Daniel 2: The Stone Empires Cannot Break - Tim Horman

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning, everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to be with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You all doing well?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me ask that again, you all doing well.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great to have a chat.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray and jump into the Word of God this morning together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we thank you that we can be here together today in your presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thank you that you are here with us and that you promise to lead us into all truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit, you speak, you guide, you lead, you teach.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we open up the word of God today, which is living and active, I pray that you're spirit, but Holy Spirit you would come and reveal what needs to be revealed in us, to bring courage, conviction, hope, faith, strength, whatever we need today, we pray that you would bring these things to bear in our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in His name we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we are in week two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel two of our Daniel series that we have called resisting Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: faithfulness in an age of decadence and death.

[SPEAKER_00]: And last week, as we set the scene for the book in chapter one, we explored what kind of person Daniel was, that really even as a teenager, because he was about 13 or 14 years old, somewhere there at the opening of the book.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel and his three friends, how is it they were able to live with such courageous faith even at that age in what for many of us would have seemed like impossible circumstances.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the secret to this, the secret to that we explored, I'm not going to go over the whole sermon again, is despite the fact that Babylon has renamed them, as you can see on the screen, we looked at this last week, as though even though Babylon has renamed them and is now attempting to remake them in its image, Daniel and his friends do not forget,

[SPEAKER_00]: who they truly are and they do not forget who's they truly are.

[SPEAKER_00]: They do not forget to whom they truly belong in his Daniel's name, suggests there, his Hebrew name, God is my judge.

[SPEAKER_00]: He does not forget in the midst of all that he faces, who it is that he will ultimately have to give an account of his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the key question that I asked last week was, who gets to name you?

[SPEAKER_00]: or who or what is naming you right now, who is telling you what is true, who is telling you what your life means, who is telling you what you should desire and what you should ultimately give your life to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who is it or what is it that you have, in fact, given your allegiance to?

[SPEAKER_00]: What vision of life are you actually pursuing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Despite may be calling Christ as Lord, what vision of life are you actually pursuing?

[SPEAKER_00]: So we know how Daniel answered those questions, and we see that in Daniel's private courage to resist, even in a small thing like the food he eats,

[SPEAKER_00]: which you know it may have been one of the only avenues of resistance that was available to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is those private acts of obedience that have actually lead him to live a life of incredible public boldness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually we discovered to become one of those powerful men,

[SPEAKER_00]: in the Babylonian Empire.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's all at the end of chapter one that at the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service.

[SPEAKER_00]: The chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar.

[SPEAKER_00]: The king talked with them and he found none equal to Daniel Hananiah, Michelle and Azariah, so they entered the king's service.

[SPEAKER_00]: In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the King questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and in Chantus in his whole kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what this doesn't happen because Daniel and his friends are so great, it happens because they know that the Lord is with them and they are prepared to trust the Lord and so they are able to prove themselves faithful in what is little so then God can

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, as I said last week, do not despise the day of small beginnings in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: The seemingly insignificant, private abidiances, those seasons when it may feel like nothing is happening, where God is not speaking, or that He's not giving you what you want, what you're praying for, when your faith is being tested.

[SPEAKER_00]: because it is in those seasons that our true character is being formed, and that will determine our destiny.

[SPEAKER_00]: What shapes our character will determine our destiny, and so if we're willing to allow the Lord to shape in us the character of Christ as difficult as that may be at times, then that will shape in us a life that is well-lived for the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love how Pastor Josh Howard's and puts it in a recent sermon of his that I was listening to.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says that when God wanted to make David a king, he doesn't give him a crown, he gave him a goliath.

[SPEAKER_00]: When God wanted to raise Joseph to a palace, he doesn't give him a short cut.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gives him a prison.

[SPEAKER_00]: When God wanted to make Esther a queen, he didn't give her comfort, he gave her a crisis.

