S - Daniel Pt. 2 (Daniel 2: 1-49)
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17 Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
18 He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
19 During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven
20 and said: “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.
21 He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
22 He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.
23 I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.”
If you guys remember, on Wednesday we talked about Joseph. And we learned that although we are Christians, it doesn’t make life easier. Life is still pretty difficult, and the things we go through are sometimes so unfair. How do you respond when you are in an emergency situation?
Options:
Cry for help.
Change his diaper.
Drop the baby.
I just think about that sometimes. You ever just see a crazy situation and think: How would I have responded to that? Like imagine this for a second. You know we are about to have a baby, imagine you are holding my baby and then he just poops. What would you do?
Or have you ever been to a public restroom and after you’re done using the bathroom you find out there’s no toilet paper. What would you do?
Options:
Ask a stranger for toilet paper.
Crawl to the stall next to you.
Get up and walk away.
You’ve got some options right? Don’t answer out loud, how would you respond to those situations?
Sometimes our situations are much much worst right? What do you do if you’re caught in a car accident? Or if you find out you failed a test you really needed to pass? Or if you got a phone call and found out you just lost a loved one? Or someone you really love is very sick. How do you respond to those things?
Today, we’re going to see how Daniel and his 3 friends are caught up in an awful situation and we get to see how they respond to it.
1 In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep.
2 So the king summoned the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood before the king,
3 he said to them, “I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.”
4 Then the astrologers answered the king, “May the king live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will interpret it.”
5 The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble.
So King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and he wants to know what it means. But he won’t tell his people what the dream is. Imagine I ask you to solve this Math problem on the screen:
There is nothing on the screen right? How could you solve the math problem? You can’t but the king wanted his people to tell him what the dream meant, without them knowing what the dream was. That is crazy. And he threatened them: If you don’t tell me what my dream was and what it means, I’m going to destroy you and everything you own.
Now remember what we learned last week. God doesn’t really talk to people through dreams anymore. It doesn’t mean He can’t, but God spoke to people through visions and dreams in the Old Testament because they didn’t have 2 things:
The Bible.
Jesus.
Let’s keep reading the story:
11 What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among humans.”
12 This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.
13 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.
14 When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact.
15 He asked the king’s officer, “Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?” Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel.
16 At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him.
So, we see how the king responds to everything, but then we also see how Daniel responds to everything.
I want us to notice something about the king. He us afraid. Verse 1 says:
1 In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep.
The king was troubled and could not sleep. In his emergency situation, the king responded with fear. And not only that, in verse 5:
5 The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble.
The king threatens people because his fear turned into anger. When the King found himself in an emergency situation, he was afraid, angry and then he began to threaten people.
But let’s look at Daniel. Daniel was also in a dangerous situation, all of a sudden Daniel found himself about to be killed by a king that wasn’t making any sense. So he tells the guard, give me some time to figure this out.
We notice that
Daniel respond with:
Wisdom.
Faith.
What does it look like to respond in Wisdom?
It looks like this:
1. Ask Questions
15 He asked the king’s officer, “Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?” Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel.
Daniel spent some time asking questions that could help with the situation, he didn’t just react to his problems. I mean the king was angry, was it wrong for the king to be angry? no absolutely not! Was it wrong fro him to be afraid? No it wasn’t. But when the king started allowing his anger and fear to dictate how he responded, that’s when it became a problem. See, Daniel was afraid too. He was probably angry that the king was going to kill him and his friends for no reason. But instead of seeing the problem, and blowing up. He chose to find a solution. Wisdom requires you to take a moment, take a step back and decide that you are not going to allow your negative emotions to take control of the situation. Instead, we want to respond with wisdom.
What does it look like to respond with Wisdom?
Ask Questions.
Talk to other Christians.
