Brothers in Babylon

Good morning. Grab your Bible.

We're going to be in Daniel chapter 2 in the Book of Daniel

Daniel 2 · chapter mention Daniel 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2. We're taking a little bit of a

break from our series. We've wrapped the prayer series

up a few weeks back. You remember Adrian and

Antoinette Quinn Levin were here straight after this.

And then we had Tony and Cath Rainbow last weekend and next

weekend we got Ray Bevan in the house.

So in this gap, I want to do something a little bit

different. I want to actually, I would love

to do some housekeeping and here's why.

I don't know if it's because of coffee or conversations or

coincidences, but it just seems like everywhere I go, we are up

against it taking strain in the trenches.

It feels like whether it be the enemy encircling us and taking

shots or whether just be the year that's gotten long and

weary, it seems like we need a bit of a breather, need some

space, need to anchor ourselves somewhere in the middle of these

storms of the tail end of 2024. And So what I want to do today

is I want to take this chapter in the book of Daniel and I want

to present it to you, unpack a little bit for you to use as an

anchor for your soul at the moment.

Maybe a framework to fight this fight that you're fighting to

face the impossible to slay your Goliath and trust that God would

use this as we we see our 2024 that we see it with hope in our

hearts, with faith in our step and and victory under our belts.

So to set the context for you, let me read through the first

few verses of Daniel chapter 2. Hope you've gotten there by now,

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

but it says this in verse one. It says in the second year of

his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams.

Now Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon.

The Babylonians had basically descended on Israel, taken them

into exile, and now they're in a foreign context.

And this king had dreams. His mind was troubled and he

could not sleep. So the king summoned the

magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers to

tell him what he had dreamed. So this is a wicked nation led

by a wicked king, surrounded by wicked counsel.

Some Bible translations have it as necromancers and those

dealing in the occult, magicians, enchanters, sorcerers

and those who go to The Sunday Times to look for what?

What is up for those who are Sagittarius for the weak?

Yeah, stop it, it's stupid. When they came in and stood

before the king, he said to them, I've had a dream that

troubles me and I want to know what it means.

No problem. Verse 4.

Then the astrologers answered the king.

May the king live forever. Tell your servants the dream and

we'll interpret it. So, the king replied to the

astrologers. This is what I firmly decided.

If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I'll

have you cut into pieces and your house is turned into piles

of rubble. Not so good.

Yeah, but if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will

receive from me gifts and rewards and great honour.

So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.

Once more, they replied. Let the king tell his servants

the dream and we'll interpret it.

And the king answered verse 8. I'm certain that you're trying

to gain time because you realize that this is what I firmly

decided. If you do not tell me the dream,

there is only one penalty for you, which is essentially

certain death. You've conspired to tell me

misleading and wicked things hoping the situation will

change. So then tell me the dream and

I'll know what you can interpret that you can interpret it for

me. So that's, that's the context.

OK. That's the impossible.

Daniel's department has been asked not just to interpret the

dream, but to tell the dream. But now I want to show you the

crux of the crisis. What Daniel does here in verse

10 and verse 28 is he basically bookends the crisis on one side.

Verse 10 says the astronomer astrologers answer the king.

There is no one on earth that can do what the king is asked.

That's on this side. And if you page to verse 28 on

the other side. But Daniel said there is a God

in heaven who reveals mysteries. So that's the juxtaposition.

That is what your crisis is asking of you.

Where do you turn? There's no one on earth.

Or do you turn to the God of heaven who reveals mysteries?

And so he goes on to say, verse 12, this made the king so angry

and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of

Babylon. So the decree was issued to put

the wise men to death. And I notice there says a

decree, A decree in the ancient Near East was an unchangeable

law, absolute in its conditions. OK.

This is not what you do with your children.

I'm going to count to 3122 and a half, two and a bit more than

1/2. No, no, this is a decree.

OK, stop that. That's also stupid.

So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death.

And men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put

them to death. OK.

That's Daniel's impossible. You've got to tell me what I

dream. I've dreamed.

You also have to interpret it or I kill you.

I kill you dead. What's?

Yeah. Stop here, Lucy.

What's your impossible? What's your impossible?

Because I think of the last few weeks, I've heard all of them.

I seriously do not want to go to hospital again.

I've been there more times than I can count over the last two

weeks. I don't need to know what the

technique is to put in a stent and the fact that we're talking

about potential heart failure and the results of stroke.

What's your impossible? Maybe it's the doctor's report.

Maybe they said to you, OK, you need to start tending to your

bucket list. Maybe it's business.