[SPEAKER_00]: When God wanted to make Moses into a leader, he didn't give him a stage, he gave him a wilderness.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times when it feels like God is breaking you, he is actually building you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what you have to understand is that God doesn't always give you what you expect, but he will give you what you need to become who he needs you to be to fulfill his calling on your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone know what that feels like?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not easy at the time, is it?

[SPEAKER_00]: But when we see the fruit of what emerges through those seasons of discipline and faith, God does amazing things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you desire to follow Jesus with all your heart, I can't promise you much, but I can promise you this, your faith will be tested.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say an amen to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your faith will be tested, but don't despair, keep on trusting.

[SPEAKER_00]: God doesn't expect perfection, but He does ask faith of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He does ask us for faith, and it is because Daniel is faithful in the process of His testing that He is able to achieve all that God appointed Him to do in Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is amazing what God does through Daniel in Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: So remember what Jesus says in John 15, the reason that God does these things, that prunes our lives, takes us through seasons of testing, is as hard as it may seem at the time, it's because ultimately what He wants for you is for your life to bear good fruit, fruit that will remain and for you to experience fullness of joy and there are no shortcuts to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It happens as God leads us in His grace even in times of testing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is not punishment, friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's discipline, and God disciplines those he loves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now as we turn to Chapter 2, this scene is a little bit of a flashback in the storyline for where we end up with the clothes of Chapter 1, which kind of describes the end of Daniel's education experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this moment takes place in the second year, the second year of King Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and the second year of Daniel's education.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's not graduated yet, he's probably about 15 years old at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if last week was about the question, who gets to name you?

[SPEAKER_00]: The question I want to wrestle with this morning is where does true power reside?

[SPEAKER_00]: because what Babylon wants, so what Babylon is all about, is power.

[SPEAKER_00]: All the Babylon's of this world are about power.

[SPEAKER_00]: The power to rule, the power to control, the power to subjugate, the power to define what is true.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in one sense, Babylon's power is no joke.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nebuchadnezzar literally holds the power of life and death over those under his rule.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unlike the kings of Israel, who were themselves subject to the law of Moses or were supposed to be, it couldn't just do whatever they liked, Nebuchadnezzar is a law unto himself or so he thinks.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like all such leaders, who want to be as powerful as gods and who proudly believe that their empires are going to last forever, and the list of them is very long throughout human history, including a few on the world stage right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nebuchadnezzar is about to get a rude awakening.

[SPEAKER_00]: As every person will, every leader will get a rude awakening.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a rude awakening quite literally.

[SPEAKER_00]: For things are not as they seem, in the purposes of God, things as they appear on the surface are rarely as they seem.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in this moment,

[SPEAKER_00]: God is going to use Daniel powerfully to reveal the truth of where true power resides to Nebuchadnezzar, and to point us forward to a greater kingdom and a greater king, a king and a kingdom that will last forever, that is eternal, and a king who alone holds all power and authority forever and ever are men, which is what we of course believe has come into this world through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the chapter is about 49 versus long, so what I'm going to do is spend about a couple of minutes on each, which will mean we'll be here for about an hour and 40 minutes or so.

[SPEAKER_00]: That okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, to spare you from that, that's not okay, it's not okay for me, it's certainly not for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: To spare you from that, I'm going to just kind of walk us through what happens and I'll pick up a few verses along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the story, I said it this is all about a rude awakening, all the story begins when one night in the second year of his reign, Kim Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: or what probably seemed to him at the time, a nightmare.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't just because he had eaten too much pizza the day before, as we'll discover this stream has been sent to him by God, and it terrifies him.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can imagine what unfolded in this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nebuchadnezzar suddenly wakes up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Drench in a cold sweat, deeply troubled in his mind, and immediately he knows that this dream is a warning.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, from one of the gods or another, he's not sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: All he knows is that it's trying to tell him something really, really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, he doesn't know what that is.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't know what the dream is trying to say.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Nebuchadnezzar, at this point, is the most powerful man on earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nations trembled before him, vast armies obey him, cities fall at his command.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has enslaved tens of thousands of people and he could promote or kill at the wave of a hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yet here he is lying awake in the middle of the night in the darkness terrified.

