Daniel 2 (Crushing Ruin and the Inheritance of the Broken)

Pastor Josh: All right, Daniel chapter two.

It was about 10 years ago when everything.

Fell apart in my life and the life of those closest to me.

My young sister had passed away.

I was at the height of debilitating chronic migraines, and it was at a

point where it was the most severe.

I was in the midst of losing the church.

I had planted, my reputation and character.

Was being accused and publicly crucified, and most of those I had poured into

for a decade and called my church family disappeared without a trace.

The group of pastors I had nipped my heart too and became utterly vulnerable with.

I came to find out to my naive surprise.

They no longer had my back, and I found for myself in this state, amongst other

things that were going on, sitting across from a Christian therapist and

just weeping on his couch and crying like I've never cried in my life.

There were a lot of things that he said in those sessions.

Wisdom he passed on practical tools he gave me to deal with

the chaos of my own heart.

But the thing that he said that haunts me on a daily basis, and that is no

exaggeration, the thing he wouldn't let me wiggle out or ate from the North

star of all those sessions is this.

He said after he listened and listened to me, pour out my heart,

I think you really need to take this in and figure out what this means.

And then he opened his Bible and as I was sitting on the couch and

I could see he's about two thirds in, he must be in the gospels trying

to figure out where he is going.

He was in the gospels.

He opened to Matthew chapter five, verse three specifically, and he proceeded to

read to me, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I have to be honest.

When.

He read that I hated it.

I wanted him to validate my perspective.

That's what I'm paying you for good money to be angry at the

injustice and to solidify my sadness.

And as a pastor, I knew what that dang word blessed means.

Jesus is essentially saying in that beatitude, congratulations.

You're broken now.

Way to go.

And to his credit, he would not let me weasel out of it as much as I tried.

And he kept coming back to me and coming back to me and saying,

blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Why share that?

And what does that have to do with Daniel A lot actually.

And this and other scriptures rescued me from the riches of self-righteousness, the

fool's go of bitterness and the bankruptcy of building my own kingdom instead of

god's, and to break the clay feet of trust that I had attached to other things.

So let's get into this today.

you'll remember our north star for this series.

Daniel, as we're going through the Bible, is Daniel chapter 12, verse three.

Daniel 12 · chapter mention

This is the theme of Daniel.

Those who have wisdom will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens, and

those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.

Fireworks are awesome, but they're only for a moment.

What God is doing is something lasting and genuine and weighty,

and true and eternal in your life.

Now, interestingly enough, unlike most other Old Testament books,

Daniel wrote his book outside of the Confines of Israel.

Some of it, in fact is in Aramaic.

We'll see that transition tonight.

The language of Babylon, not Hebrew, the language of Israel.

The book is about how to live wisely in a place where God is not respected

in a culture where everyone around you lives by different values.

Sound, sound similar or familiar, and the book is about how not just to survive

begrudgingly that kind of environment.

I remember a pastor once I got to teach alongside him, and he wore a hazmat suit.

and he is that's, going to work, going to school, it's like putting on a hazmat suit

and then you get home and you take it off.

And I was like, I dunno if that's really what Daniel's doing here, but Daniel

flourishes in the midst of it flourishes.

And in fact, as Daniel 12 three says.

They lead many to righteousness.

In fact, the emperor himself is the story of stories.

I think Nebuchadnezzar, we're gonna see the first domino

in his conversion experience.

the world ruling empire, man in power is gonna be humbled in

the course of a couple chapters.

when it comes to living in a different culture, many Christians choose

either assimilation or separation, and we talked about that last week.

Assimilation.

It means you gradually look like everybody else.

You're not distinguishable.

Their values become your values.

You might have Christianese word sprinkled on top of it, but basically

at the core, you're just no different.

Your lifestyle imitates theirs.

It's the thermometer versus the thermostat.

Some people are like thermometers.

They adjust to the temperature of the room, whether they go to work,

they talk like everybody at work, whether they're, here, they talk,

then they're at church, whatever.

And they just adjust like a, thermometer, but a thermostat's different.

Why?

Because it adjusts the temperature of the room to itself.

Interesting.

But separation is the opposite.

the world is evil.

So come out from among them and be separate.

We don't wanna be tainted, we don't wanna be tarnished, we don't

want to be blemished, we don't want to, we've gotta stay away

and be, keep ourselves from that.

Come out from among them and be separate is the life verse.

And, misses what God was saying.

You're like an air conditioner in Alaska, or a heater in

Redding in the middle of summer.

I just found out I was at in Redding, and one of the inspectors said,

it's gonna be hot this summer.

I'm like, I live in the valley.

I'm used to heat.

He's our high last year was 125 degrees.

I was a, holy moly, I'm not ready for that.

But a heater in Redding in the middle of summer, all of that differences

doesn't do anything if you are not in the place where it's needed.

Some Christians, like the Jews of Daniels Day think the options are

either assimilation or separation, but there's a third option that God

calls us to and that's transformation.

We're not called separation.

We're called the transformation.

So Daniel and his friends take on Babylonian names, speak the Babylonian

language, work in the Babylonian palace, but they do so as faithful servants of

God and primarily, and they never lose sight of this as citizens of his kingdom.

But this can be really hard as God's people because there's

a current in this world.

I remember Knights Ferry, if you've ever been there, it used to be, I guess it

just depends on how much rain we get.

Sometimes it's exciting and sometimes you picking up the boat

or the raft and carrying it down.

Long stretches of the river because it's so dried up.

But my friend was, got pulled into the current and everybody's sitting there,

his whole family, and they're walk, they're eating and I'm like, Hey, I

think your son's about to die, And he's.

Calling for help and they're like, ah, he's good.

it's a river.

What could go wrong?

And he was about to die.

And I jumped in and grabbed him and with great struggle, got him to the

shore, and we just laid there exhausted and everybody was like looking.