Maybe your boss is impossible. Maybe you've also been asked to

interpret dreams. You don't know what's going on

in his heart, but you just expect it to perform.

Maybe it's finances. Maybe you issued divorce papers.

Maybe you live with an alcoholic and it's impossible at home.

Maybe you're the alcoholic and you don't know how to get out of

this addiction that you carry. Or maybe you're the problem.

It's such a mess and you don't know how to clean up this mess.

It's impossible. Or maybe it's all of the above.

Maybe you've just been run ragged.

You're here feeling like you've been.

That's that's my 2024. It feels like in run ragged.

You know, when the the Titanic sank in 1912, it wasn't a head

on collision with an iceberg. They say that it was a sequence

of small slits that sank the Titanic, none bigger than a

child's hand. It would have been fine if it

was 2-3, maybe 4 slits, but when it became the 5th slit and then

the 6th slit, then it was man down, game over.

And that's how the enemy operates.

It's just a death by 1000 paper cuts, Just.

Oh, and then it's this. And you know, it doesn't rain.

It pours. It's just the next one and the

next one and the next issue. And you're just trying to cope

with this. And then there's another order.

And then your design team absolutely botches the job.

And then your husband comes home and you can tell that there's

something wrong and slit after slit, and you just run ragged.

And you say it's impossible. One more and I'm done.

When we take a look at Daniel chapter 2, I think it's it's

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

descriptive, but it's also prescriptive.

You know, the Bible says in one Corinthians 10, it says these

things happen to them as examples for us talking about

what happened in the Old Testament.

These things happen to them as examples for us and we're

written down for our instruction.

So I want you to take a look at Daniel chapter 2 as a lens to

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

process the impossible that you might be facing.

Because what you'll find when you do that is 4 things that

Daniel teaches us about pray, presence, people and praise.

Pray, presence, people and praise.

Now I know we've done a lot on pray, but there's something that

I want to raise here that for me has absolutely blown me away.

Verse 14, pray when Arioch, a really cool name for your son,

when Arioch, the command of the King's God, had gone out to put

to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him

with wisdom and tact. Now we're looking at prayer and

he's saying, well, there's no prayer in there.

So let me show you what I believe is actually going on

that that leads up to this moment where Daniel can come to

the guy who has come to execute him and deal with him with, with

wisdom and tact. Jump across to Colossians

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 and you find this pause was your writing to the

church in Colossae and he writes the following.

He says for this reason, since the day we heard about you, day

we heard that you were saved, day that you'd join the church,

he said we have not stopped praying for you.

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His

will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit

gives. It's the same phrase, just in

Greek, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and

please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work,

growing in the knowledge of Him. So this is a prayer that Paul

prays when every single day we have not stopped praying for

you. Now what if I told you that ever

since reading this during our prayer series, I've not stopped

praying for you? 3 CR not just Lord help 3 CR

Lord be there when they're making business decisions.

I have been praying and continually asking God to fill

you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and

understanding that the spirit gifts.

I think that's where the the sermon.

If anyone lacks wisdom and let him ask was birth because I've

been praying that very verse so that you may live a life worthy

of the Lord. I want you to live a life worthy

of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit in

every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.

I've prayed this day after day after day.

I've prayed for you 3 CR by name, being strengthened with

all power according to his glorious might so that you may

have great endurance and patience.

And I've been in ICU praying that you would have endurance

and patience. And I've raised that because in

exactly the same way that this verse has captured my prayer

list and my prayers for you. When you look at the book of

Daniel, you see he did exactly the same.

Not in Colossians because it hadn't been written yet, but the

Bible scholars say when you look at the 1st 6 chapters of Daniel,

you see the fingerprints of his prayer life, not just praise,

but praying scripture. And they say in there, actually

in that 2nd chapter of Daniel, we see him praying Jeremiah 33,

verse three that says the following call to me and I will

answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things.

You do not know. I do not know what he dreamt.

I do not know what to counsel a king in a foreign land as an

exile. And he has been praying this

verse. He's also been praying Genesis

Genesis 40:8

40 verse 8, which is where Joseph stands before Pharaoh and

says do not interpretations belong to God.

And I highlight that because what Daniel has done when you

start digging in there is actually nothing new.

What I've done in looking at Colossians 19 is nothing new.

Actually, from the very first pages of Scripture, we find the

bedrock of praying Scripture. And here's why.

You know, in the beginning God says let there be light and

there was light. Well then cloth, if you look at

the original Hebrew, it doesn't say and God said let there be

light and an Angel quickly switched on the light.

God spoke and there was light. OK, why is that?