[SPEAKER_00]: by something he does not understand for all his vast power.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is suddenly confronted by his very human weakness and vulnerability.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if you've ever been there, spent a cold sweat night because of some bad decision that you've made or news about a loved one that you're waiting to hear or a diagnosis that you've just received or a situation at work, it is horrible, the anxiety eats at you, you feel so small, you feel so powerless and this is what Nebuchadnezzar is feeling and my guess is that

[SPEAKER_00]: This is very uncomfortable for him, and so what happens is that in the dream, he sees an enormous statue.

[SPEAKER_00]: It has a head of gold, chest of arms of silver, stomach and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet made partly of iron and partly of clay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel, I'm just going to skip ahead, but what happens is that Daniel will later reveal to the king what each of these medals represent.

[SPEAKER_00]: The head, the gold head is Babylon and in fact is Nebuchadnezzar in particular and Daniel tells him that while the God of Heaven has given much into his hands, it will all soon be taken away.

[SPEAKER_00]: For another empire is going to rise in Syria as silver is to gold yet stronger and this is the Persian Empire that will eventually take over from Babylon, which in fact happens about 70 years after this moment after this dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: After that, the bronze part that will depose Persia is the Greek Empire, which comes via Alexander the Great, and that will rule for a time, and then finally a fourth empire will rise, an empire of iron, more powerful than all the others, terrifying, in fact, and interestingly the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age happens at about the time that the Romans took over from the Greeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we know that this is about the Roman Empire.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the Romans will be terrifying in their strength and will be unlike anything that the world has ever seen before.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now Daniel in his interpretation of the dream doesn't name the empires as I have just done, but we know that historically this is what he's talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: However Daniel tells the king that this whole statue stands as you can see on the image on something strange, feet that are made of this odd mix of iron and clay, which of course naturally do not mix.

[SPEAKER_00]: which essentially means that this whole edifice, this whole statue, is resting on rotten foundations.

[SPEAKER_00]: The statue has the appearance of overwhelming strength and power, but in fact it is as weak as dirt at the very bottom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Daniel says that this has something to do with people, a mysterious thing to say, and we'll come back to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Daniel says this to the king.

[SPEAKER_00]: A rock was cut out, but not by human hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is what Nebuchadnezzar sees in his dream that Daniel is reporting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the eye and the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaf on a threshing floor in the summer.

[SPEAKER_00]: The winds swept them away without leaving a trace, but the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he interprets this with these words in that time of those kings, he's referring to the Roman Empire.

[SPEAKER_00]: The God of Heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nor will it be left to another people.

[SPEAKER_00]: It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of the mountain, but not by human hands, a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold into pieces.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I think you probably already know what this rock represents.

[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, a rock, the Daniel tells us, has not been formed by human hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a supernatural rock, which is something that's not of this world comes hurtling toward the statue.

[SPEAKER_00]: It strikes the statue at its feet, and the whole thing collapses under its own weight, gold silver bronze clay, iron a smashed to dust and a blown away forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the stone that's broken the statue grows and grows and grows and grows to become a great mountain that fills the whole earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is Daniel talking about?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the thing is, Daniel has actually heard words like this is not the first time he's heard words like these.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows the scriptures, and he knows that hundreds of years earlier, David wrote a Psalm that speaks to these same things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is in fact one of the most quoted Psalms in the New Testament, and it goes like this, it's Psalm 2, why do the nations conspire, and the people plot in vain, the kings of the earth,

[SPEAKER_00]: Rise up, presumably like a great statue, and the rule is banned together against the Lord, and against his anointed saying, let's break their chains, throw off their shackles, in other words, let's just do whatever we want.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one in Throne in Heaven, on the other hand, laughs and the Lord scoffs at them.

