The Plight of Man and the Power of God

Date 28 10 01? Text Daniel 1 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

We looked the other week at Daniel 1. I want to look again at this wonderful book concentrating this morning on Daniel 2. Daniel 1 tells us about the 6th Century BC and how, in God’s Providence, following Jerusalem’s fall to the Babylonians, Daniel and his three friends (then aged about 14) were deported from Judah by Nebuchadnezzar and brought to Babylon to be educated in the University of Babylon. Even in an alien environment these young men took a strong stand for the truth, refusing to eat food sacrificed to idols. They were also diligent students. Nebuchadnezzar was very impressed with them indeed. In Chapter 2 we learn how, having begun to work in the Babylonian civil service, Daniel, though still a young man, rose to a position of great prominence. It followed his interpretation of a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had that was a revelation from God about the future. By looking at the dream and interpretation and the circumstances surrounding it we can learn several things.

1. Understand the plight of man

1. God reveals himself to man but man is perplexed and seeks answers

1 God reveals himself to man in various ways but man is perplexed by these revelations

Verse 1 In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep. He was a great king but he was a very troubled man. His dreams disturbed him. We all know what it is to have a restless night’s sleep for one reason or another. It’s not known why we dream but it is said that we do it whenever we sleep, though most of us usually don’t remember what we dream. Dreams are often more vivid and easier to remember when we sleep lightly. It would seem then that in the midst of a troubled night of sleep Nebuchadnezzar had the dream recounted in this chapter. One gets the impression it was a recurring dream. From time to time in Scripture God uses dreams to reveal things to individuals – think of Pharaoh in Genesis, Joseph in the Gospels, etc - and that’s what happens here. Even in the Bible it is an unusual way for God to speak and to what extent God speaks through dreams today is debatable. What is undeniable, however, is that God has revealed himself to men. In various providences – dreams, illnesses and similar circumstances, through strange experiences. Also in creation itself – the heavens and the land, the sea and the air, etc, all testify to the Creator. God has especially revealed himself in the Bible and through the preaching of the message of the Bible in various ways through various media.

However, just as Nebuchadnezzar was perplexed and confused by his dreams so it is the norm for men and women to be puzzled and mystified by God’s revelations. All the providences in their lives point them to God and creation itself continues its mute witness to his eternal power and divine nature. The Bible and the preaching of the Gospel go on, yet so often people remain unchanged. Why? Not so much because the revelation is unclear but because of their own shortsightedness and blindness. Like Nebuchadnezzar, they know the privilege of God himself speaking to them but they don’t understand. They are like people in Jesus’s day who heard God himself speak from heaven but convinced themselves that it had simply thundered. Is that you? You listen to preaching but it simply leaves you perplexed? So often people say they don’t believe in God because they have no reason to. Yet God is speaking to those people – sometimes very loudly. Have you ever thought of it this way? The problem is not that God’s not speaking but that people are not listening.Think of someone pulling out the plug on their phone and saying no-one rings or plugging up the letterbox and saying no-one writes. God is speaking. Day after day he pours forth speech, night after night he is not silent. Your problem is not that you have no reason to trust in God, your problem is that though God speaks you don’t by nature understand what he says. It’s like the caricature of the Englishman speaking with a foreigner. He assumes they cannot communicate because the other man is either stupid, deaf or he is not speaking clearly. He never allows for the idea that the man is simply using a language other than English. God is speaking – the only problem is that you are either not listening or you have failed to take into account the fact that he is speaking a language with which you are unfamiliar. And when he speaks it troubles you. It’s frightening to come face to face with your future.

2 Man instinctively turns for help to those who are wise in this world’s eyes

It is not that people do not try to understand what God reveals. Like Nebuchadnezzar they do look for answers. But where do they turn? Like him they instinctively look to other men, to those considered to be wise according to this world’s standards. Verses 2, 3 So the king summoned the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers {Chaldeans} to tell him what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood before the king, he said to them, I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means. Today people turn to various so-called experts looking for answers scientists and psychiatrists, to mediums and to astrologers, to therapists and other specialists of various sorts. People are looking for answers. They look to philosophy and to psychology, to religion and to science, to human wisdom ancient and modern, they look east ands west, high and low. They are desperate for someone who can make some sense of their world, who can explain their dreams or tell them who they are, who can show them how to find peace or teach them how to live. They want to know where they cam e from , why they are here and what the purpose of life is. They want someone to explain their experiences to them and show them a better way forward. Sadly, like Nebuchadnezzar, for the most part they turn to those who dispense only human wisdom and although human wisdom is not to be despised entirely – it can teach us many things that are right - the truth is that human wisdom on its own will never enable us to make proper sense of anything. APP Is that your problem? You’re scratching around looking for human answers to the things that perplex and puzzle you? If you look only to men you’ll never get an adequate answer.

