Sermon Tone Analysis

Prognosticators and forecasters abound all around us, from weather reporters to psychics.

Even the National Geographic Channel hosts programs about aliens who are trying to tell us poor earthlings a thing or two about the future.

And everyone seems amazed that someone as distant as Nostradamus could’ve predicted life in our modern culture—or did he?

The future is shrouded in mystery for us all but God specializes in knowing and predicting the future.

To what end?

What is the purpose of God showing us today what will happen tomorrow?

Our reading this week has brought us the book of want us to look at Daniel chapter 2.

David Kristof and Todd Nickerson published a book in 1998 called Predictions for the Next Millennium.

This book offered predictions by individuals from such fields as television and film, Nobel Laureates, American and world government, literature, and sports.

In this book they gave their prediction of what they thought would happen in the next 1,000 years.

One predicts that we'll have a common language and a common currency.

Another said that a world government.

Another said that Earth's politicians will be taking interplanetary economic lessons from alien beings, to find out how to cooperate and operate a government without taxing people to death.

Interestingly, that was given by one of the original cast members from Star Trek.

I kid you not.

Knowing the future or predicting the future is big business.

It's a $2 billion per year industry in our country.

When I say, industry, it includes palm reading, carda mansi, which is predicting the future using cards, mediumship, aura readings, and astrology.

In fact, today has been called the new era of astrology.

They tell us there is a resurgence of astrology among a very particular group of people.

An age group called millennials.

According to Atlantic Magazine, it says, "Millennials have taken astrology and run with it.

They feel that they are the most stressed out generation of all.

And they're looking to astrology to cope."

Why are people obsessed about knowing their future?

Knowing our future is an obsession among every group of people even Christian people.

Nothing will sell out a seminar or the book shelves like prophecy.

A 2011 article called “Why do we Keep Predicting the Future if we are so often Wrong” by David Ropeik in Psychology Today gives us great insight into our obsession for knowing the future, "One of the most powerful influences on fear is uncertainty.

The less we know, the more threatened we feel.

A lack of knowledge means we don't know what we need to know to protect ourselves."

His article goes on to provide a helpful illustration.

He says, picture you're driving down the road, on open country road.

You're doing 85 miles an hour.

Let's just forget speed laws right now.

You're just on the open road doing 85 miles an hour.

Now, you close your eyes.

You go a half a mile, a mile.

Just the thought of that terrifies us.

Why?

Because we will not have what we need to know in order to survive.

Self-preservation is a basic instinct.

As we are driving, we are peering down the road as far as we can so that we can get the information we need to survive.

Knowledge, he says, knowledge of the future, even if it's incomplete knowledge, is power.

It is what we don’t know that scares us.

But I have a question.

Do you really want to know your future?

I mean, do you want to know all the details of what's going to happen to you next week, next month, next year to 10 years from now?

If you found out that somebody you love was going to die a horrible death on a certain day.

Would you want to know that in advance and have to live with that?

Probably not.

God wisely withholds such information from us, so as not to overwhelm us.

However, there are some certainties that the Lord gives us about our future in .

is a story about a King Nebuchadnezzar.

He is the world ruler at the time and like most he was wondering about his future.

He knew that he was going to die one day, and he wondered what would happen to him after he died.

Who would take his position?

Who would rule the world?

Here is the first certainty about the future.

The future is unknown to us.

It's impossible from a human perspective to predict future events.

Now, let's look at

a couple verses down.

And we'll get the setting.

"Now in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign Nebuchadnezzar had dreams."

Notice not one, but several, it's plural, dreams.

"And his spirit was so troubled.

That his sleep left him."

Notice not one, but several, it's plural, dreams.

So, picture a guy having a bad night's sleep.

He wakes up.

He's troubled by what he saw in his dream.

He can't get back to sleep.

He doesn't wake up refreshed.

His sleep left him.

Dani "Then the King gave the command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams.

So, picture a guy having a bad night's sleep.

He wakes up.

He's troubled by what he saw in his dream.

He can't get back to sleep.

He doesn't wake up refreshed.

His sleep left him.

"Then the King gave the command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams.

So they came and stood before the king.

And the king said to them, 'I've had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream.'

This dream can't be blamed on the previous night’s meal because it was from God.

This dream can't be blamed on the previous night’s meal because it was from God.

So they came and stood before the king.

And the king said to them, 'I've had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream.'

This dream can't be blamed on the previous night’s meal because it was from God.

Nebuchadnezzar first issue with the dream is, he can't remember the details of his dream.

There’re probably certain parts of it he could remember but he can't remember all the details.

He can't remember how it all fits together.

Scripture tells us that these dreams troubled him.

The word for troubled is a very strong Hebrew word.

Troubled is pa’am, which means to beat something persistently.

These dreams hammered his thoughts hammering his thoughts.

Nebuchadnezzar calls in all of his wise men and commands them to recount and reveal the meaning of his dream.

Those who study human sleep behavior tell us that we dream every night.

We don’t always recall what we dreamed but we do dream.

We typically have our first dream episode within 90 minutes of falling asleep.