[SPEAKER_00]: He rebukes them in his anger, he terrifies them in his wrath, and he says,

[SPEAKER_00]: I have installed my king on Zion, on my holy mountain, and I will proclaim the Lord's decree.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today you are my son, and I am your father, ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession, you will break them with a rod of iron, and you will dash them to pieces like clay.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is this speaking about?

[SPEAKER_00]: We've been singing about it this morning, haven't we?

[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm getting ahead of myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll come back to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: First, we know Nebuchadnezzar believes that this stream has some kind of divine origin because he wakes up and then he summons all of his magicians, mediums, sorcerers, priests, and wise men, all the experts in the law that have been through the same education program that Daniel's going through.

[SPEAKER_00]: And although Daniel is not called to this meeting, presumably because he's still a student, and no doubt Nebuchadnezzar has many questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does this dream mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: Was it a warning?

[SPEAKER_00]: What was the statue?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that represent?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is someone known enemy coming to destroy my empire?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that what the rock represents?

[SPEAKER_00]: And when all the men who'd been trained for this very thing,

[SPEAKER_00]: The ones who are supposed to be able to discern mysteries and speak on behalf of the gods when they rush from their beds or are called from their beds in the middle of the night and are now standing before the king, blurry eye, blinking in the light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nebuchadnezzar does something very unexpected.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what it is?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know if you've read this story before.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nebuchadnezzar is no fool.

[SPEAKER_00]: He realizes that the answer to this dream cannot be left a chance or fakeery.

[SPEAKER_00]: His empire might depend on it on the answer that he gets.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he knows that if the meaning of the dream is something that his sorcerers and magicians and mages and sages and wise men don't want to tell him, like if they think it's going to make him angry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then they'll just lie and they'll flatter him by saying whatever it is that he really wants to hear.

[SPEAKER_00]: So to test the truth of how his priests and sages will answer, he says to them that they must not only tell him the meaning of the dream, they also need to tell him what the dream even was.

[SPEAKER_00]: The astrologer said to the king,

[SPEAKER_00]: Please tell us you'll tell your servants the dream and we will interpret it like please tell us the dream and we will interpret it the king replied to the astrologers the sorcerers This is what I have firmly decided

[SPEAKER_00]: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you taunt a pieces and your houses turn into piles of rubble.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honour.

[SPEAKER_00]: So tell me the dream and then interpret it for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I pay you for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do your job.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you can almost hear the intake of breath, can't you?

[SPEAKER_00]: You can see the ringing of the hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sideways glances and suddenly the room becomes very, very quiet.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not how things are supposed to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now their heads are on the line.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they stall, but the king insists, and finally they admit the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: I imagine some brave sage, maybe the guy who draws the sword straw.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, he clears this throat nervously, and he says, what the king is asking is so difficult, but no one can make it known to him, except the gods,

[SPEAKER_00]: whose dwelling is not with models.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh no!

[SPEAKER_00]: They've just said the quiet part out loud.

[SPEAKER_00]: The confession reveals the truth of these so-called Babylonian gods that they do not speak.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are mute.

[SPEAKER_00]: They do not communicate.

[SPEAKER_00]: All these experts who read the stars examine the omens, consult the religious texts, apply whatever knowledge is available to them at the time and such things they're able to get by.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when a real mystery arrives, something that has been spoken by the one true God of heaven and not by human or demonic powers, then they are helpless.

[SPEAKER_00]: The lie is exposed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it reminds me actually of something

[SPEAKER_00]: Screw tape says to his demon under study in the screw tape letters if you've ever read that by CS Lewis in reference to how God speaks to people and screw tape says you know how one can never quiet over here what he says to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: The demonic powers are not permitted to hear what God speaks into the hearts of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our culture is not so different.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have financial analysts, political strategists, futurists, consultants of all kinds, trends, forecasters, really anyone with a TikTok account these days.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now we have the promise of the brave new world that AI is going to create for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: A future that many of the experts in these things believe is going to finally solve the problems that we humans have faced from the beginning disease, the challenge of good government, abundant energy, endless technology, wealth creation, and maybe even we might overcome death.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are many who really believe that this is what's going to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was telling that in a recent interview with the Economist magazine, which I watched recently, Elon Musk said that AI was probably going to usher in the greatest period of human abundance and achievement that we have ever known.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there was just that one telling word, probably.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean, to which Musk responded well?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's either that or it's going to destroy us completely.