2. Men claim to know the truth but are limited and devious (4-6)

It would seem that Nebuchadnezzar knew his wise men well and was aware of a certainty tendency towards mendacity in them. That is to say that they did not always tell him the truth. Being a wise ruler himself he saw that if he simply told them his dream and then waited for their interpretation then they could tell him more or less anything and he had no way of knowing whether they had some deep insight into it or not. And so as a test he declared that he would not tell them the dream. If they really were as expert as they claimed then they would be able to work out what the dream was as well as the interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar’s extreme statement If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble suggests a certain frustration with these experts. He felt that they had been stringing him along with false information and lies in the past. He was not going to be fooled again. And isn’t this the way it is so often with human experts? They are very grandiose in their claims about what they know and how they can prove this and that but when you look a little more closely then you see that things are often much less convincing than they seem to be. Many claim to know the future but look out for words like probably, possibly, experts believe, scientists are reasonably sure, etc. So often what are trumpeted as the assured finding of modern science or ancient wisdom that has helped many in the past is in fact a tissue of lies. We must not be gullible. While not running to the extremes of the tyrannical Nebuchadnezzar, we must emulate his steely determination not to have the wool pulled over our eyes. To many people are willing to be fobbed off with half-baked ideas that do not stand up. Get real. Think about what the experts are saying. See how circumstantial their so-called evidence is. Don’t let them sell you a false dream. Don’t believe a lie.

3. The world always has an excuse why it cannot understand.

Of course, the worldly wise always have excuses as to why they cannot provide the information you require.

1 They need more information (7-9)

Once more they replied, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will interpret it. Then the king answered, I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realise that this is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me the dream, there is just one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me. Why can’t atheists show there is no God? Why has no-one ever been able to disprove one verse of the Bible? Why has evolution never been proved? The world will tell you that they just need more time. Give us more time, they say, and we will show that what we are saying is true. If we just had a little more information we could prove it to you. But they have had thousands of years and still they have got nowhere. Do not believe the ‘more information’ lie.

2 It is impossible to know certain things that are, in fact, knowable (10, 11)

The astrologers answered the king, There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. What the king asks is too difficult. No-one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men. This is another popular tack. You cannot prove whether there is a God or not. You cannot prove whether the Bible is true or not. You cannot prove creation or the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. What they really mean is you cannot prove it according to our principles and rules. Like these men here they say it is impossible, too difficult. And when you say but with God nothing is impossible they say that he does not live among men. They are very dismissive. They will not accept that line of argument.

4. Have the right attitude to those who falsely claim to know the truth

In  verses 12, 13 we read that This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon. So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death. On the one hand, one sympathises with Nebuchadnezzar in his fury and frustration and yet we immediately recognise that this is unfair. It is just in the sense that these men were claiming to be very wise and able to solve every problem but it was a complete lie. On the other hand they really were in ignorance and were not trying to be obtuse. They really did not know what Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed. Perhaps this teaches us what our attitude ought to be those who claim to be wise but are in fact anything but. Yes, it should make us angry, righteously angry, that such lies are perpetrated, that people are so proud and self-sufficient. Yet, on the other hand, there ought to be a great deal of compassion towards them too. They really don’t know. For all their apparent confidence, they are in the dark. They haven’t a clue. For all their upbeat talk they know in their hearts what ignorance is theirs. It comes out sometimes in their dying words. 

Eg Oscar Wilde ‘I am dying, as I have lived, beyond my means.’

Robert Ingersoll, life’s like a valley between peaks ‘We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud and the only answer is the echo of our wailings.’

Esward Gibbon ‘All is dark and doubtful.’

Often, they are condemned because of their ignorance as men become fed up with their lies and announce their demise. Death is their end certainly unless God intervenes.

