third year as reckoned by the Jewish people. And so this is actually probably Daniel and his friends are at the end of the training we talked about last week, right? They're coming to the end of it. They've now been kind of folded into this huge group of wise men that are there for the king. And so the king has this, Troubling dream. Couldn't sleep. And so then he rounds up all the four different groups. There is, I'd like to tell you there's some major difference between what, and probably there's a minor difference, but these are all the people that supposedly can interpret dreams or they have all wisdom and they can see, advise the king on all things natural and supernatural. But the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, we kind of know what those words mean. And then they throw in the Chaldeans, which seems like that's just a group of people who live in a certain place. And that's probably what it originally was. But it kind of came to men. Chaldea was a part of the Babylonian Empire, but it kind of developed into a descriptive term for a special group known for their expertise in magic lore and interpreting dreams. All right, so we have four groups, all kind of serving the same function. But they're here, they're going to function as one group, all of these different people. All right? Verses three to nine. The king answered and said to the chandians, the word for me is firm. If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be punished. But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore, show me the dream and its interpretation. They answered a second time and said, let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation. The king answered and said, I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word for me is time. If you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence A reasonable request, right? Anybody else want to volunteer for this job? No, no, why not? It's kind of ridiculous, right? Right, yeah, what am I thinking of? And then solve that. It really is a crazy request. Because the whole point of a dream, right, is you look at the dream and it stands for something. This stands for this, and this stands for that. And so that means Joseph got better than this, Right? The Pharaoh told Joseph the dreams. So he actually had something to, you know, to go off of. But here he says, okay, tell me what I dreamed, and then tell me what it means. And their response was, how about you tell us the dream? And then we'll tell you. And his response is, quit stalling. You're the wise men, right? You are the ones who know the signs and the times of the season. You're all learned in the things of, you're tapped in to the spirits and the gods, and so tell me the dream, then tell me the interpretation. And they try, like they try hard. Oh, King, live forever, right? They're trying to keep on the, Keep sugaring him up, right? Keep telling him, King, we, you know, it's kind of, he says you're trying to gain time because you see that the word for me is firm. Either you do it. It's not like he says, well, if you can't get it, that's okay. No, he says if you don't get it, I'm killing all of you. Right? That's it. If you can't understand it, if nobody, if not one of you can figure this out, you're all gone. That's right. I mean, they're all in this together. And it's an impossible task, right? He's asking them to do an impossible thing. And they're going to acknowledge that. Right, the dream and the interpretation. Why does he make this command though? Yeah, I mean, It doesn't take long, right? We, some of, you know, you ever seen people and immediately we know, oh, he's full of baloney, nothing. And so you test people like that a little bit more to find out if what they're gonna tell you is actually the truth. You don't just accept what they say on the first thing. It's like, okay, well, what about, you know, you're gonna push a little bit harder. And he doesn't want them to hear the dream and just make something up, which clearly he's worried about. We know that because he says in verse nine, you've agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. He says, you've done this before. He's speaking from experience. He's like, I don't trust you. And so he's giving them the demand that's really an impossibility. But they're going to acknowledge that right here. Verses 11 through 13. Somebody read that for us, please. 11 through 13. Oh, wait a minute. No, sorry. 10 through 13. For no great and powerful king has asked for the name of any magician, or enchanter, or chaldean. The thing that the king asked is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. Because the 13th, because the king was angry and very furious and demanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. So the decree went out from the wise men and the wise All right. They might not be quite as dumb as we think, though. Why? What do they say in verse 11? And whose dwelling is not with flesh. They pretty much just admitted, yeah, we can't. This is outside of our power. And if this is outside of our power, logic would presume that everything else that they've ever said is outside of their power, too. And so, obviously, they said, King, we can't do it. This is outside of, there is no human being who can do this. Is that a good thing to acknowledge? What's that? Well, but for us, for most people, you can say, hey, I don't have any answers for you, but I have a God who, I know a God who does. Right? That's a pretty good place for, that's actually a pretty wise person. If you have somebody who gives you that kind of advice, says, well, I don't have ever, I can't tell you exactly what to do or everything, but I know a God who's got a book and he's told us some things and we can use those to figure out, that's true wisdom, right? So they're not completely and totally ignorant. They know, when the push comes to shove, they're like, all right, you got us, we can't do it, it's gotta be God. I don't think Nebuchadnezzar, Really