[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is what Daniel's vision is actually trying to communicate to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: all human visions of utopia that are created by human power, human knowledge, human achievement, human rationality, human systems, human technology, no matter how advanced and spectacular, all have one problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is it that they are all made by humans?

[SPEAKER_00]: And humans have a fatal flaw that these symptoms, these technologies simply cannot overcome, which is what the scriptures simply call sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what the feed of clay represent in the statue.

[SPEAKER_00]: That has always been the ghost in the machine that we people are flawed, we are weak, we are sinful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as John Lennox writes in his commentary on Daniel, and expands on this in an interview he recently gave to Stephen Bartler, the director of his CEO and courage to watch it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: John Lennox writes in his commentary that history has taught us the hard lesson.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no pathway to paradise that bypasses the problem of the dark side of human nature.

[SPEAKER_00]: And friends, I don't need to tell you this.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are literally hundreds of millions of people who've been murdered under all the political utopias that we humans have come up with in the last century.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nazism, communism, nationalism, not to mention all the various forms of empire and authority and rule that we have created that have come and gone through the rest of human history.

[SPEAKER_00]: The problem with all of these utopias, all of these systems, all of these world views, all of these ideologies, is that they are filled with sinners.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the fatal flaw in the whole structure.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Daniel, two exposes the illusion that human knowledge, human power, human achievement can put us in control of our own destiny.

[SPEAKER_00]: because the problem with all of this is humanity itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that includes whatever is being promised by AI.

[SPEAKER_00]: AI may bring us many good things, but one thing it will not be able to do is fix the problem of human sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that, of course, this idea of human sinfulness is what lies at the root of Western democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reason Christians developed this method of methodology of government is that no, because we believe that we're all sinners therefore no one person should ever be invested with too much power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because they do terrible things when they get too much power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's not to commute, confused democracy with the kingdom of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is not what I'm saying, but as Winston Churchill once said, democracy is the very worst form of government, except for all the other forms.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, the point is that the statue doesn't just mean Babylon and Persia and Greece and Rome, it means the whole human attempt, the whole human project, since the fall to try and run the world, to try and make life meaningful without God at the center or miraculously without God as the foundation.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: As greatest Babylon and all the other Babylon's of this world make themselves out to be, and you know that Babylon in Scripture becomes a symbol for all the demonic principalities and powers and systems of this world starting with Babel, then Babylon itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then in Revelation Babylon is used as a metaphor over and over again for the kingdoms of the world that are opposed to the reign and rule of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here is the truth, no matter how powerful they make, make themselves out to be, these principalities and powers of the world as Paul calls them, are exposed for what they truly are.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as this vision points us forward to, what is the truth is that the Lord, the only Lord of history, there is only one, Lord of history, who is worthy of our worship, and our honor, and our obedience, and his name is Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the rock in Daniel's vision, a rock not made by human hands that's come from outside this world that has come to a sum to promises overthrow the demonic reign of the ungodly empires and kingdoms and ideology of this world and grind them to dust.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then to establish his kingdom that will never end, that will over time become a great mountain that will fill the whole earth and then on the day that Christ returns, he will be installed as King forever over all creation and will live in his glory and his peace and his presence forever and ever are men.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, come on, give me an amen to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is the news that we all so desperately need to hear.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is the hope of our salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ is King, his defeated death, and he now reigns over all.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is, this is a New Testament, right as quote, from Psalm 118 many times.

[SPEAKER_00]: The stone that the builders rejected, which has become the chief cornerstone, the foundation stone, has replaced the old feet of clay with a rock that will never be shaken.