Why did God not do anything? Get together a whole bunch of

materials. Here's the reason why, because

God never creates apart from speaking, which means that God

creates through speaking. You could say God creates

through His word, which is why from the days of old the Saints

would take God's word because they saw God's word as an agent,

a creating agent, an agent of His power.

And so by praying Scripture, essentially what they would do

is they would take the presence, the power, and the purpose of

God and bring it into their problem through pray.

And that is what we see Daniel do.

That is what I have seen when it comes to a fruitfulness in

praying Scripture because there's power in His Word.

The Word is God. In the beginning was the Word

and the Word was God. And by praying Scripture, what

we see and what Daniel saw is that you allow this power, the

power of his word and his promises and his purposes and

most importantly his presence. You bring that to bear on your

impossible. So a few weeks ago I got a phone

call from a friend of mine. He said, listen, we got to do

coffee. I want to chat to you about my

impossible. So we did that and he told me a

story. He said a few years back when he

was first in three CR when we were still a tense and we were

sort of facing that direction. He said the sermon had ended.

He's busy gathering up his stuff.

And the guy next to him made a very random comment.

He said, listen, but I really think you need to study nuclear

physics. And he was like, he was doing

his B commerce, something like a nuclear physics.

And he turned to the guy next to him, and there was no one there.

And he sort of got a little cold, like, yo, what?

Is that clear as day? Then he started doubting it.

And anyway, one thing led to another.

Eventually he did do that. He followed up and started

studying nuclear physics. And in 2020, when he was doing

his doctorates and going on to his PhD, God gave him a dream.

And in his words, the dream answered a 100 year question.

It has to do with particle acceleration, I'll tell you.

But you wouldn't understand it anyway because I didn't

understand it either. I kept saying, OK, just just one

a little. OK, So if I understand, he said,

listen, bud, it takes me about an hour to get people in the

industry up to speed. So he said, don't worry, if

you're from the bluff, you don't stand a chance.

So he was drawing me pictures. True story anyway.

But here's the thing. This is what I learned using

this particle accelerator, the framework that God gave him in

the dream. He's now able to produce energy,

net positive, clean nuclear power and a couple things there.

I was reading his white paper. It requires no enriched fuel.

It doesn't create any bomb fuel as a side thing.

So it's, it's lovely, it's safe, it's clean.

Not only is it safe, but it's small.

So what God showed him, I don't know if you know this, but the

the Hadron Collider in Geneva takes 27 kilometers.

It's this 27 kilometer loop to get the particles up to speed.

Because basically how it works, the way I understand it, if you

take a ball bearing and a rock, you've got to throw that ball

bearing really, really hard to chip the rock and get the atoms

and the protons off when it comes to nuclear fusion.

And so they take 27 kilometers to do this.

But what God showed him takes a couple meters, which means you

don't have to buy three CIS property and all the land around

it to make energy. You can convert 1 of your

garages into one of these units that produces a MW of energy.

So I'm like, you know, South Africa's got an energy problem.

Surely maybe is this is this impossible that you just can't

get their attention said no, no, no, I've presented it to them.

He doesn't know if it's corruption or coal, but they're

just sort of like very hands or fish.

And I said to him, but this should be able to solve a

crisis. He said, you, you want to know

how long it would take to solve South Africa's energy crisis?

You don't want to hazard a guess.

I'm like 10 years, 22 months, 22 months.

But South Africa doesn't really want anything to do with it.

So I said, what's the impossible?

What is it that you're facing? Why are you here?

Said well, because he's been approached by many nations who

do with deep pockets said, but they are notoriously malevolent.

And he said, I don't know. Can I give this gift that God

gave me into those hands? And then he said, what do I do?

Hey puppy, now you outside of my authority.

And I know there are churches and there are pastors and there

are elders. So come kiss the ring and I'll

tell you what God says, but that is not our authority.

My authority, as his friend and as his elder said to him, bring

those well worn portions of scripture where God has shown

you something of the footprints of your future.

My responsibility is to teach you how to discern the voice of

God and discern how He is leading you.

And once you know, then let me teach you how to take that in

prayer and unlock the presence and the power and the purpose of

God in your impossible. Daniel shows us this.

Saints of old show us this. And I really pray that you would

see this for yourself. Because when we're at that

space, then God can entrust a particle accelerator into our

hands, knowing that all we're going to do is put it back in

his hands and say, Father, would you show us how to navigate

through enemy lines? So pray presence people, praise.