cares about that, though, because his response is immediate, right? He became angry and very furious and said, all right, kill them all. Kill them all. So the decree went out and the wise men were about to be killed, and they looked for Daniel and his companions to kill them, which tells us that Daniel and his companions were at least in some way connected to this group of counselors, of wise men. They don't seem to be in these enchanters, sorcerers, you know, but they are wise men. And he's expanded, all right, so you guys are supposed to be wise, but he's, Daniel and his friends are now included in this, and so they go to look for them. And the king's wrath is incredible, a decree of death for all wise men. And they put their finger right on the main point of this. No one can show it to the king except the gods, and we know it's not the gods, it's the god. All right, 14 through 16. Somebody read those. Daniel was right. He replied in a brutal, brutal expression to Ariadne. He asked her to please guard, or God knows, kill the white men of Babylon. and Ariok made the matter known to Daniel. And Daniel went in and requested to meet him at that time, thinking he'd show him the interpretations to the king. Okay. So Ariok, the captain of the king's guard, he's the one that's been told, go find them all, go kill them. And Daniel's like, what's going on? I kind of like to know why I'm being killed, you know. Can you tell me what's going on? What's so urgent about this? And Ariok made the matter known, explained it to him. Which is, right, Daniel's showing wisdom. He's trying to figure out, you know, get to the bottom of what's going on here. And then, what is Daniel's response? What does he do? What does he tell Ariok? Yeah, yeah? He says, hey, get me in to see the king. That he might appoint a time that he might show the interpretation to the king. Well, obviously, that's completely different than anybody else said, right? He's gonna, it appears, right, the first thing he says, what has he got to lose but to try? All right, so Daniel's being wise, But we're gonna find out here, he's also exhibiting an incredible amount of faith. As we get into the next section, it'll become clear why I say that. So somebody read verses 17 through 24. Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Ananias, Michal, 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 like the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery would be revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. And Daniel blessed the God of heaven, and Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever to whom 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 darkest, and the light dwells within. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and I can have now made known to me what we ask of you, for you have made known to us that kings matter. Therefore, Daniel went when the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon, he went and said thus to them, do not destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me before the king and I will show the king the interpretation. Okay. Why do I say that Daniel has faith? Huh? He prayed. He got friends together and they prayed. Yeah, right, I mean, he believes that God's gonna, he has no idea, but he makes the appointment before he goes to God. Isn't that amazing? That's a pretty, I mean, that's a man who trusts that God is going to give an answer here. Because, what does he do? You're right, Daniel and his companions, what a great phrase, right? He brings Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah together, and they told them to seek mercy from God. Not, hey, God just tell us what division. They say, no, God, save us. We need you to save us, because we don't have any answers here. We're, there's, if you don't save us, we're done. They're pleading to God for mercy, concerning the mystery, and so, so that they, why, so that they wouldn't be destroyed. That's literally what it says. That's like, we don't want to die. We need you to save us. You're the only one. And so they pray, and then, God answers the prayer. You know, seemingly right after that, maybe the same night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night, and Daniel blessed the God of heaven. And so what does he do in the next, those several verses, 20 to 23? He praises God. He says, God, you've shown me how great, I mean, he literally, acknowledges God's sovereignty over everything, and that you have sovereignly given me the answer to this question. He acknowledges who God is, that he has power over everything, and that he has come and rescued Daniel and his companions, and a bunch of Babylonian wise men, right? So they happen to catch on the coattails, That's the way it is. So he praises him, acknowledges who he is, and then he gives him thanks and praise, because you gave me wisdom and might, and you've made known to me what we ask of you. You answered my prayer. And so he praises God. What a great example of faith. Make the appointment, pray, receive the answer from God, and then praise God for who he is. And then Daniel acts. He continues. He says, all right. Ariok, give me the appointment, I've got the answer. And it's just amazing that he continually is pointing, praising God and pointing others to God. Keep count of that, but listen for that in the rest of the passage, because he continues to try not to point to himself, but point to God as we go on, all right? Verse 25 through 31. Daniels comes before the king. Somebody read 25 through 31. Then Ariophoros took Daniel before the king and came, and said thus to him, I have found among thee a spot exiled to Judah, a man who will make known to the king his reputation. The king declared to Daniel his name All right. Notice Ariok. How does he come to the, when he comes to King Nebuchadnezzar, what does he tell him? Huh? He says, hey, I've found a guy. That's kind of the picture here. He says, hey, I found a guy. I found a guy in the midst