And they're like, are you okay?

You guys are so dramatic kind of a thing.

But it takes an immense amount of effort to swim against the stream of the river.

And here's what's interesting about the current.

It takes no effort whatsoever to relax.

And get carried along the current, and actually, even if you are trying

to swim upstream against the river by yourself, what you can't see because

you're working so hard is that despite your best intentions and efforts, you're

still getting carried down the river.

My friend needed me.

I remember me being in a pool.

One of my earliest memories was drowning and popping up and looking around for

rescue, and everybody's doing something.

And I see my dad at the water fountain.

I'm like, my last time I go down, I guess that's it.

I can't get up and all of a sudden I see his silhouette dive into the pool and

grab me with those strong arms and me up.

We need each other.

And we can't lose in this individualistic society.

The story of Daniel and his friends Daniel and his friends, Daniel

and his friends, they're together.

They're gonna have a prayer meeting together.

They go and they are on mission together.

As Daniel's promoted, he's Hey.

My one request is that you promote these guys.

We gotta work together.

We gotta stay shoulders to shoulder, yoked to each other in touch with one another.

And that's the dynamic and the challenge that the book of Daniel opens up for us.

So we come together to get equipped as a church, then we scatter into the

nooks and the crannies of the city.

We've all got our posts.

And as salt and light we're scattered to be that salt and light to be about

the father's business to reap in our king's field that is wide under harvest.

It's what we see happening in the Book of Acts.

The majority of stories and acts actually take place outside the Church of the

40 Miracles and Acts 39 of them happen outside the four walls of the church.

'cause that's where God wants to demonstrate his power in the

neighborhoods and the businesses and the hospitals and the jails.

And you're like, what difference am I making?

Do you know one of the great things about living in Stockton and.

It being rough and gnarly.

They say that if you're in Yosemite on the darkest night of the

year, that you can light a match.

I'm not talking about lighting off a, Roman candle.

I'm talking about a match.

You strike a match, you can see it from five miles away in every direction.

That's the impact.

That we can have in a place like Stockton.

So verse one we roll in.

That's the setup.

Daniel and his friends, they didn't compromise.

They're 10 times better at said than the rest of 'em.

And then we're gonna come back to that.

That's very interesting.

10 times they stand out more.

Oh, the of that.

But 10 times better is what was set of them.

Verse one, in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,

Nebuchadnezzar had dreams, his spirit was troubled, and his sleep.

Left him.

Now Nebuchadnezzar is the king, or if you will, the emperor of the Mighty Babylonian

empire, the world power at that time.

The top of the top, the man in power.

He's not just the president of the United States.

He's not just, he is the power most powerful person in the known world at

that time, the empire that had conquered Jerusalem, that took Daniel and his

companions from their homes in Jerusalem and took them by forces exiles and put

them in the University of Babylon, where introduced in Nebuchadnezzar last week.

We got a glimpse of them, but now it's interesting.

Chapter two narratively Zooms in, and we have this intimate image

of Nebuchadnezzar as we zoom into his bed and into his dreams.

And into, what's going on.

And this gr dream verse one says, greatly troubled him.

Have you ever had that experience where you have a dream and you're

just like, you feel sick all day and you don't know what's wrong,

and you're like, it's not you.

I just, I had a crazy dream and he can't really put his finger on it, and

it keeps him from going back to sleep.

He can't sleep.

It's all he is thinking about.

He's consumed by it.

Usually if I have a bad dream, when I wake up, I find it's just a dream.

I'm so relieved.

I'm like, oh, I hug my wife and my kids.

Thank the Lord.

Yes, it's just a dream, a thing, but not Nebuchadnezzar.

There's a deep undercurrent and unease that he can't quite put his finger on.

There's something, it's almost like God knew his address.

There's something that God is going to reveal to him through this

dream that undoes him that is like.

Yeah, with all his power and palm circumstances, the one thing

he knows he can't withstand.

We often think dreams are psychological.

It's like suppressed fears or inner struggles.

And yeah, that can be true, but in their time, in their culture,

they thought of dreams as the god's breaking through from above and giving

a divine message about the future.

And so Nebuchadnezzar has this dream, he can't quite remember it and.

And so he's maybe I missed with the gods we're trying to tell me.

So I told you I had those dreams.

Sometimes you wake up and oh, this family member passed away

and you wake, oh, it's a dream.

Or, I got arrested, I was running for the cops, grandpa theft, thought of

style, oh, it's just a dream, but I did have a, I have a reoccurring dream.

I used to, and it literally happened.

15 to 20 times in my life as a pastor.

Interesting.

Started happening when I was a pastor and it goes like this.

I get up and I'm called to preach to a thousand people.

or more.

Sometimes the venue changes and I can't find my notes.

And I start scrambling, but I'm like, it's okay.

It's, I got this, I could do it from, but I can't remember anything.

And so I'm scrambling and I'm looking and I'm like, do something else.

I've got time, but every get, keep getting distracted.

And so pretty soon, brass tacks comes and I, I'll just do something.

I know by heart, I can't remember anything by heart.

And so I get up there at the pulpit.

The music was amazing.

People are excited, they're cheering.

Even the five minute greeting, people are actually making true connections.

You're like, this is such a spiritual moment, And then, I just sit

there and my can't say anything.

There's just silence and I'm bumbling still waiting for inspiration to happen.

And slowly, one by one, everybody gets up and walks out

until I'm left alone up there.

Failed.

Failed God.

That'd be fine to have.

I know that says a lot about me, just get vulnerable.

but to have it 15 times now, I'll come back to that because actually

will tell you why stop having it.

which is cool.

But here Nebuchadnezzar is and he's I can't quite put my finger on it,

but it's that unease and I'm, I can't actually rest, I can't go back to sleep.

Until this problem solved.

