Unforgettable

Daniel 2

 

We have learned that Daniel had an uncompromising character. And because of that, he becomes God’s chosen man.  He becomes a prophet, whose prophecies will make up the most detailed schematic outside of Revelation.  And those prophecies are playing out daily before our eyes.

 

Now, looking back at Daniel 1:17, we see a very important point. It says, “As for these four youths” - and that would be Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, his three friends. “But as for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom;” – and listen to this – “and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.” Now that little statement sets Daniel apart from the rest. Daniel was given the unique capacity to reveal visions and dreams.

 

In other words, Daniel was to be an agent of God’s revelation. Daniel was to be the instrument through whom God would speak. This amazing teenager is given the most complete, the most comprehensive and the most extensive, prophetic picture of human history ever given in the Old Testament. An amazing prophesy that begins to unfold in verse 31 of chapter 2.

 

His life was usable. His kind of uncompromising virtue, and character, put him in a position to influence the whole world. And that is precisely what he did and what he still does through his book, his prophecy. The whole marvelous plan of God for the nations, the Gentiles, for Israel, is all unfolded to Daniel.

 

Influence is the favorite word of the younger generation.  Everyone seems to want to be an influencer and get lots of attention.  Daniel, on the other hand, didn’t care if he was remembered or not.  A foreigner in exile, he would be very likely forgetten both during his life, and certainly after he was gone.  And yet he proved in the end to be unforgettable.

 

First, we’re going to see the dream of the king, then we’re going to see the dilemma. Then we’ll move to the deficiency and, finally, the decree..

 

Without question, Nebuchadnezzar gets more ink in the Old Testament than any other pagan king. He was a genius, an educator, an architect, and a great military mind.

 

The Dream

vv. 1-3     Since when does God reveal great historical prophetic truth through a pagan king? That’s really a new thing. Israel at this time was morally and spiritually just about as bad off as the Babylonians. God frankly had little to choose between. Actually, Israel was worse off than the Babylonians because Israel had become apostate. It is one thing not to know the truth, it is something else to know it and forsake it.  My mind goes to NYC, who on 9/11 said ‘Never Forget’ and this week, less than 25 years later, have forgotten.  A city full of Jews and they picked someone who believes in waging war against them. 

 

Israel knew the truth and forsook it.  And so Israel had come to a place where God was finished dealing with them for the time.  And God sometimes uses a wicked person or nation to judge another.  No leader, whether a President, King, or even a Mayor, must be a believer in order for God to execute His divine will through them.

 

God’s people had degenerated into gross idolatry. Judgment was falling on them in the Babylonian captivity. What an amazing rebuke it was to God’s people for God to choose the single greatest revelation of the history of redemption to be given through the dreams of a pagan king.

 

He was lying in bed one night and he was thinking to himself, “You know, I’m not going to live forever. I wonder what’s going to happen when I die. Will I be forgotten? I wonder what’s going to take place in the history of the world.” Cataclysmic things had taken place. They had wiped out all their major enemies in their world, including the mighty Egyptians. And Nebuchadnezzar is saying to himself from the vantage point of ruling the world as he knew it, “I wonder what’ll happen to this whole thing as I die.” And as he went to sleep, God gave him the answer as he dreamed dreams.

 

These dreams were so shocking and they were so deeply alarming that he was unable to sleep.

 

I don’t think God is in a business of revelations anymore, since Hebrews 1 says He’s spoken unto us finally in these last days through His Son. But in those days God chose to speak through dreams.

 

He was paralyzed by his dream, and very confused on top of it all. There is much to fear and Nebuchadnezzar knew that. And so he calls for the brain trust of his nation.

 

And so everybody came together with all of the scholarship that was available, with all of the occultism that was available, with all the demonism that was available, with all the human wisdom that was available. He got all the fortune tellers and the futurists and the palm readers and the crystal gazers and the horoscope people, just like we do today trying to get a hedge on tomorrow, trying to figure out what was going to happen. It’s amazing that that’s what our world does. Because we don’t know God, whenever somebody in our society wants to know what’s going to happen in the future, they pull together all the brain trust and try to figure it out.