of all these guys who can answer the question. So he got somebody else who's trying to get a little bit of credit, right? This contrast with what Daniel says. And so Daniel is before the king, right? Are you able to make known to me the dream and interpretation? And what does Daniel say first of all? He says the same thing the Chaldeans said. The exact same thing. He says, no wise man, enchanter, magician, or astrologist can show you the king, the mystery that the king has asked. But there's a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he's made it known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. In that last line, where's Daniel? Think about that. There's a God in heaven who reveals mysteries and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, we would have put ourself right there in the middle. God made known to me so I can tell, you know, so I'm going to tell you what God told me. But he, Daniel's already not putting himself in the middle of the equation. He is saying, God has revealed it to you. This, this dream is for you. Daniel's in the middle of it, but he's like, it's actually God speaking to you, King Nebuchadnezzar. And he says it again, the mystery has been revealed to me, not because I've got any wisdom, right? I'm not anything special that I have more than all the living or anything, you know. but that you would know the interpretation. That's why this is happening. God is speaking to you and letting you know what's gonna happen. Daniel is trying to completely pull himself out of this and push, say, this is God. God is speaking to you, Nebuchadnezzar. And the implied message is, you probably better listen. Right? I mean, that's the implied message here. So, verse 31. Well, I didn't hit my button here. He gives God's glory. And again, he's saying it's not me. God's purpose is what's going on here. All right. I didn't use AI like Charlie did when he did, but this is a pretty cheesy picture of the, of the image that he sees, verses 31 through 36. You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. In the head of this image was a fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. And 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 floor. 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." All right? Straightforward, this is what he saw, and it shows him the dream, the statue, and the stone. So, this weird mixed media statue, right? If you're an artist, mixed media, right? So, trying to figure out what it means, but without what happens next, there's no, There's no way to understand what's going on here, right? This is, he's just, the first thing he does is just tell him the dream. And evidently, he must be right. Because if he was wrong about that part, you would think that Nebuchadnezzar would have jumped in and say, nice try, you're the first one, off with your head. But he doesn't. Daniel gets to keep going. Verse 36. This was the dream. Now we will tell you, the king, its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power and the might and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of men, the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all, you are the head of gold. Okay? So, head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar, kingdom of Babylon. I know that that's the only interpretation because that's exactly what it says. Daniel says, you're the head of gold. Right? So, if somebody tells you that the head of gold is something else, they're gonna have to argue with what Daniel said that that's what it is. And what does he also do when he's telling the king, hey, good news, king, you're the gold head on top. That scene would be, that's probably pretty good. But what is, Daniel immediately softens this by what does he say, the God of heaven has given this kingdom to you. This is not Your kingdom, it's been given to you by God. You are in this place because God put you there. And so, again, he's just very clearly there. And then, another in kingdom, another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you. And yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw, the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom. But some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you shall iron mix with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw, the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay." So what are the other We will head down the statue, right? We have gold ending up with clay. We're going to move down in value to the bottom. Nebuchadnezzar is the gold head. Nebuchadnezzar. The chest, the silver chest. is Persia, or Medo-Persia. That's the next kingdom. In fact, we don't even get through the end of chapter six, and we know that's the next kingdom. It's Medo-Persia. I'm going to present what is my interpretation and the overwhelmingly traditional interpretation of what these are. fringe who would probably say just a little bit different than this, but this is the overwhelming traditional Christian position. So we have Persia, the next would be the Greek kingdom, Alexander the Great conquers most of the known world. Later on, so that's the bronze, the middle section and thighs bronze, that's Alexander the Great's kingdom. And then the feet of iron, or the legs of iron, is the Roman Empire. That's the overwhelming interpretation. And then the Roman Empire gets divided. Right? And that's the feat. Right? And so we're really in the divided kingdom part right now. Right? There's, Rome doesn't hold together because Rome tries to get, to bring together all of these different nationalities and even has the picture of intermarriage. They try to intermarry, but it doesn't work. And so that's why they're, so they're strong, but yet they're very fragile. They can't hold together. Right? Back from Nebuchadnezzar all the way through to present time, there's a decreasing power of these earthly kingdoms, and we're going to end up where we are now, right? It's divided, and everything's mixed together, and