And so in the middle of the night, he's gonna call his wise men.

And the king verse two commanded that the magicians, the enchanters,

the sorcerers and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams.

So they came and stood before the king and the king said to them, I had a dream and

my spirit is troubled to know the dream.

And the Chaldean said to the king, an Aramaic.

And this is where it shifts to about chapter seven.

Oh King Lived forever.

Tell your servants the dream and we will show the interpretation.

We don't know.

It could be the middle of the night, but in a sweaty panic, he summons

his wise men who are close by.

Babylonian wise men had this little book with this interpretive key that explained

what each element in a dream meant.

You just studied the book So a cow meant this, A bird meant this puff.

The magic dragon meant this and appearing before the royal court and

nothing but your underwear meant this.

So just tell us, we'll put all the symbols together and we'll tell you the dream.

And so he'd tell 'em his dream and they'd look up the images

and boom, dream interpretation.

that's pay into our 401k.

we just did our job for another year.

And of course, they'd give their interpretations of these generalized

terms, like a horoscope or a fortune cookie today that uses

these broad categories that can always, in some sense be true, Your

patience will one day be rewarded.

Oh, really?

Wow.

So insightful.

Don't trust friends who gossip about you.

Okay.

Or if you're fan's, a mystery, Ben, he who questions training only

trains himself at asking questions.

I love it.

Yeah.

You must be like, Wolf pack, not six pack anyways, or something like that.

And then they get paid the big bucks.

These were the top guys.

These were the.

These were the guys who were leading the AI charge.

they're breaking the new technological, ground and they're making all

the money in Silicon Valley.

I.

A textual note here, beginning now at verse four of Daniel chapter two, all

the way through the end of chapter seven.

It's not written in Hebrew.

It's wi written in Aramaic, which was the official court language, the government

language of the Babylonian kingdom.

So it's interesting, so scholars don't know exactly why, but perhaps it's

because we've been focusing on these four Israelites and the call for them

to be faithful, and now we're going to start seeing the global significance

of the kingdom of God for all.

It's very interesting.

Very interesting.

It was so utterly important at the reversal of Babylon or Babel, the

reversal of the Tower of Babel.

When was that?

The day of Pentecost.

You remember?

Tower of Babel.

Everybody had their languages divided, so they didn't understand each other.

And at Pentecost, everybody understood?

And their own dialect.

What was God saying?

He's saying this is not just for Hebrews, this is for all.

This is for everybody.

And so it seems like here in these prof as he's gonna move into prophecy and as he's

going to say that, man, there is a global picture here when it comes to the kingdom

of God and that it's not just Israel, even though Israel's who it comes through

verse five, the king answered and said to the Chaldeans, the word from me is firm.

He's you guys look like you're ready to barter and bargain.

But no, like what I said, if you do not make known to me the dream

in its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb and your

houses shall be laid in ruins.

But if you show the dream and its interpretation, yo shall receive from me.

Gifts and rewards in great honor.

I'm sure there don't even hear that part.

They're like, wait, go back to the torn limb from limb.

Therefore, show me the dream in its interpretation.

They answered a second time and said, let the king tells servants the dream

and we will show its interpretation.

The king answered and said, I know a certainty that you are

trying to gain time because you see that the word for me is firm.

If you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you.

You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me until.

the times changed.

Therefore, tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its

interpretation that Chaldeans answered the king and said, there is not a

man on earth who can meet the king's demand for no great and powerful.

King has asked such a thing of any magician or Enchanter or Cal dn.

So Nebuchadnezzar, he's pretty smart, and he starts to suspect that

this was all a bunch of malarkey.

Let there.

Like we can interpret.

That's our speciality.

That's what we're trained in.

That's what we have these powers in.

But we can't tell you the dream.

They say not even the gods can do that.

They know the dream, but our gods, they don't dwell with people.

They wouldn't do that.

Ah, and interesting to you.

Pretty soon, huh?

Our gods don't come down.

Our gods don't dwell.

They stay disconnected and separate in a different realm.

That's why they're the gods.

And we're the people.

And so the king responds to this by going irate.

He had already threatened them.

If you can't tell me the dream, I'm gonna rip your arms and

legs off and burn your house.

So that means their families too would be destroyed and killed.

Nebuchadnezzar was the kind of man where this was what he did.

You remember?

he did this something similar to the one of the kings of Judah.

He got the king's son in front of the king as he had lost the king had rebelled

against Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Judah, and so Nebuchadnezzar brought

the king's sons in front of him and then proceeded to slaughter the king's

sons in front of him, and then went and cut out his eyes so that the last thing

he saw would be the death of his sons.

That's.

The kind of guy that Nebuchadnezzar was, so they know, okay, this guy's

serious, but they keep pushing back.

That's unreasonable.

And he said, stop stalling.

Verse 11 and 12.

Then the king, the thing that king asks is difficult.

No one can show it to the king except the gods who's dwelling is not with flesh.

Because of this, the king was angry and very furious and commanded that all

the wise men of Babylon be destroyed.

And in verse 11 and 12, the desperate astrologers say essentially, there are

limits to what human beings can do.

Only a God can do what you want, and they are not at your beck and call.

It's this statement that enrages the king and leads to the death decree.

What is this show?

Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man on earth, but he is being confronted with

the fact that he is still just a man.

The dream would bring him to terms with his limits in his finiteness.

The wise men in verse 12, bring up a very sore subject with a powerful person.

Powerful people don't like to hear.

You're just another human being.

There are limits to what human beings can actually accomplish.

Nebuchadnezzar's inner conflict is now revealed for all to see.

The dream is not just some predictor of future events.

He senses that it's about his own fall somehow.

I think that's why he's unraveling.

That's why he's stirring.

He can't quite just put his finger, he can't remember, but that lasting taste in

his mouth that he has is of his own doom.

Of his own fall, of his own destruction.

