Heavenly Living in Hostage Times Daniel 4
Notes
Transcript
On Wednesday nights we are going through the study of Daniel. You will remember that I took a siesta from Daniel when you studied Daniel in the Fall quarter of your Life Group study.
Our last time together we studied the story of King Nebuchadnezzar becoming irate that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego would not bow when music was played to the statute made of gold of Nebuchadnezzar.
You will remember that the young Jewish men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego were in fact thrown into the fiery furnace. And as you know Nebuchadnezzar saw a fourth man in the furnace with them, I have to believe it was dear Jesus in the flames with them. Amen. If it were not Jesus, it was one of His angels. When they came out of the fire no clothing was even singed. There was not even the smell of smoke on their bodies.
And look with me at the end of Daniel 3:28–30 “28 Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God! 29 Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this.” 30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in the province of Babylon.”
I read that text to you to remind you that for those Jewish men influencing Nebuchadnezzar required a great patience in grasping God and the type relationship we should have with God.
His life was a journey of events that deepened his understanding of God, acknowledging God, and encountering real transformation. We would call Nebuchadnezzar a work in progress.
When you consider everything that has happened in recent days both corporately and individually, I see so clearly a theme of patience for the universal church today, our Mt Zion family and each of us individually. God is teaching me patience as a leader. When I consider the koinonia of Mt. Zion and the warmth and the intimacy of this body of believers, I can not comprehend at times with the shape the world is in why people do not tear the hinges off the door to join in the love of God and each other that we experience here. I know that all of the health matters and prayer requests of late have been overwhelming and has required great patience both corporately and individually and many of you personally as well have been on pilgrimages that requires great patience.
Our study of Dr. James Merritt, Belief Barriers, reminds me that this is a period for the church at large to exude great patience. There are many real objections today that people have in surrendering to the Lord and His church. Good God allow bad to happen to good people. Hypocrisy, Christian Science, and Bigotry/Racism.
We are encountering with the newer generations today just as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, & Abed-Nego dealt with in a pagan world of Babylon led by King Nebuchadnezzar. There is a deep lesson in our study and the study of Daniel at large that we not get impatient, get frustrated, or throw our hands up, but we exude godly patience with a lost world.
Verses 28-30 revealed that Nebuchadnezzar gained an understanding of God, by no means he had not arrived in his understanding. And let me say none of us have arrived in our understanding.
Isaiah 55:8–9 “8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
We need to give the people of Babylon some slack. They were pagan, they were Gentile, they were products of their environment and they were reared around a polytheistic environment. Listen to me very clearly and accept what I am getting ready to say. America is a polytheistic country today. The people of our area are polytheistic.
“In God we trust” is no more a part of America. Jehovah God that we follow today competes with the multiple gods people are divided with.
We need to know clearly God’s attitude towards that.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
It takes tremendous patience today. It took tremendous patience during Daniel’s time.
We read in verse 30 that in the midst of Nebuchadnezzar’s folly of following the Lord because the Jewish men were patient, they were promoted in the process. We will learn today that as we are patient, we share, we influence, God will honor that type of ministry.
Do you meet people today that are hot/cold, individually can talk a good word when they come in contact with the church and the people of the church, yet they can not keep the living water of Christ red hot because they can not bring themselves to fellowship with God’s people. Oh dear church, it happens all the time. We (I’ve been with you and run into people in public that talk around the things of God, we have people that respond to text) and give an appearance in small flashes of the image of God that is in their DNA, but they are like the parable that Jesus shares.
Matthew 13:3–9 “3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!””
Look later at :
Matthew 13:24–30 “24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ””
New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries: Updated Edition 2215 ζιζάνιον (zizanion)
ζιζάνιον zizanion; prob. of Sumer. or.; zizanium (a kind of darnel resembling wheat):—tares(8).
A tare is a look alike Christian on the outside, but is not really a Christian.
Lets’s get into chapter 4.
Daniel 4:1–2 “1 Nebuchadnezzar the king, To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. 2 I thought it good to declare the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked for me.”
Dearly beloved, if all of us are honest tonight, we would say that most of our spiritual pilgrimage was at this level of maturity.
Nebuchadnezzar was growing, but He did not fully understand the Lord and how we should respond to the Lord. Most people in the Christian faith do not know how to respond and most find themselves nestled at this level of understanding.
What is in it for me? In our journey of sanctification, most Christians never rise above this level of understanding of God. And so, we see this on again, off again Christian because if there lives are going great and God is blessing, “I do not need Him.”
They may not say that but that is what their life reflects.
If life is in the pits, then we see this reaching out, being drawn to the Lord for Him to bail them out of whatever mess they are in. The mass of Christians make it to this level of understanding of God.
Our ultimate understanding is to understand that we serve Him, He doesn’t serve us. He loves us and He does provide, but our motivation should not be, what ‘s in it for us, but how can I be used of You?
Jesus encountered the same type people in His day.
John 4:48 “48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.””
Unless He is the hand out God or the food line God, they do not believe.
Daniel 4:3 “3 How great are His signs, And how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And His dominion is from generation to generation.”
God used Nebuchadnezzar to share great truth, but this truth needed deepening in His heart. In other words,it needed planing in deeper cultivated soil and the seed needed to take.