 

These guys would listen to the king recounting his dream, and then just make educated guesses that might make sense.  All they needed to know was the dream.

 

But the king had forgotten it. 

 

The Dilemma

v. 5          Now he will find out if they can really interpret things!

v. 6          Great rewards if we can do it.  Too bad we have no idea what to say.

 

He must’ve thought the whole pile of them were a bunch of charlatans. And he finally got his moment where he’d really lay it on them heavy. You’re so smart, you’ve got all this supernatural information, you’re always saying you speak for the gods, you know the destinies of men. All right, tell me the dream and its interpretation. Let’s see if you can pull it off.

 

This sets up Daniel for the rest of the years of his life as the mouthpiece of God unequaled by any of the Babylonian wise men.

 

This phrase there in verse 5 “you shall be cut to pieces” is amazing. I’ll whack you into little pieces. That’s a pretty devastating thing for a whole huge group of people. And then he says I’ll make your house a manure pile. You know, this was often done. When somebody had dishonored themselves they would kill the person, they would smash down the house and they would build a public outhouse on the same piece of property. I’ll turn your houses into outhouses is what he said. [Read 2 Kings 10:27]  On the other hand, if you do what I ask you to do, I’ll reward you greatly.

 

v. 7          They’re really sticking to their ground. They really haven’t got any other choice. They couldn’t do a thing with their fakery and their trickery unless they knew the dream.

 

He said ‘no way.’

He may have been sort of an atheist at this point, not believing in any god. And he wanted to show them up for the phonies that they were.

 

The Deficiency

vv. 10-11         The only place you’re going to read the future is in the Bible.

 

This is proof that Satan can’t read our minds. Because if Satan could read our minds, then believe me, he could could reiterate our thoughts.

 

“Only the gods could do what you are asking.”

In their stupidity they were right again. The only place you could get that information is from a supernatural source, right. It’s not available on the Earth. What a dilemma. They are about to lose their life, they’re about to lose everything they possess, they have already lost all their credibility, they are given an impossible thing that they cannot do. They are trapped in their human deficiency.

 

The Decree

v. 12        Anger never knows any limits. Anger never draws any parameters. Anger just smashes everybody who gets in front of it. He is mad.

 

He is mad because he’s afraid. He’s scared to death about the dream he had. He is mad because he can’t remember the details. He is mad because he can’t trust his wise men. And if he can’t trust his wise men to tell him the truth now, he’s sure that all the things they’ve been telling him in the past are phony things too. And he’s upset because they criticize him and say he has no right to ask that. And he is mad, he is furious, he has stooped to the depths that some monarchs go to when their particular wills are crossed. And so he just gives an execution order and says, “Slaughter every one of them.”

 

v. 13        Why? Because Daniel and his fellows were part of the court advisors. They were young apprentices in training to be part of the “wise men.”  So they weren’t originally called upon, but in his mind they are the up and coming phonies.

 

Now we go from “The Forgotten Dream” to “The Unforgettable Daniel.”

 

God has set him up. I mean you couldn’t have a better setup, right?

 

They’ve made a great big huge announcement to the king that none of this is available to human beings. Only a god could reveal this. This is supernatural stuff, it’s beyond us. Nobody would ask this, we can’t handle it, it’s an impossibility. And that is exactly where God wants the situation for his man Daniel. And he moves in. He is God’s man with a message. He is commissioned to reveal a great prophetic truth. He is a man for a crisis time.

 

In the next few verses we see that Daniel was calm and composed. Even though his life was on the line, he never panicked. He was like the Charlie Kirk of those days.  He had this amazing confidence in God. He knew his destiny rested in God’s sovereign will. And though he was confronted by men, in verse 14, who sought to take his life, there is no panic, there is no frustration, there is no despair. Just composure. People who respond like that in a crisis are already prepared before the crisis comes. They’ve already got it together. He spoke with counsel and wisdom.