So that's what's getting to him.

His inability to discover the meaning is a further reminder to him that he's

not God, that he doesn't have the power.

As Nietzsche once famously said, if there is a God, how

can I bear not to be that God?

Finally they can't do it.

The king explodes and not only does he say kill these enchanters and astrologers.

And all these people right here, he says, kill all the wise men in Babylon,

not just the guys in front of him.

imagine the power.

This ruler who is intoxicated with his own power.

He doesn't get his way after having a bad night's sleep and decides to decimate an

entire field of humanity in Babylon, who he just poured three years into investing

in and building all these guys up.

Anger is an often an interesting indicator.

You can reverse engineer anger to find some things out.

In your life or told, be angry, but don't sin

because it comes down to what we're angry about.

Not just the anger.

Am I angry over injustice, the injustice that's happening in the world, or

am I angry at the injustice that my kids have bothered me on my day off?

Ah, the injustice of it.

Yes, I'm angry at injustice, but what kind of injustice?

And you can reverse engineer that.

The more I'm angry, usually the more foundational that thing is to my life.

You know how there's the irrational kind of anger and we all have

different versions of that.

for some people they'd be like, ah, that's no problem.

And for some it's you will not take this from my life.

This is, this is it.

It indicates this might be foundational to you.

This might be something you're building your life on.

And remember, you can build your life on good things, but if you

build your life on good things, those good things cannot support the

freight and the weight of a life.

And you'll crumble.

And they will crumble.

And so NAB says, everyone who works in this vocation kill them all.

it's crazy.

And then we're told that.

All includes Daniel and his three friends because they are

part of the group of wise men.

Verse 13.

So the decree went out and the wise men were about to be killed, and they sought

Daniel and his companions to kill them.

Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Och, the captain

of the King's Guard who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon.

He declared och the king's captain.

Why is the decree of the king so urgent that OCH made the matter known to Daniel?

And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time that he might

show the interpretation to the king.

So knock.

It's not an Amazon delivery, it's the executioner showing up at your door, man.

Not prepared for that.

I remember, one time briefly, we were getting to go to the dentist when I

was a kid and we were always excited.

I was homeschooled, so we had a lot of time in the morning to get

ready and just just take our time.

and we were getting ready to go and we were always excited because.

UPS packages.

when we'd see a UPS truck, there weren't a lot of, houses.

They probably don't get UPS packages.

They're older, a thing.

But may, maybe it's for us, maybe somebody sending us a present hopeful thinking.

And so we saw this UPS, but it wasn't marked UPS.

And we're like, that's strange, sometimes there's deliveries and everything.

And so we're all at the window watching and we're like, oh,

they pulled up at our house.

Yes it is for us.

Grandma must be sending us early Christmas presents and then.

Men with m sixteens proceeded to jump out of the, of the UPS truck

and, and knocked on our door.

And I served for a couple weeks until my parents got me out.

No, just kidding.

But.

But they, there was a SWAT team and there was somebody loose in the neighborhood who

they were trying to capture and they said, we need to make your house home base.

And we're like, yes, of course.

And I remember my mom's I have to take him to the dentist.

They're like, and we're like, mom, are you crazy?

We get to be around the SWAT team, and so we stayed.

She's awesome.

And, that was a good school day, hanging out with the SWAT team.

but anyways, that's the shit.

Shock it.

Open the door and it's och and he's got a he, you know,

Daniel sees the dripping blood.

He's already on the move with executions.

What do you do in this situation?

And so Daniel's like, Hey, give me some time.

And Daniel's got so much pull and so much weight with these guys

that like och giving him time, putting his own life on the line.

But he's like, okay, then check this out.

Here's where the battles won.

Verse 17 and 18.

Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Nia and Ms.

Sheel and Azariah, they're Hebrew names, his companions, and told them to seek

mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that Daniel and his

companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

They go to God in prayer.

You see this pattern all throughout Daniel.

Praise, and he's just it's a part of his day and it's really important

and he doesn't give it up and he actually goes, ends up in a lions den

because of it later on in the story,

but they go to God in prayer.

See Daniel's in the kind of situation where he knew that

only God could meet his knee.

Only God.

You see, they're the astrologers.

They believed in something called futurology, and as much as they were

called magicians and astrologers, basically, they're almost naturalists,

like some people nowadays because what they did is they studied history.

They stu studied economics and culture and they would make educated guesses.

They trust their reason.

And then they use the gods.

If they get stuck,

they trust their reason and they use the gods to get sick.

But all of a sudden we see that God works through divine revelation.

And one of the things Daniel shows us is that Christians

trust God and use their reason.

They don't trust their reason.

They trust God because God is their foundation, but they also

don't abandon their reason.

There kind of was an anti-intellectual movement that happened where it was like

Christians, everything is just on, good vibes or whatever, we're told Love the

Lord your God with all your heart, mind.

Soul and strength were told in Romans 12 to re, by the renewing of your mind.

don't abandon that.

like God.

He gives us wisdom and he gives us these things.

And but it's ultimately a trust.

And what can happen is people trust their reason that they,

the reason becomes their God.

And we see that happening nowadays.

they weigh and they look at predictors and weigh eco, and they're so convinced

that their reason is the salvation.

And they get stuck and they're like, we've gotta, we'll figure this out.

We'll make some sacrifices.

You know where it's, no, we're called to.

Trust God.

He's our foundation.

But don't abandon the reason because Daniel tells us all the way through.

He's 10 times brilliant.

In fact, what happens is when God is your foundation and your trust, you

always become more fully who you are.

it's interesting.

Because God isn't after automaton robots.

I think people think that if I become a Christian man, I'm gonna

lose all my freedom and not really have fun and go out in the world.

I'm just gonna be this automaton robot for God and I'm just, no.

God wants you to be more fully who he designed you to

be more fully awake and live.