What about presence? Verse 16 At this Daniel went

into the king and asked for time so that he might interpret the

dream for him. In my Bible, I've underlined

Daniel went into the king. If it was at this time Stephen,

it would be at this time. Stephen grabbed WhatsApp and

started whinging to all his friends.

Steven opened TikTok or created an app called Toy Toy.

But Daniel went to the king. Tell you that could be a word

from God for you today because speak to your boss.

Take your husband out on a date. Daniel went to the king.

The Collegian Employment Research Institute recently did

a study on Gen. Z or Gen.

Z. Gen.

Z sounds cooler. Gen.

Z is the age group between about 1314 and 27.

And so they did a study recently, the Collegian

Employment Research Institute. Because some of the older Gen.

Z's are now starting to work and they're wanting to know how were

they interacting with a modern workplace.

Here's some of the things they discovered. 40% of Gen.

Z's parents obtained the job info for their kids. 31% of the

same parents submitted. CVS for their kids. 26% of Gen.

Z's parents advocated on behalf of their kids to get the job,

15% complained if said child did not get the job, and a shocking

4% attended the interview with their child.

This too is stupid. Stop it.

Daniel went into the king. Mommy, if you go into the king

you are robbing this next generation of generals of the

faith. The church will be worse off for

it, but not only when it comes to kings.

Small K kicking car, but capital K the King of Kings.

If you are robbing your children from approaching an earthly

king, you're also going to rob your children from approaching

the King of kings. Who says come boldly to the

throne of grace, just like David did with the earthly king.

We are invited to the King of Kings.

We. I was at a 50th last night and

my mate's wife got up to his speech.

And the first point was, thank you that every single morning of

our married life, you've gotten up early to pray.

Daniel went into the king, pray, protecting our family, ringing

us before the throne. Daniel went to the king of kings

and then he went to the small king.

And that's what we are encouraged to do.

I don't know if you've read the book, it's called The Great

Divorce. I think it's CS Lewis.

I read it many, many years ago. I don't even know if I'd

actually recommend it. I was thinking this morning,

it's a very weird book. It's allegorical.

It's all about people who've been sent to hell going on a

field trip to heaven. So I don't know if I'd highly

recommend it, but there's one portion that I want to raise in

all it's weirdness. So they go on this field trip.

They all climb off the bus, they go and they do their tour.

But now they're coming back to the bus Field trip is done.

Now the premise here is that those you go to hell go there

because they want to. They want nothing to do with

God. I don't want your forgiveness.

I don't want Jesus. I don't want the cross.

I don't want heaven. So to be dragged to heaven is a

bit of a punishment. So they're now sulking and

finally we can leave. And as they're walking, Lewis

describes each person sort of having this little creature on

their shoulder. And then he describes a cross

like figure who's standing by the bus waiting.

And as they come, Jesus says to one of the guys pointing at this

creature, he says, I can take that from you.

The guy says, doesn't even look up.

He says, no, I'm OK, I'm OK. I just want to, we're leaving

now, don't bother me. And he takes a step closer.

He said, let me take that from you.

And this thing says, don't do it.

It's going to hurt. You don't want to be that guy,

You know, go in church. I mean, your life's a mess, You

know, what's everyone going to say if I'm not here the third

time? Jesus says, let me take that

from you. And the creature again says,

I'll be quiet, I'll be good, won't say another thing.

I want to make you do that stuff ever again.

Just don't touch me. And then there's this moment

where the guy who's just been staring blankly at the floor

looks up, catches the eyes of Jesus, and he just makes a

little bit like 1/2 reach. And Jesus reaches and grabs and

there's this bowl of flame and fire and light and screams, and

he is radically set free in an instant.

And I told the crazy allegorical story because church, we

underestimate the power of the presence of God.

We sit with our impossible, and all we can see is that there's

no one on earth that can help me, no one on earth.

And there's the King of kings, it says, come boldly to the

throne of grace so that you might receive mercy to fight

that fight. And Daniel knows this, but do

you know it? Because on this side there's no

one on earth are the magicians, the sorcerers, the astrologers,

the necromancers and those who dabble in the cult.

What are we doing here, Church? When God says bring your

impossible to me, I can take that from you.

A moment in the presence of God. What are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for? Pray presence people and praise

people. This is verse 17.

Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter

to his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azaria.

He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven

concerning this mystery. What I noticed there in praying

through this chapter was that it doesn't say he went to Shadrach,

Meshach, and Abednego. Instead, he went to Hananiah,

Mishael, and Azaria. Now don't get me wrong, they're

one and the same, but actually this is the only time after the

king, King Nebuchadnezzar had renamed them.