 

We need a sense of calm in the midst of chaos. Because the world is chaotic, and the ministry of the church is often chaotic.  It is by God’s grace alone we are able to be calm while everybody else is falling apart. Be the rocks upon which God’s work continues to stand.

 

He was not only composed he was courageous.

Verse 16          He is a teenager, folks. He’s got to be between 17 and 19 years old at this point, having just finished his three years of training. And he’s a Hebrew, which means he’s a captive.

 

He goes in to Nebuchadnezzar who is foaming at the mouth, fire and brimstone. And here comes this young upstart, one of his wise men who is nothing but an apprentice.

 

His courage is almost audacious. Who is he? Who is he to go before Nebuchadnezzar? But he had a strong confident faith in God and he was willing to face this frustrated, raging king.

 

How did Daniel know he’d ever be able to tell that dream? Because Daniel knew what chapter 1, verse 17 said. That God had given him the ability to reveal dreams and visions.

 

Why did the king listen? Well, maybe because of chapter 1, verse 20 where it says that when a king examined those young men, he found Daniel and the others to be ten times wiser than the wisest men in Babylon.

 

When you know you stand on God’s word, and have God’s truth undergirding what you do, you can be composed and courageous no matter what kind of chaos is going on around you.

 

Remember the apostle Paul and the shipwreck in Acts? The sea was in turmoil, they had jettisoned the cargo. They were in the dark. They hadn’t eaten in 14 days. They were waiting to crash and smash and all drown on the rocks of the north coast of Africa.

 

And in the midst of all of this with the frenzy and the panic going on, Paul stands up and says, “All right, everybody. Be of good cheer. For nobody shall be lost. We’ll only lose the boat.” He goes on to explain that God had told him this.  If you’re doing what’s right, you have nothing to fear.

 

vv. 17-18         I don’t care what your gifts are. I don’t care what your record of success is. Anybody who goes into any kind of a crisis should know that you go in first of all on your knees or you’re the biggest fool of all. Daniel didn’t expect to receive what he needed without prayer. He didn’t expect to receive it because he had been given a special gift. It would have to be from the mercy of the God in heaven.

 

In a crisis you don’t take your troubles to other people, but to God. The Babylonian religion worshipped the heavens. But Daniel and his friends went to the God of heaven.

 

I think that’s just a kind of a little dig at the Babylonian system. They studied all about the heavens but they didn’t know the God of heaven. And they prayed.

 

Mary Queen of Scots said, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than an army of 10,000 men.”

 

Daniel and his bros laid hold of God in prayer and got answered. And in the middle of the night, God gave them the answer. The dream was made clear.

 

Verse 19          Daniel gave the glory to God.

 

Verse 26          The king still has his doubts that anyone can both tell him WHAT he dreamed as well as what it meant.

 

We get a glimpse into Daniel’s spirit of humility in verses 27-28.

 

It must’ve been a shock for Nebuchadnezzar because Daniel rehearsed all the events of him lying down and thinking about the future, and then as he told him what he dreamed it must’ve all come flooding back to him.  The king realizes Daniel’s God is real!

 

v. 30        He says, I can’t take any credit for this. I’m not anybody special. I’m not better than anybody else. God is the revealer of secrets. He has done it for his own purposes. What a heart of humility. Listen. The man for a crisis is rightly related to himself. He’s got it together in his own heart. The man for a crisis is rightly related to God. He has it right with the Lord. The man for a crisis is rightly related to other people. He loves them and he doesn’t think of himself as better than they.

 

Daniel is an incredibly rare kind of man. And that’s exactly why God used him the way he used him.  He became the most used prophet of all time.  Though he didn’t seek notoriety, he became unforgettable, as did his prophecies which all started with a forgotten dream.

 

And that’s exactly why when Ezekiel named three righteous men of history [Ezek. 14] he put Daniel in the middle of Noah and Job. Next time, we’re going to find out what the dream said.