[SPEAKER_00]: the foundation of a brand new creation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or as Peter confessed, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God and Jesus said, yes, and on that rock I will build my church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or as Jesus told us, do not build your life on the shifting sands of this world or on the clay, shifting clay, the weak clay of this world as it were, but build your house on the rock, build your life on the rock that will never be shaken.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that what you've done this morning?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you built your life on Christ the rock that will get you through everything this world will throw at you because he is greater greater is he who is in me the one whom I have placed my feet on which I stand then he who is in the world and as you come to him as first Peter two tells us

[SPEAKER_00]: The living stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Scripture it says, C.I.A.

[SPEAKER_00]: a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and friends you need to hear this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one who puts their trust in him will never be put to shame.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can give you what nothing else in this world can give you.

[SPEAKER_00]: A foundation upon which you can build your life that will never be shaken.

[SPEAKER_00]: why is someone texting me while I'm preaching?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay, it's just my kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now friends, what this is all telling us is that there is only one way to escape the death spiral that this world is called in, and that is to put your trust in Jesus and the enter his kingdom, because as Daniel sees all the powers of this world as impressive and as overwhelming as they can be, they are all coming to nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: As Revelation 1115 says, I quoted this last week and when I quoted again, it's one of my favorite verses in the Bible, but through the death and the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you know Handel's Messiah, you might hear the music playing while I quote this, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And He will reign forever and ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah, Christ is King and church, there is no other.

[SPEAKER_00]: So back to our story quickly, in his fury, at the failure of his wise sages and sorcerers to interpret the dream or even to tell him the dream, Nebuchadnezzar then orders the execution of all of them in Babylon, including Daniel and his friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just wants to get rid of the whole lot of them, they useless.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when Daniel hears about this, he doesn't panic, but he approaches a guy named Ariok who's the captain of the King's Guard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just as he's coming to end Daniel's life, and Daniel speaks with tact and discretion we are told, and he asks, why the decree is so harsh, and he learns what's happened, and then he requests that Ariak go back to the king and ask for some extra time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow the king mercifully agrees, and the reason we know is because God is with Daniel.

[SPEAKER_00]: The King agrees and then Daniel goes home and he tells Hannah and I am Michelle and as a liar what's happened and what do they do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know the story?

[SPEAKER_00]: What do these four boys teenagers do?

[SPEAKER_00]: They don't panic, but they get on their knees and they start to pray, they cry out to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: They cry out to God to intervene.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the worlds, by the way, some of the world's greatest revivals have happened in history when students have prayed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know this?

[SPEAKER_00]: When he was still a student, George Whitfield, knelt down in a church in Oxford.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've stood on the place where he knelt, as a maybe 19 or 20 year old, knelt before God, on his knees, and he prayed for God to move powerfully in England.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he went on to lead one of the greatest revivals in history, what's called the Great Awakening,

[SPEAKER_00]: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to Christ, which later young men named William Wilberforce to Jesus, who then prayed while he was still a student that God would use him to abolish the slave trade, which he did.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, put forward a few years, it was a group of university students who were praying for their friends to come to Jesus, and

[SPEAKER_00]: And one of those who did was a guy named Nikki Gumball and through him the offer course has reached millions and millions of people with the gospel and has changed countless lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something always happens when we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: It may not appear like it's happening on the surface of things but do not look at the surface.

[SPEAKER_00]: See with eyes of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, here's us when we pray and here's able to do the impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like we heard.

[SPEAKER_00]: in regards to Joel's story, it wasn't that fantastic.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for sharing it with us, Joel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We appreciate that so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: So these boys pray because they know that as intelligent as they are and they are very intelligent as well educated as they are and they've had a brilliant education as successful as they are to this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is not gonna help them now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Only God will get them through this, and we should never forget this friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our intelligence, our ability, our creativity, our hard work, might get us so far in life of course, but in the end, no matter how much we achieve, we never outgrow our dependence on God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, many people don't realize this until something that they had put their trust in to give them meaning, which they have actually established as a foundation for their lives, as the rock that they've built their life on, career money, status, intelligence, beauty, achievements, health, family, a relationship, whatever it is,

[SPEAKER_00]: If that thing is taken away, you might get sick and you can't work, you might lose your money in bad investments, a loved one might pass away, it's then you discover that you have been building your life on something that can be lost and you fall apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: You realise the whole thing has feed of clay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God we know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't we?