I put in lights all the time, and I think so many people are like the lights.

They're like, man, I've got this light and it does this and it does that.

And it's, it's got this do man, I'm an electrician that doesn't have do dads.

It's got this luminary capability and it's got, this type of lamp and it

takes this kind of voltage and stuff.

But did you turn it on?

Did you plug it in?

What happens is when you plug it in, it comes and it is

more than just sitting there.

it's more of its purpose.

And so too for the Christian, you fulfill more of your purpose.

You become more fully human, and he's your source when he's your

everything, when he's your trust.

So the Christian, so they trust God, but they don't abandon their reason.

But I know when I start to have a lack of prayer in my life, it's

because I start to think that I'm sufficient and I can handle it.

a professor in a Bible, college class had his students do an exercise.

He said, everybody pair up.

One of you close your fist and then the other one try to get that fist open.

And so for 10 minutes they're working and you know you've got the jocks.

Who weren't really jocks in high school, but they went to Bible college, so

now they're the jocks, But anyways, so they're, they're pulling and

they're using their strength and, everybody's trying different ways and

everything, and nobody gets the other one say, and he says, okay, enough.

It's like, how'd you guys try to do it?

I tried with my, and he asked one interesting question and he said, did any

of you just ask them to open your hand?

Not one person.

Because we want to earn something.

We want to earn it.

I wanna use my strength that I could take the glory.

I work for it, then it's mine.

It'd be weak just to ask.

I have to do something.

But Daniel and his guys ask, and Daniel knew these other wise men,

it wasn't within the power of any men that they couldn't do it.

And so they're gonna stand in the gap.

And you weren't going to go into Nebuchadnezzar presence and just

start guessing what the dream was.

like the psychics do.

Oh, you'll tall, dark stranger in your future, something

important will happen to you.

all these vague kind of things.

So Daniel knew he needed to get a revelation from God, and

he knew that came by prayer.

And the whole battle of this chapters won right there in verse 17 and 18.

The battles won when Daniel prayed with his friends.

And I think one of the greatest privileges of any man or woman on Earth is to have.

Praying friends, we touched on this last week, Christian friends, man,

people you can talk the gospel with.

not just kinda like, oh, you're a Christian.

I'm a Christian.

Cool.

How's the 49 ERs?

But pray and weep together.

That stuff's cool too.

But man, what a treasure we have in one another that we can, like God is in you.

The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is in you.

And I see it.

Man.

So history was made in this prayer meeting.

History was revealed in this prayer meeting.

Man, those are the movers and shakers in this world.

It's not the preachers, it's not the church plan, it's the

people who've just been praying.

But they know that God had done this before.

And they, with the Hebrews, they know the story of Joseph.

That God gave interpretation.

They said, listen, we'll pray.

We're gonna pray with earnestness and passion.

It looks like they prayed all night, or at least till they had a breakthrough.

They prayed that they might not perish.

That's such a strong word there.

We're going to, they're leaving it all out there.

passion and heart and prayer is a beautiful thing, not the manipulative,

twisting the god's arm, like the prophets of bow, who are like cutting

themselves for hours, yelling at the sky to a dead piece of wood.

But I love the passage in the book at acts where it talks about the earnest

prayer made, being made for the disciples.

Peter's in jail and in Acts 12, verse five, Luke says, Peter was kept in

prison, but earnest prayer was made for him by, to God, by the church.

And the earnest prayer, the Greek word there literally means stretched out.

Inness has this idea you ever, and you're trying to get something outta the pantry.

Andrea asks me all the time, can you reach that?

And of course I can reach it, I'm taller than her.

But sometimes the stuff's, there's one of our shelves that's really up there,

so I have the little stand on my tiptoes, go up, the little hop where you hop

up on the tip, And that's the idea.

It's this utter reaching out to your extremities, to your outstretched ness.

And that's what the, that's how the church is praying.

What's beautiful about that story

is that's not like the key that unlocks God, but that just,

man, because Peter shows up and they're like, it can't be Peter.

We're praying for this to happen and we're stretched out in this.

so God's working despite us, but absolutely amazing.

Every fiber of your being has to stretch out to grab you some, grab something.

Then the mystery is revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night that

Daniel blesses the God of heaven vision of the night in verse 19.

dream.

Did he go to sleep that night or was he awake, pressing

in until the Lord answered.

Sometimes we wrestle and wrestle.

I remember the story of a pastor at list of names under his pillow.

He prayed for every night, and he kept crossing him off as his friends came

to Jesus, but he died and there were two names that weren't crossed out

at his funeral.

His friends came to Jesus,

so sometimes it's a lifelong wrestle.

Sometimes God answers so quick, like Peter being freed from prison.

We can hardly believe it.

Is verse 20.

Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever

to whom belong wisdom and might.

He changes the times and the seasons.

He removes kings and sets up kings.

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.

He reveals deep and hidden things.

He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells within him

to you, oh God, of my father's.

I give thanks and praise for you have given me wisdom and might

and have now made known to me.

What we asked of you for, you have made known to us the kings matter.

So beautiful guys.

He hasn't even asked if this is the interpretation.

He hasn't this said before Nebuchadnezzar and been like, I think this is the dream.

He is so sure what God revealed to him.

And he just bursts out in praise.

A beautiful thing about a heart of dependence on God is that.

The heart is quick to the dependent.

Heart is quick to give him all the glory.

I love how Daniel Exalts, the Lord is being higher than any king

because he was in the presence of a terrifying king who was a tyrant,

who was ready to rip limb from limb.

So there's no fear of man in him.

'cause he sees King, king God on the throne.

Daniel recognized.

recognizes God removes kings and raises kings up.

If Nebuchadnezzar is the king, God could remove him if he wanted to, God

could raise him up if he wanted to.

It's all in God's hands.

