Why Did THAT Happen?
Notes
Transcript
Have you ever looked back at moments of your life and asked “why?” Why did that have to happen? Why was I bullied as a teen? Why did I not get into the school that I wanted to get into? Why did the closest cousin to me commit suicide? Why did one of my best friends in college die of hypothermia? Why did I go through so much financial strain when trying to serve the Lord?
Maybe it isn’t the past that you are asking the “why?” question about. Perhaps it is the present. And you are going through torture right now, because of circumstances, jobs, family or friend relationships, sicknesses, grief. And you ask the question: Why?
That’s a fair question to ask. David asked it throughout the Psalms. Daniel experienced it throughout his life. And today, we have the curtain opened a little bit into the answer to that question.
Our text is Daniel 2, but we will start with only reading the first 13 verses.
In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar 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. When they came in and stood before the king, he said to them, “I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.”
Then the astrologers answered the king, “May the king live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will interpret it.”
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. But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.”
Once more they replied, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will interpret it.”
Then the king answered, “I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me the dream, there is only one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me.”
The astrologers answered the king, “There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. 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.”
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 men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death.
In the passage today, we are going to see that God is sovereignly in control of everything: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Before we dive in, will you pray with me?
1. God Is Sovereign over Yesterday
1. God Is Sovereign over Yesterday
God is sovereignly in control of everything, including yesterday.
Can you imagine what is going through Daniel’s mind when Arioch the commander of the king’s guard comes to kill him?
Daniel has no idea what happened in the king’s presence that night. He has no power or influence yet. Nebuchadnezzer knows that they have skill as wise men. However, they are still low on the totem pole, so that when he needs help, he doesn’t call on Daniel or his friends. He calls on the ones that he has always called on.
But, they don’t give him what he wants. He is so troubled by the dream that he wants to make sure that they are telling him the truth.
he said to them, “I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.”
His ploy to accomplish this is not to tell them the dream.
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.
That’s drastic. Cool behind the scenes fact. From verse 4 until the end of chapter 7, the original was written in Aramaic, instead of Hebrew, because Daniel is writing to influence Babylonians to know God. And Aramaic was what they spoke. Then, in chapter 8, he goes back to Hebrew, because he is writing to Jews to remind them that God is still in charge.
If you are reading an older translation, such as the King James, and some of your wording is different, that is because King James translated based upon a Hebrew understanding of these verses, rather than an Aramaic understanding.
So that he would know that their understanding of the dream was correct and not just a regurgitation of passages of dream interpreting books, he wanted them to miraculously know his dream and then give the interpretation.
The wise men could not do this. Because they did not know the God who is sovereign and who consequently can give wisdom based upon his ultimate rule.
They answer the king:
The astrologers answered the king, “There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. 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.”
They claim a god that they have no interaction with, that they cannot know, that they cannot gain information from. And because, they cannot give the king what he wants.
He becomes angry and orders all of his wise men killed, not just the ones in the room, but all of them throughout his empire. The old ones and the new ones.
Cue Daniel opening the door on Arioch, coming to kill him.
He had nothing to do with what happened in the king’s chamber. But, he is reaping the result of it. And he asks the question:
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. He asked the king’s officer, “Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?” Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel.
He asks “why.” But this isn’t a fly off the handle “why”. This is with wisdom and tact. He is fact finding, because he has already come to grips with the fact that God is in charge.
In the last chapter, he was ripped out of his homeland, his identity, and almost his faith, but he was proven as God proved health and wisdom, that God was still in charge, in spite of what the secular and pagan country tried to say.
He knew intimately the truth that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
God is sovereignly in control of everything, even yesterday.
2. God Is Sovereign over Today
2. God Is Sovereign over Today
God is sovereignly in control of everything, even today.
You might say: that is fine, I suppose, that God is in control of everything, but what does that tell me about who God is? How could you say that he was in control of all that bad stuff?
Well, let’s keep reading:
Dan 2 16-28
At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him.
Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 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. 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 for ever and ever;
wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons;
he deposes kings and raises up others.
He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to the discerning.
He reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what lies in darkness,
and light dwells with him.
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.”
Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him.”
Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means.”
The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?”
Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, 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:
All of a sudden, Nebuchadnezzer is faced with a different person, a different message, a different faith, than what he faced before. His other wise men said that the dream couldn’t be known because their god didn’t interact with humans.
And Daniel stands there strong and says that his God does.
Daniel was able to have peace on that day, staring the sword in the face, marching boldly into the throne room of the king when there was a price on his head, because he knew the God who interacts with humans, the God who is completely sovereign.
He knew the truth in the NT that James writes about:
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
He sought God, seemingly alone in relation to the Babylonians, one wise man in the midst of a crowd sentenced to death, but in fellowship with his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they knew that God would give them wisdom. Why? because he had already shown himself faithful yesterday with the food, so he would show himself faithful today.
You ask what does the fact that God is in control yesterday and today help us through hard times, what does this say about God.
Too often, we treat our relationship with God like those of the pagan wise men, who wring their hands and say: woe is me, we cannot get through this. We don’t know what to do.
Instead, we should be understand that God is sovereign over everything, and his sovereign wisdom is there for us to use.
Contrary to human misunderstandings, wisdom does not have a human origin, but a divine one. Because of this, at its foundation, wisdom is not a lesson to be learned but a relationship to be enjoyed.
Daniel’s wisdom, contrary to that of the learned Babylonian astrologers, did not come from books of dream interpretation; instead, it came from a conversation, a prayer, with God himself.
Yes, God is sovereignly in control of yesterday and today. And he is holding out his hand, desiring a relationship with you, paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, and he says: I will walk with you through whatever you are going through, and I will show you the good that I will bring about, if you just enter into this relationship with me.
And when we are in that relationship, the most amazingly comforting truth is that God is sovereignly in control of everything, yesterday and today.
3. God Is Sovereign over Tomorrow
3. God Is Sovereign over Tomorrow
Which means, since God is sovereignly in control of everything, he is sovereign over tomorrow.
Daniel looks at the king and gives him the interpretation of his dream.
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:
“As Your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.
“Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
“This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.
“After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
“The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”
We are just getting to the good stuff and we run out of time. This passage is a key passage of interpretation for another vision that Daniel has later on.
Briefly, The head of the statue is Nebuchadnezzer and his Babylonian kingdom. The chest is the Medes and Persians, who take over Babylon later in Daniel’s life. The belly and thigh is the Greek empire that conquer the Medes and Persians. The feet is the Romans, who conquer the Greeks. It’s an amazing prophecy that causes many secular scholars to doubt the historicity of Daniel, saying that it had to have been written later on, maybe during the Greek empire. I can have the discussion with you another day, if you want to have it. Unfortunately, for them, there is too much evidence to the truth of Daniel writing this prophecy.
The mountain is Jesus, the capstone that the builders rejected. The cornerstone that breaks those that fall on it and crushes those underneath it. It speaks of Jesus’ eternal kingdom that will come at the end of time.
The point of the prophecy, however, was not specifically to give Nebuchadnezzar a road map to the future. The point was to prove to the king who the one true God was. That he is the God who is Sovereign over everything, including the future.
Our response should be the response of Nebuchadnezzer:
The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.”
He confesses that God is sovereign over everything.
But he doesn’t quite get it. Because even though he acknowledges who God is, he refuses to worship him.
He worships Daniel instead.
Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him.
Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. Moreover, at Daniel’s request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.
At this time, Nebuchadnezzer is still destined for hell at this point.
He would have been wise to heed the words of David, when reflecting on how God is sovereign:
Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.
Kiss his son, or he will be angry
and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Realizing that God is sovereign over everything, past, present, and future, should cause us to bow before him, pursue a relationship with him, and worship him.
When the world is chaotic, when we are asking the whys, we turn to the one who is in control over everything, and hold on to his strength.