[SPEAKER_00]: that Christ is the only firm foundation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a call to tell people this good news because we want people to experience what we have in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Daniel and his friends pray, and then I think this might be one of the greatest acts of faith in the whole chapter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel prays and then he goes to bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say up all night, fretting, worrying, anxious.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gives it over to God, and he says, God, my life is in your hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm going to sleep like a baby.

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I wish I was more like Daniel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you see what's going on here?

[SPEAKER_00]: Nebuchadnezzar, for all his power, I'm more powerful than any other human being on the planet, perhaps at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can't sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Daniel, who's an enslaved teenager, with almost no power, humanly speaking,

[SPEAKER_00]: because he knows to whom he belongs.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has faith in the one who can move mountains.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's incredible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then during the night, as Daniel is sleeping, the mystery was revealed to him, we're told in verse 19 in a vision.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Daniel doesn't just go straight to the palace to tell the king he pauses.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he makes sure he sets aside some time to worship the Lord before he speaks to the king.

[SPEAKER_00]: And his prayer, which we have recorded here, is beautiful and powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, may the name of the Lord be praised,

[SPEAKER_00]: for wisdom and power belong to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He changes the times and seasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: He removes kings and establishes kings.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.

[SPEAKER_00]: He reveals the deep and hidden things.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows what is in the darkness, but light dwells with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have given me wisdom and power.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have made known to me what we asked of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: an incredible prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why Daniel has peace because he believes these things to be true and he is building his life on those promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even while the sword is at his neck, he is still able to be at peace in the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because things are not as they seem in the purposes of God, things are really as they seem and as AW toes are famously once said, what comes into our minds when we think about God

[SPEAKER_00]: What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what comes into Daniel's mind when he thinks about God?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not a God who is distant, capricious, uncarrying, ruffle, angry.

[SPEAKER_00]: One who is unmerciful but when he thinks about God and when he prays to his God in heaven, he thinks about wisdom and about sovereign power and about light that exposes darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a God who gives mercy to those who seek Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the God we worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel's circumstances may seem impossible, but he knows that God is greater, and I said last week, Daniel is not allowing his circumstances there in this moment to interpret his view of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, God is choosing, sorry, he is choosing to allow God, his understanding of God to interpret his circumstances.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is really hard, I don't know how you go with that, but I'm in the midst of trouble.

[SPEAKER_00]: I find it is difficult to have faith, but we can trust through the help of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that we can interpret our circumstances based on the character of God, not let our circumstances remake or reinterpret our understanding of who God is.

[SPEAKER_00]: don't you wish you could be more like Daniel?

[SPEAKER_00]: I sure do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when he finally gets to speak with the king and the king asks him to reveal the dream and it's meaning Daniel says this, no wise man, medium, magician or divino is able to make known to the king the mystery he has asked about but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.

[SPEAKER_00]: This mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have more wisdom than anyone living.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at how humble he is in this moment,

[SPEAKER_00]: But God has revealed this to me in order that the interpretation might be known to the King.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is this telling us?

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel has, genuine wisdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he knows that all that he has has ultimately been received from God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has been entrusted with revelation, not because he's so great, but because God is gracious.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this has to be the posture of all faithful Christian witness in the midst of Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm learning this plane here.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you think about how you represent God in the world, how do you go about it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you'll can teach us something here?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think his faithful posture, his posture before the king, the way he communicates with the king, should be the basis of all faithful Christian witness in the midst of Babylon.