there's no... Any comment on it? Anybody else have an opinion on that? I think what's really interesting is that this is the exact opposite of how people would view the Empire. Babylon was smaller than Medo-Persia. Medo-Persia is way smaller than Alexander's empire and the four that followed, I assume you're including that with Greece too, Ptolemy. Right. Rome was Spain all the way to almost India. Each one has more people, more money, more moving forward in history, and yet, God identifies them all as less and less and less. Right. Yep. That's, again, God is looking at history different than man is looking at history. So, now we have the stone. Right? In the dream, he sees a stone cut out of a mountain, and he points out clearly, not by human hands. The stone is cut out of the mountain, comes down, strikes the feet of the statue, and breaks them all up, destroys them completely. How completely? Like chaff, right? You've seen the picture on the old threshing floor, and you throw it up, and what happens? The little dust is blown away by the wind and the kernels or the pods fall right back in because the wind can't carry them. So the stone comes down from the mountain, hits the statue, and obliterates all the kingdoms, all of them, right? The picture here is that and what happens to the stone after it hits them? It becomes a huge mountain and it fills the earth. Who is the stone? What is the stone? I think you know the answer. Christ is the stone. Jesus identifies himself as the stone. Let's go to Luke 20, 17 and 18. Amen. Right. Jesus, he's he's he's he's actually saying, look, all these earthly kingdoms that are coming after you, you're here sitting here in a good spot. Right. You're the head. But there's coming a kingdom. There's coming one who is going to destroy every kingdom on earth. And he's got his kingdom will eventually fill the whole earth. There will be no completely earthly kingdom until Christ's kingdom is established. So whatever they all tell you about the man's attempt to create a one world government and all those things, just know they're gonna fail. There'll be no kingdom that covers the whole earth until Christ's kingdom covers the whole earth. I think we can say that Christ is quoting when he says the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. He's quoting Psalms 118, 22, Isaiah 8, 14, 28, and 16. But the point is all kingdoms are going to be ground to literal dust by the kingdom of God and the reign of Christ. And that is good news for us. And so what happens next, the final thing. Somebody read, let's see, hold on, there we go. Yeah, 46 through 49. King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, and came down unto Daniel, and commanded that he, that an offering of incense be offered unto him. King answered and said to Daniel, truly your God is the God of gods, Lord of kings and Daniel trusted God, exhibited faith, acted on his faith, and the king gets the message. Isn't that amazing? The king gets the message. And what I mean by that is he does say, hey, Daniel, Good, you're a good guy. I like you, right? He says, he pays homage, right? Gives him honor, commanded that offerings be offered up to him. But what does he say in verse 47? Your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries. And he says, you, he seems to acknowledge here that God spoke to you for me, right? He's going through Daniel, and he's acknowledging that Daniel was the instrument, and he honors him as the instrument because Daniel was faithful, but he recognized that Daniel's God, God of gods and Lord of kings, that's sovereign God. Your God is the God over all kingdoms, over all peoples. Nebuchadnezzar gets that message through Daniel's faithfulness. And Daniel gets promoted, not by anything that he has done, but by the sovereign hand of God. I've already said all this, but here's the note. Daniel's promoted to basically Prime Minister, kind of, and he's the head of all the wise men, and he asked the king to promote Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and over the affairs of the province, makes them governors over the province. But Daniel King was like, no, I want you to stay here with me in my court, because I know You've got access to the God who has the knowledge and wisdom that I need. And again, just the overwhelming picture of God sovereignly moving in this situation to steer the king of Babylon. through dreams and through his ridiculous demand, right? He uses, God uses all of that to steer him and gets him to where King Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges that he's the God of gods and the Lord of kings. And that's, again, I think we just have to marvel at God's sovereign will and his sovereign providence in our world. Any other questions or comments? Yeah? That's two weeks from now. Two weeks from now. Yeah. It's a roller coaster. Nebuchadnezzar is a roller coaster. Isn't that true of all of us? Yeah, Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges God, but then, hey, now that I got this figured out, I'm the gold guy. I'm going to go with that. I'm going to go with that for a while, you know. you know, Daniel never ever says, I am a prophet. I am an interpreter of dreams. You know, it's always, well, let's pray and God made you this. And, you know, I mean, I don't know, even, I don't know, like even today, you've got people who think that because God worked through them in some way, that they have the power to work that way. And it's like, this is all up to the Holy Spirit. This has nothing to do with you. Keep praying. Yeah. Doesn't that already, this is a clue, right? When we get to the part where the Daniel and the lions did in chapter six, right? Daniel's like, what was Daniel's response when this came to him? He got his buddies together and they started praying. So Daniel six is not the first time that we hear about Daniel's prayer life. He goes to the throne room, at the earliest opportunity every time and we're going to come back to that some more.