It's the only time in the whole of Daniel that it's written.

Instead of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, it's written

Hananiah, Mishael, and Azaria. So Daniel must be saying

something. The fact that he calls him by

those names, you see what he's trying to tell us is he didn't

run to Babylonians, he ran to brothers.

And then he names them friends. So he says that he returned to

his house. So his brothers in the house

explain the matter to his friends.

And that word that he uses there can be translated militant

supporter brothers. But more than brothers, soldiers

in Colossians. Again, right at the very end,

Paul is busy writing, saying, OK, cheers receive here.

There you go, this beautiful. He says, you know, Aristotle

says, how's it Justice says, how's it Barnabas Pephras says,

sends greetings and then he says this about a Pephrat Pephras.

He says he's one of you. He's a he's a friend.

He sends greetings. And this is how Paul describes

and defines a friend says he is always wrestling in pray for

you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and

fully assured. So Daniel 2 describes friends as

a militant supporter. Colossians 4 describes friends

as someone who is always wrestling and pray for you.

Which begs the question, do you have these friends?

Do you have these friends? When you're facing your

impossible, who do you run to? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

or a brother? Which begs the question, are you

that friend? Is there anyone on your prayer

list? Do you know of anyone else's

impossible that you're wrestling and pray with?

This is the biblical calling on our lives as part of this

community that we gather around us and we gather around brothers

and sisters. Now, I know you.

I know all your excuses. Yeah.

I had had a conversation with a friend the other day.

I'd heard via Via that the wheels had come off and taken a

lot of strain. And I'm like, why didn't you

tell me? And the answer was, oh, no, I

didn't want to burden you. And in a moment I suddenly

realized, oh, you see me as a Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

I thought we had a Hananiah, Mishael and Azaria.

I thought brothers, but do you think Babylonians?

So there's some work to do, but I know all the excuses.

You know how many times I get asked to do a wedding and say,

OK, just fill out this form. You know, what life group are

you in? How long have you been in three

CR? I would say 9.999% of the time

that. What life group are you in?

We've been wanting to, but we haven't just yet.

Oh, some are Babylonian pastor for hire or are you part of the

family? Yeah.

But you know, I work every 3rd Tuesday.

So I just don't want to break that cycle, you know.

And it looks like it might rain next week, so I'm not going to

come to church this Sunday. So let me let me put the bar

really, really low. They did a study on church

attendance, specifically around new people and this is what they

found. Unless you form 7 personal

relationships in three CR within the first year of popping in,

you will not be here for the second year.

You know why? Because somewhere along the line

during your year, you're going to face an impossible and there

ain't going to be no brothers around you to wrestle and pray

on your behalf. And you know what you're going

to do? You're going to leave and say,

yeah, you know, I've tried to get 16 counselling sessions with

them and they didn't even go to one of them. 3 CR, 3 CR, 3 CR,

while you have been taken out slits after slits after slits,

and your impossible gets too big for you to carry.

So I've tried that. No, you haven't.

You've come to Babylon and you haven't found brothers.

You haven't found brothers because this is Unless you form

7 personal relationships in three CR within the first year,

you are unlikely to be here or the rest of us will be.

Thanks for coming to church. Prayer, presence, people,

praise. My time is up praise.

This is what I pray for you. Through CR verse 19 during the

night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision.

Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said praise be to the

name of God forever and ever. Wisdom and power is his.

Now pray, Father, you said, Lord, you said if anyone lacks

wisdom and there are two and a half 3000 people here today who

might lack wisdom, you said that wisdom and power are yours,

yours to give. So asked that you'd give it to

three CR, you'd give it to that impossible situation.

He changes times and seasons. There are many in three CR who

have been in such a long, dry, barren wilderness season.

Father, you change times, you change seasons.

I pray today that it will be a season change for many.

In three CR. He deposes kings and raises up

others. I bring our government before

you. Father, if there's corruption,

would you depose those kings and raise others?

Pray for our city, for the municipality, for teachers, for

lecturers, for medical staff. Depose wicked kings.

I pray He gives wisdom to the wise, knowledge to the

discerning. He reveals deep and hidden

things. Lord, if you can give a 27 year

old idea around particle acceleration and surely you can

help me with a friendship, with my business, with a patent.

Reveal deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in the dark.

Protect his Father from darkness and light dwells with him.

Bring light into dark places. I thank and praise you, God of

my Father's. You've given me wisdom and

power. You've made known to me what we

asked of you, and you've made known to us the dream of the

King. It's because through prayer,

presence, people and praise, it makes the impossible possible.

So go and do like us.