Sometimes we aren’t the best at responding to things, we know that. But if you ever find yourself in an emergency situation, you want to sit down with other people who are Christians so that you can debrief. Have a conversation. Sometimes
Talking to people who live like Jesus will help you respond like Jesus.
You don’t want to respond like the king did. Have you ever seen a bracelet that has these letters?
WWJD?
What does that stand for? What Would Jesus Do? Before you react you want to sit back and ask your friends, or your pastor, or your house parents: What do you think Jesus would do in my situation?
We see how Daniel does that:
17 Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
We said that Daniel responds with
Daniel respond with:
Wisdom.
Faith.
What does it look like for us to respond with faith?
18 He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
They prayed. I’m not going to lie to you guys, I am super independent. I do things on my own, I am not very good at asking people for help. And because that’s my personality, sometimes I go through something difficult and instead of asking people for help, I just deal with it myself. Sometimes I don’t even ask God for help.
I have to remind myself of this all of the time:
I can’t go through this life on my own.
I get it, I am strong, I can do anything I put my mind to. But without other people you won’t get far. And I know that if you have ever found yourself in an emergency situation, you have probably felt helpless. The world we live in can make us feel helpless.
Have you ever felt helpless before? I’m sure most of you in here have, being in a situation in which you don’t see a way out is awful. And out own independence can get in the way of reaching out for help.
Don’t be that person. Believe it or not, you are not the strongest person on earth and I promise you, one day you will be in a situation that you can not handle. But did you know, that God wants to hear from you? He wants to hear about your day, about what you’ve been up to, about how easy your day was.
But He also wants to hear about your hardships, your difficulties, He also wants to know if you had a hard conversation with your family, Or if you feel lonely. Sometimes we are struggling with sin, God wants to hear that. He wants to know if you are having a hard time telling the truth, or if you have an anger management issue, or if you are feeling depressed, lonely, sad or anything else.
Did you know King David in the old testament felt that way sometimes? He was being attacked by the king before him, and he felt alone, afraid, helpless. And he wrote in the book of Psalms I cried to my God for help:
16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.
God loves you so much that He himself will be by your side all the way from heaven. He would reach down and hold you, he would reach down and be with you.
Sin has made us completely helpless. Sin has separated us from God us from God. And in our sin, God reached down from heaven. How? He reached down from heaven to you and me through Jesus. God sent Jesus to find me, God sent Jesus to find you. God’s love is so so big that in your helplessness, Jesus would take away what is separating you from God.
Thanks to Jesus, we can now have a relationship with God, you and I can now pray to Him, cry to Him, worship Him, learn from Him. But not only that, because of Jesus, we can be like Daniel. And ask God to help us.
The rest of the story is incredible. I won’t read the whole story but I encourage you to go home and read the rest of chapter 2. But that night, Daniel and his friends pray that God will help them. And God tells Daniel what the dream is and what the dream means. The next day Daniel worships God!
And Daniel goes before the king and says:
27 Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about,
28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these:
Daniel says: King there isn’t a single man who can help you with your problem, there isn’t a single person in your kingdom or outside of your kingdom that can help. Daniel looks at the king and says: I can’t help you. But there is a God in heaven who can.
Friends, it’s the same for us. You might be going through a situation that I can’t understand, or that others can’t help you with. But there is a God, there is a God in heaven who can help you, who understands you, who wants to be with you. A God who is all powerful, all knowing and loves you so so much.
Sin, is the biggest problem we have. And no one on earth can help us with. no one on earth can save you from your sin. No one on earth is capable of taking your sins on your back. But there is a God in heaven who can, a God who is so powerful he made himself human, so powerful He CHOSE to take your sin on His back and pay for it so that you wouldn’t have to.
This God, who loves you so so much has a name and His name is Jesus.
How do you respond to emergency situations? If you don’t know how to respond, will you reach out to Jesus? Will you call out His name? I want to show you a music video, and then we’ll pray together.
If you don’t know what it means to follow Jesus, will you talk to me or a house parent today?