God is in control of all of this, and he loves the verbs he uses in 20

21, 22 and 23, he says he changes.

He removes.

And he knows, Daniel knows that the power and might of God, that God is mightier

than the mighty king like Nebuchadnezzar.

But then he also says, and this is glorious in verse 21 and 22, he says,

he gives and he reveals, friends, all of God's might, all of God's

wisdom, all of God's power would be meaningless to us unless he gave to

us and revealed to us what a grace.

That we see blind eyes that have been open and he gracelessly chosen

to reveal himself to us to turn on the lights so that we don't

have to walk through the dark.

And remember that Babylon Wiseman said, only the Gods know this.

And they don't associate with humans.

They don't come down with us.

And yet as if Daniel is saying through this poem, the God of Israel, he

reigns over the world and yet he stoops down and he listens to his people.

He's high and lifted up, but he associates with the lowly.

You look at verse 23, you've made known to us, well, who was it revealed to?

Just Daniel or all four of them.

And the answer is yes, because Daniel knows that it was revealed to all

of them because of their prayer.

They're in this together, they're a team, and they all sought God for the answer.

God was bringing deliverance to them all, and they all had a share in this

because of their prayer together.

So again, Daniel is rejoicing, his friends are rejoicing, and then

they rushed to the king, verse 24.

Therefore, Daniel went to into Och, whom the king had appointed

to destroy the Wiseman of Babylon.

He went and said, thus to him, do not destroy the Wiseman of Babylon.

Bring me in before the king and I'll show the king the interpretation.

Then Och brought in Daniel before the king and hast and said thus to him, I

have found among the exiles from Judah, a man who will make known to the king,

the interpretation The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belt to Shaar.

Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?

Daniel answered the king and said, no.

Wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show the king the

mystery that the king has asked.

But there is a God in heaven.

Who reveals mysteries and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar

what will be in the latter days.

Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these.

Now pause right there, because this is the turning point of the entire story because

so far everyone in Babylon, the Babylonian empire has been trying to do this on their

own strength and through human wisdom.

But Daniel blows the roof off and he says that we can't do

it, but there's a God in heaven.

Very interesting because it's the same thing the astrologers said.

That made him so upset.

They said, no man can do this.

And he is ah.

Daniel said, no man can do this.

But there's a God who talks.

There's a God who reveals there's a God who wants to be known.

And how often do we forget this basic truth?

I do.

Me when life is falling apart.

Like I said, that there's a God in heaven.

it's easy to say that we believe in God, but then so often I live for stretches

of time, like a functional atheist.

We say we believe in God and then we live is if it's up to us.

I do.

We say that God approves me of it in Christ, but then I'm out going

looking for the approval of others.

We say that God has given me an DI identity.

But we use all our energy to try to construct our own identity.

We say that God has given me a purpose, but when we try to create our own

purpose, we say that God is bringing his kingdom, but then we spend all of our

time trying to build our own kingdom.

Ah.

And so Daniel says to the king, what you long for is not possible with

man, but there is a God in heaven.

And that's really the question behind all of this.

Is there a God in heaven?

And has he said something to us here on Earth?

Is there a God in heaven and is his power available to us?

sometimes like Nebuchadnezzar, you get to a point where all

human strategies fail, and I feel

like one of the rules of being a preacher is to proclaim over and over.

Actually just being a Christian is for you to proclaim over and over to me too.

There's a God in heaven.

What did that change?

How we saw everything to see, in the year that King Siah died, Isaiah

I think had put all his hopes.

He's a young, fresh out of Bible school prophet, wet behind the ears.

He's excited, he's legalistic.

He's woe, do you co on woe?

Do you best say, the first couple chapters?

He's just a woes on everybody.

Like a gun slinger, right?

A legalistic gun.

Slinger, bababa, boom.

Woe to you.

Woe to you.

But the good king.

Goes in and he gets proceed because he does something he's not supposed to.

And this good king, he had put all these hopes and this good

king turning the kingdom around.

And he says, in the year that King Siah died, I went into the temple.

I was wrecked.

What is going on?

What is happening?

And I saw the Lord seated on his throne and the train of his robe

filled the temple with glory.

And I said.

Woes me.

Yeah.

I'm undone.

I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips.

Oh, I'm broken.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Yeah.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The king on the throne fixed everything.

I think about the asap, right when he goes in and he sees the prosperity

of the wicked while the goopy perish.

No, he said My feet almost slipped.

I was almost done.

I was ready to turn in My Christianity card doesn't make sense.

And then I went to the temple and I understood their end.

Oh, it all made sense when I saw King on the Throne and how it changes everything.

We've tried to make relationships work, maybe in our own strength,

tried to fix what's broken.

You failed and you feel like there's no hope.

There's a God in heaven and his power starts where ours end.

We've tried to make our kids turn out right, man.

Have we invested and struggled and toiled?

You've told them everything you know to tell them you've tried

everything, you know to make them choose what's right to follow God.

There's nothing left you can do, but there's a God in heaven.

You've tried to overcome addiction.

You've tried to find that missing piece.

You failed so many times or to think there's no point.

But, and that's a huge, but there's a God in heaven, death

and disease, so seems so final.

And maybe they've taken things that you feel like you can never get back.

Won't death just take us all away?

And they end.

Yes, but there's a God in heaven.

You're disappointed in politics, dismayed by our leaders.

Democrats disappoint Republicans, disappoint, newsflash.

If you were in power, you'd disappoint us too.

Amen.

But there's a God in heaven.

And speaking of disappointments, let's talk about us.

For some of us, none of us has disappointed you more than you.

No one has lied to you, let you down our broken promises more than

you have to yourself, and you have no confidence to go forward and

create a better future than today.

Yes, but there is a God in heaven.

Do you believe that?

That would change everything?

There is a God in heaven.