Daniel has an “I” Focus
Daniel 4:4–9 “4 I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my house, and flourishing in my palace. 5 I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts on my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. 6 Therefore I issued a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream. 7 Then the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers came in, and I told them the dream; but they did not make known to me its interpretation. 8 But at last Daniel came before me (his name is Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god; in him is the Spirit of the Holy God), and I told the dream before him, saying: 9 “Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, because I know that the Spirit of the Holy God is in you, and no secret troubles you, explain to me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and its interpretation.”
I believe in those 6 verses there were 21 personal reference to Nebuchadnezzar, “I, my, me.”
Listen to me dearly beloved, may I speak to you beyond the spiritual for a moment. May I offer you counsel that is as much therapeutic and pragmatic than just spiritual. Get out of your self.
When we do not focus on us as much we are not as anxious, when we do not focus on us as much we do not hurt, we are not as sick, we are not as depressed, we are not as despondent, do not acknowledge or give into sickness, when we do not focus on us as much we are not burdened by our estate, our finances, our setting and allowed for it to take over our lives. When we look outward we quickly discover that there are people that have greater needs than you. Greater hurts than you, greater burdens than you and it lessens your situation. Positively speaking, when you minister to those other needs about you, your situation wains in comparison.
Verse 4 is the epitome of a man that believes that the world was made for him and the world revolves around him.
Daniel 4:10–13 “10 These were the visions of my head while on my bed: I was looking, and behold, A tree in the midst of the earth, And its height was great. 11 The tree grew and became strong; Its height reached to the heavens, And it could be seen to the ends of all the earth. 12 Its leaves were lovely, Its fruit abundant, And in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, The birds of the heavens dwelt in its branches, And all flesh was fed from it. 13 “I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and there was a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven.”
Daniel has an “I” Folly
Daniel revealed in poetic language that God had been so good to him and the people of Babylon. He flourished providentially by the hand of God. On more than once occasion Nebuchadnezzar had opportunity to totally surrender, to repent, and lead as the strong man he was to transform Babylon for the Lord and did not.
14 He cried aloud and said thus:
‘Chop down the tree and cut off its branches,
Strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.
Let the beasts get out from under it,
And the birds from its branches.
15 Nevertheless leave the stump and roots in the earth,
Bound with a band of iron and bronze,
In the tender grass of the field.
Let it be wet with the dew of heaven,
And let him graze with the beasts
On the grass of the earth.
16 Let his heart be changed from that of a man,
Let him be given the heart of a beast,
And let seven times pass over him.
17 ‘This decision is by the decree of the watchers,
And the sentence by the word of the holy ones,
In order that the living may know
That the Most High rules in the kingdom of men,
Gives it to whomever He will,
And sets over it the lowest of men.’
18 “This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, have seen. Now you, Belteshazzar, declare its interpretation, since all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known to me the interpretation; but you are able, for the Spirit of the Holy God is in you.”
“for the Spirit of the Holy God is in you.”
Let’s read verse 19 & then will comment:
Daniel 4:19 “19 Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonished for a time, and his thoughts troubled him. So the king spoke, and said, “Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its interpretation trouble you.” Belteshazzar answered and said, “My lord, may the dream concern those who hate you, and its interpretation concern your enemies!”
Listen dearly beloved, we must pick our battles and certain battles are not worth having. There is a season, a time of maturing and allowing some things to slide. In God’s right timing, we can grow, we can disciple, we can rear up new believers.
Note that Daniel did not get worked up over his statement:
“for the Spirit of the Holy God is in you.”
Nor do we see him struggle with being called Belteshazzar-his Babylonian name. He dressed as a leader was to address, he attended the functions that were called for the job. at 17 years of age he stated he was not eating the food that was not kosher, but he addressed that with tact and grace.
Listen, pick your battles
1 Corinthians 9:22 “22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
We must ask ourselves this question.
Is my aim to be a Sadducee or is my aim to lead in salvation?
If our aim is to lead others to Christ, we need to understand we will need to be patient as one does not become a disciple over night.
We do not want to frustrate them for what they lack, but fellowship and reward in where they have come from.
The Aim in our patience? Heavenly Focus
Daniel 4:17 “17 ‘This decision is by the decree of the watchers, And the sentence by the word of the holy ones, In order that the living may know That the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, Gives it to whomever He will, And sets over it the lowest of men.’”
Daniel 4:25 “25 They shall drive you from men, your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make you eat grass like oxen. They shall wet you with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.”
Jeremiah 27:5 “5 ‘I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are on the ground, by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it to whom it seemed proper to Me.”
We must remember that God is bringing about things in our lives for His purpose, His glory, and brings about situations in the lives of others not to be saduccees and say “I told you so”, but to be agents of salvation.”
There is a saying out on shirts and hats these day of a spiritual connotation:
I don’t have an answer, but I know a Man.”
Daniel 4:26 “26 “And inasmuch as they gave the command to leave the stump and roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be assured to you, after you come to know that Heaven rules.”
Daniel 4:27 “27 Therefore, O king, let my advice be acceptable to you; break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a lengthening of your prosperity.””