2. Understand the power of God

1. How to react to man’s hopeless situation

1 With wisdom and tact seek opportunities be salt and light

So all the wise men were to die and that included Daniel and his friends. On hearing the news from Arioch, commander of the King’s guard, Daniel, we read, spoke to him with wisdom and tact asking the reason for the harsh decree. He then very bravely went into the king and asked for time. There are no obvious parallels between Daniel’s situation but we can expect the same suspicion and opposition that is shown to experts to be shown to us. People who are suspicious of religion are understandably suspicious of us; people who are suspicious of those who claim to be wise will be equally sceptical about us. Often we cannot even get a hearing. People often do not reject the gospel but what they think is the gospel. What can we do about this? All we can do is use what wisdom and tact we have to secure a hearing for the gospel. That means being ready for what opportunities come. There are certain times when people are more willing to listen to us, eg certain times of the day or week, certain times of year, certain stages in life, following a bereavement, etc. We must be awake to these opportunities. Be cautious and ask for time; be bold by promising that we do have the answers.

2 Seek fellowship in the truth and pray earnestly

Although we work on our own, we need to share with others in this work. 17 Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. Especially we need to urge others to pray. Daniel did not think to himself ‘Well, I’m the one God will use there’s nothing the others can do.’ No (18) He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. It reminds us of how in the Book of Esther although she was the one to go into the King she wanted everyone else to fast and pray or how when Peter was in prison everyone else was praying for him in John Mark’s mother’s house. I preach, yes, but it is important that we all pray; only you can speak to those in your family who are unbelievers or your neighbours but we must all pray for one another. We often underestimate the power of prayer. This chapter teaches us not to. Are you praying for the advance of the gospel?

2. Look to God to reveal mysteries and praise him that he does

1 God alone can remove the mystery from his revelations

In verse 19 we read that During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. All God’s revelation contains a measure of mystery and without his aid we will never understand it. As we’ve said, the problem is not the clarity of the revelation but our failure to see as we ought to. Like a clearly printed book that a person with poor eyesight can’t be read until they put on spectacles. The one who enables us to see is, of course, the Holy Spirit. He is the one who revealed the truth to Daniel. He is the one who makes clear what the Bible says and God’s witness in creation and providence. You may wonder why it has to be this way but in this story you can see how God used it for his own glory. The same is true today.

2 Give praise to God that he does

Daniel’s reaction to this answer to prayer was great rejoicing and praise to God. It wasn’t just that his life would now be spared – God himself had spoken. Part of his praise is informed by what he learned from the revelation, as we shall see. 19b-23 Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said: Praise be to the name of God forever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king. Wisdom and power those are the two things Daniel give thanks for. God is all powerful and all wise. We see this when we read the Bible and understand what it means. Even though we know this we do not praise God as often or as much as we ought to.

3. Tell people the truth, giving all the honour to God

So we who are believers, we know the answer, we have the truth. Like Daniel we must tell it to others. 24-26 Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him. Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means. The king asked Daniel, Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it? Notice especially the way Daniel answers (27, 28) No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. He gives all the glory to God. We must do the same. That is what true Calvinism is all about. We will leave the detail of this dream and the interpretation to another time but basically it says that although there have been and will be many great human powers yet God himself has his own kingdom. It began in the time of the Romans with the coming of the Lord Jesus as a little baby in Bethlehem. Since then it has grown and grown and increasingly dominates this world. No human kingdom can stand against it. The implication is clear - trust in Christ and not in man. Enter his kingdom and do not live merely to serve a human empire.

4. The best sort of reaction we can expect

Now when we tell others about the kingdom of God we will meet with various reactions. They will often be impressed with the way we know their innermost thoughts. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say that they came to church with a friend and got really annoyed thinking that their friend had told the preacher all about them and that the sermon was just for them. Like the Samaritan woman they are amazed how much the preacher can know about them even though they have never met. This is because divine wisdom is not like human wisdom. It does not depend on mere human knowledge. You do not have to tell me your dreams for me to interpret them for you. In a sense I know all about you. I have read about you many times in the Bible. The reaction otherwise is not always positive but it often can be. Here it certainly was. 46-49 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honour and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. The king said to Daniel, Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery. Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. Moreover, at Daniel’s request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court. Basically, Nebuchadnezzar gave great honour to Daniel, and for his sake, his three friends, and he confessed the greatness of God. (NB Daniel did not forget his friends who had prayed with him). We cannot be certain that Nebuchadnezzar was then converted. That is probably to go too far but he was certainly impressed and at least at that moment bowed down to the true God. That is the sort of reaction we long for – for God to be praised and believers to be honoured once again as they once were. We long for this. If we are faithful in speaking out the message of God to men’s hearts that is what will happen.