Who's good and what makes it even more spectacular is that God who is in

heaven came down to earth and stooped low in the dust he took on human flesh,

and he was born as an infant who grew up and lived perfectly before a man.

And God.

He is the good shepherd who leads the 99 to go after the one, the friend

that sticks closer than a brother.

The truly good father who loves our kids more than we do.

He's the loving groom who presents his bride pure and

spotless by taking her spots.

He's the warrior who defeated death by taking it sting.

He's the fulfillment of the law who took the curse by becoming the curse.

He's the king of kings who uses his power to serve.

He is the one who sees you through and through and knows every

hidden thing and runs toward you.

And swallows up your darkness with his light.

He runs after you every day, drawing you with cords of kindness.

There is a God he's on his eternal throne, and he reaches down into

history and gives this little king a dream about his kingdom and the coming

kingdoms of man and how they will not stand in the coming kingdom of the

King of kings and the Lord of Lords.

Let me wrap this up.

Verse 31 35.

It says, you saw king and behold this image mighty and exceeding

brightness stood before you and its appearance is frightening.

The head of this image was a fine gold.

Its chest and arms of silver.

Its middle and thighs of bronze, its leg of iron, its feet, partly

of iron, and partly of clay.

As you look, the stone was cut out by no human hand, and its struck the image

on its feet of iron and clay broke them in pieces and the iron and the clay,

the bronze and the silver and the gold all together were broken in pieces and

it became like chaff of the summer.

the summer threshing floors 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.

So Daniel shares a stream, and it's a dream of a huge statue.

The statue has a golden head.

It's chest and its orbs are silver.

It's midsection.

And its thighs are bront.

Its legs are iron and its feet are part iron and part clay.

And this stone comes from the sky.

It starts small.

It smashes the statue.

It smashes, it turns everything into dust.

The wind blows it away, so there's nothing left of it.

But then this stone that came from the sky grows into a mountain

and fills the whole earth.

Strange right?

What in the world is going on here?

What does this mean?

Daniel has told us the dream.

He is told the king the dream, and now he's going to share the interpretation.

Verse 36.

This was the dream.

Now we will tell the king it's interpretation.

Nebu, Kez are just on the edge of his seat now.

He's you nailed it.

Holy moly.

I'm back.

It's vivid.

I see it all.

Everything's clicking back in place.

And now he gets to hear the interpretation.

So not only tell me the vision, but the interpretation, and now he's all ears.

He says, here's the interpretation.

You O King, the king of kings.

To whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power and the might glory,

and into whose hand he has given wherever they dwell, the children of man, the

beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all.

You are the head of gold.

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 like iron that crushes it shall break and crush all these things.

And as you saw the feet and the toes, partly of the 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 saw iron mixed 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.

And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom

that shall never be destroyed.

No shall the kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces, all these kingdoms, all of them, and bring them

to an end, and it shall stand forever.

Just as you saw that stone was cut from the mountain by no human hand, and that

it broke in pieces of the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, the gold.

A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this.

The dream is certain and its interpretation is sure.

Now I'm gonna wrap this up because what's exciting to me and what changed and shaped

me as I opened up with that open verse from Matthew chapter five is not the

charts and graphs of Biblical prophecy, which we'll get into later in Daniel.

That's exciting, but the rock.

The rock and the vision, the rock that's not made by human hands.

The rock that smashes that nothing can stand in the way of the rock.

What's the meaning of the dream?

The meaning of the dream is everybody is building somebody's kingdom.

Everybody has a foundation for what they're doing.

The motivation, the foundation is really.

What sets the course?

Look at your foundation.

Why are you doing it?

No matter how strong we appear or how well off in life, any foundation

that isn't built on God is like iron.

Mixed with clay and every single person has clay mixed in with whatever

they think is strong because all of humanity, the only kingdom that

can, as much as gold as they put out, there's always weakness in it.

There's always that sin nature.

There's always that brokenness and some are like, I'm the gold head.

Money's my security.

It's mixed with clay.

Some are like strength iron's, my security as long as I'm, strong enough.

But it doesn't hold, man's kingdoms never hold.

They never hold together.

And I think as Nebuchadnezzar sitting there, I think he's got that in his guts.

He knows, even though I'm the gold head, even though I've got it all

together, even though I'm the most prized material there, my feet are exposed.

My weakness is exposed, and no matter how much I try to guard my

strength and make it look like this man, those kingdoms don't stand.

They don't hold together.

They fall apart.

And not only do they fall apart, but in this vision, it's telling

them the rock is gonna smash it.

and eventually it will collapse.

It's funny how we look back in history and watch this.

Be true over and over of every kingdom of every age, but we think

our kingdom is the invincible one.

And I come back to my reoccurring dream because what was happening

in that dream, I'm convinced, is that my clay was exposed.

I like approval from people.

And what that dream was was me showing my clay because what was my strength?

My strength is getting up, communicating.

I can do it on the spot, I can open God's word and share the gospel.

But what I was building my foundation on was this desire

for the masses to say, good job.

Hey, good job.

And what was being destroyed?

Was that weakness was what I was building my life on, and 15 times over and over.

I'm being demolished.

I'm being demolished.

I'm having the dream, and the whole statue is crumbling.

And I wake up in a sweat and I'm like, oh.

And for a day, a week, I have that feeling.

I pray, Lord, please take this.

And I tried different ways.

I would study a passage just to be in a dream, so I'd know it by heart.

I've got my three points.

I could teach Luke seven by heart, and then when I get there in my

dream, I can't remember anything.

I can't even read the Bible when I'm up there and I'm trying all these

things, you know what happened?

Was for some reason

I gave up

and people were leaving, except I noticed in the front row was one like the son of

man and he had a big smile on his face.

And I knew he stoked,

and I never had the dream again.

Blessed.

Are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Okay?

So the rock is the kingdom of God, and the text directly says that.