[SPEAKER_00]: Notice he doesn't need to pretend like he knows everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't need to boast in our intelligence.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't use the truth to make ourselves look superior or better than others.

[SPEAKER_00]: We simply say with quiet confidence, there is a God in heaven, and the answers you are looking for will not be found in anything in this world, but only in him, he is the revealer of what is true.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's just evangelism at its best.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's based in prayer, Daniel and his friends pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: They pray for God to intervene.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's respectful, it's humble, yet it's confident.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it also doesn't need to have all the answers.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's sharing our faith trusting that just like God is at work in Nebuchadnezzar's life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe he'll also be at work in the lives of those that you are trying to reach, so pray for them, ask for God to speak, ask for God to move, and I believe that he will.

[SPEAKER_00]: If God can reach a man like Nebuchadnezzar, he can reach anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, when Nebuchadnezzar hears the dream and hears the interpretation, something incredible happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: He falls on his face before Daniel and he declares.

[SPEAKER_00]: Surely your God is the God of God's and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like that, the King who had ordered Daniel's execution a few hours earlier is now on his face before the God of Heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has intervened powerfully in like 24 hours and turned the whole of the Babylonian empire on its head.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it is easy for us to despair about what's going on in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep our eyes on Jesus who is the author and perfecter of our faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep on running our race with diligence and not give up because we know that in the end it is not Babylon who have the final word, it is the Lord who have the final

[SPEAKER_00]: word.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what is that word?

[SPEAKER_00]: Behold.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can make a way through impossible circumstances.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can give us wisdom when we need it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can use us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can use you to reach even the most difficult people.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the God of the miraculous and not even death can stop him.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a story of course that ultimately points us to Jesus, and let's get the band to come on up now, and this is ultimately what the dream means.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is showing us the means by which God is going to bring down all the ungodly empires of this world and heal this creation, fill it with His glory and give us a future and a hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is what Christ, the solid rock, came into this world to do, not to condemn the world friends, but to save it, and the rock breaks the sin that has enslaved us and therefore sets us free to live a new life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's stand, and I just want to finish with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love what Jan Lennox says here about all of this, about this chapter in Daniel, he says the Christian

[SPEAKER_00]: Sin has alienated us from God, and we cannot put it right ourselves, but the solution is equally radical.

[SPEAKER_00]: God in Christ has taken the burden of sin upon himself on the cross, so that through repentance and faith in Christ we can receive and you supernatural life as an unmerited gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's close the rise and just pray for a moment as we prepare our hearts to worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Question I want to ask you this morning is have you built your life, have you put your life on the rock of Christ?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you put your faith in Him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you put your trust in Him?

[SPEAKER_00]: who can set you free and give you a new beginning and heal what is broken in your heart and mind, give you a new life.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you've never done that, I encourage you this morning as we sing.

[SPEAKER_00]: To say, Lord, I will put my faith in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will put my trust in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to build my life on you, Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all you need to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: That will get you started in a whole new journey of life with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if this morning you've been hearing this and you have come to realize that there are many things in your life that you are putting your hope in.

[SPEAKER_00]: that have taken the place of Christ, then all we need to do is repent and ask the Lord to lead us back into truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, Lord, and that's probably true for all of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We confess that there are many things that have come into our lives that have taken the place that only you should have, that only you should occupy.

[SPEAKER_00]: put our hope in you and not in these other things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus, we thank you, but not even death could stop you, but you are the risen living Lord, and you are renewing and restoring all things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your kingdom is growing, ever larger, day by,

[SPEAKER_00]: And one day we know it will fill the whole earth with your glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we put our hope in that day, and we thank you, Jesus, that you will have the final word over human history.

[SPEAKER_00]: Worthy is the lamb who was slain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Worthy is the lamb who was slain.

[SPEAKER_00]: to receive all honor and glory and power and praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you, Jesus, for all you've done for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: This incredible, unmerited, unearned gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are so good.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we honor you this morning in Jesus' name we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, let's lift our voices as we sing.