And when Jesus shows up, he made it clear in Matthew 2141 that this rock

coming from heaven was a picture of him.

Matthew 2142.

Jesus said to them, have you read in the scriptures?

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes.

I always didn't see that part.

It's marvelous in our eyes that he's been the rejected one.

It's marvelous that he was rejected so that I didn't have to think about it.

The stone was made without human hands.

It came with no human agency.

That was to show that no part of God's salvation would

come about by human agency.

No hand touched it.

God would do it all.

So like the stone, Jesus would be made without human hands.

He was born a virgin.

Second, the rock was the least valuable

Substance in the dream.

Granite is much less valuable than gold, silver, bronze, and

even iron, or even iron and clay.

Yet this rock came with the power of God and it so shattered into dust,

those more expensive materials.

This represents how Jesus would not come with all the bling

and the shine of the world.

He was born poor.

He never owned a home.

He never raised an army.

He was no head of gold.

Yet he came with death defying power of God.

Third in the dream, the rock started small, but eventually grew into a gigantic

mountain that filled the whole earth.

It's the same thing that Jesus said about his kingdom in Matthew 13.

He said, this kingdom would start small like a seed, but eventually

it will multiply so that it covers every part of the earth.

You know when Jesus left.

You could put all of his followers into one upper room.

He didn't leave an army or a fortress like Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander The Great.

Yet that small movement has today swelled into the largest

religious movement in history.

It literally covers the face of the earth.

And that leads us to the substance of our core message of Babylon, that what we're

witnessing to, to testify of that God sent a rock to earth called Jesus, who will

destroy every false kingdom erected by man, whether those of large geopolitical

kingdoms in the world, or the independent little kingdoms of our own lives.

He came first to save.

He came not to judge us, but to die on the cross, to save us

to be a rock of salvation that we could build our lives upon.

But if we don't do that, then that rock crushes.

And here's the verse that brings it all together and that

brought it together for me.

Matthew 2142 to 44, Jesus said to them, have you not read the scriptures?

The stone, the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

The Lord has done this and it's marvelous in our eyes.

Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from

you and given to a people who will produce its fruit, and here it is.

Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but anyone

on whom it falls will be crushed.

Guys.

That's why I hate the Prosperity Gospel because it's a.

Demonic theology brokenness is involved in the Christian life.

That's right.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

How happy.

Congratulations.

You're broken now.

Yes,

but it's, he's, the call is to humble yourselves, to admit

that you are already broken.

See, the thing is that's the tragedy of humanity is here we are all spiritual

beggars who are poor, and yet some people pretend like they're not.

And it says, man, that rock is coming against the kingdoms of man.

That rock is coming to judge these false kingdoms, these kingdoms that offer lies.

That steer people away from the true God man, that rock is coming.

And if that rock falls on you, there'll be nothing left.

But now Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

He says, come to me.

Yes, you will be broken.

But what is broken?

Our thirst is broken.

Our hunger is broken.

Our permanent residence in a grave is broken.

That's the things that are broken, the things that hold us back to chain us down.

That ties us up.

That's what broken.

Ah,

somebody once said, I love it.

God loves you and has a terrible plan for your life

because it's terrible to the kingdoms of this world.

It doesn't make any sense.

It's backwards and inside out and upside down.

Love your enemies.

Turn the cheek.

What?

That sounds horrible.

Forgive those who wrong you.

To those who have stepped into that new life, it is liberation itself.

It is freedom.

It is seeing the world in color, and he's telling the sinners who have wrecked

their lives in a return for his grace and mercy, that they own the future.

Yours is the kingdom.

I am going to build a whole new world with you.

He says, poor in spirit doesn't mean lackluster disposition.

Get that out of your mind.

There is a joy, but it's this honesty that the only thing we bring is need.

And nothing

real wealth begins with real need.

He doesn't mean people who have little, but those who have nothing because

we don't have anything to offer 'em.

And God owes me nothing, and they look at a crossword.

Jesus died for their sins in any pride.

Like a vampire at Sunrise, disintegrates in the night.

Poverty is not how the earthly kingdom starts a movement.

The kingdom of heaven is green pastures and still waters brilliantly

disguised as poverty of spirit.

You see, when we build the kingdom, we look for the heavy

hitters and the insiders, not the dropouts in the bankrupt.

That's who God's building his kingdom with, but Jesus does

because he brings everything to you.

We only bring need.

That is something Jesus is doing and building, and he gets the glory because

he does it all from first to last.

He says, I'm the alpha the Omega.

I'm from first to last.

How do we know he's good?

Because this infinite rock that crushes and obliterates everything

in his path, we're told in the Book of Exodus, shows up to a very thirsty

people who are dying this rock, and Moses is told, go and strike the rock.

And Moses takes his staff and he strikes the rock and he hits it.

And this rock ples in water.

What?

We read that story too much.

That's bonkers, guys.

That's ridiculous.

Yeah, and they're all saved because this rock was obliterated.

Comes back booking numbers and he is like, they're thirsty again.

Just speak to the rock.

And man, not walk post reports forth Moses misrepresents, but God gets him

into the promised land 'cause grace,

God is not mocked.

If you do not humble yourself, recognize your spiritual poverty.

The rock crushes every other kingdom, whether that's Babylon or ours.

And what's happens to Nebuchadnezzar when he hears this, and this is mind

blowing, verse 46, the Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and paid.

Homage to Daniels.

He's doesn't got quite get it yet, and commanded that an offering

in incense be offered up to him.

The king answered and said to Daniel, truly, your God is the God of Gods and the

Lord of lords and a revealer of mysteries.

For you have been able to reveal this mystery.

Blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And Nebuchadnezzar kid continues to get broken and because of that,

he finds himself in a different kingdom than his dream was about.

Not the statue of gold that he thought he was, but as part of the invincible

kingdom whose builder and maker is God.