Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Kingdom collapse.

Recap

The events of Daniel take place between 605-530ish BC

God had sent Israel into exile because of their failure to remain faithful to God.

Yet the book of Daniel shows us that God remains faithful to his own, even when they are in “enemy territory”

Daniel was intricately involved in living in that ungodly society, yet he showed his allegiance to God in negotiating a way to stick to God’s laws.

Because he couldn’t get access to ceremonially clean food, he traded the rich food & drink sacrificed to idols, for vegetables and water.

God blessed Daniel and his mates in this effort.

Although Daniel is a hero in this book, it is worth being reminded that the real hero of these stories, and the prophecies, is the Lord God.

God is the one who is protecting and helping his people.

All these stories would be much less interesting if God hadn’t come though to bless them when they take their stand.

We’ll keep reminding ourselves of this in the future.

We also were reminded that we too are God’s people in exile.

The human race was exiled from the Garden of Eden and we are waiting for the day when our exile is over, and we come to our home in the city of God.

The New Testament describes us as exiles and sojourners because we are citizens of Heaven, belonging to Jesus Christ, the people of God - but we are living in enemy territory - where Satan, Sin & Death still hold sway.

Human Power will Fail (v1-13)

Here’s Nebuch… at the top of his game: He has a massive kingdom, he’s had some impressive military victories, he has the best and brightest minds of the empire on staff.

It’s early days for his reign, he has plenty of years ahead of him.

He looks like he has it made.

He should have no trouble sleeping right?

Nup!

He was up at night.

Presumably after a few nights of this he was starting to become a nervous wreck!

“I just want to sleep!”

So, he has the best and brightest on staff.

They’re meant to be in touch with the divine!

They should be able to help him out!

These are meant to be the best - they talk a big game about their power and their gods.

Now Nebu has come to put them to the test.

It’s the modern day equivalent of having all the experts - the scientists, the researchers, the analysts and whatnot, all at his fingertips, and he’s going to put the to work to discover the meaning of the dream.

He’s been keeping them around, feeding and housing them, surely he can get some value out of them?

Anyway, the cohort of “wise” men answer:

Seems innocent enough! “Tell us the dream and we’ll give you the interpretation.”

But Nebu doesn’t want to be taken for a ride.

If he tells them the dream, they could make up any any old interpretation that suits the story.

Some sources indicate that he couldn’t remember the dream properly, so he actually needed them to tell him the content of the dream to help him get it straight in his own mind, let alone interpret the meaning for him.

He is probably convinced that it is a divine message from the gods, and so there has to be at least one amongst his herd of wizards who is in touch with the right gods or spirits to get the divine message.

Right?

But strangely, when put to the test this way, they are rather reticent to help - not least because there is the threat of death if they get it wrong.

Eventually they respond with:

So, to recap, here is the greatest man on earth, king over a vast empire with incredible power, cannot be helped by the wisest and most educated people you could find!

Which in turn also indicates that their gods were powerless to help to!

They were meant to be in touch with the other side and have access to secrets - yet they were coming up trumps.

If they couldn’t solve the problem, no one on earth could!

So Neb.

responds, essentially:

“Whats the good of all these “wise men”?

They must all be charlatans and ticksters - kill them all!”

What a pertinent reminder that human power has it’s limitations!

We might like think ourselves more enlightened and intelligent than those old superstitious “primitives” but you know what, we’re still in the same position!

Not only is it elitist to think you’d be any smarter if you were in that position, it’s also comon today - Pick any country and you will find flawed leaders in charge, surrounded by a cloud of people jockeying for access to power where they can provide their insight and interpretations of current events.

But when things go south, as we’ve seen in recent events, nobody can fix it!

Every “solution” only creates more problems.

We are only human.

Even the best of us are still flawed people.

Even if you get the best and brightest in a room to solve the hardest questions, they will never be able fix everything.

Humans are limited creatures, and on top of that we have the problem of being twisted by the effects of sin in our lives.

We are limited in what we can see,

in what we can understand,

in what we can accomplish.

We’re so limited that we can’t even chose what color hair grows out of our head!

We try and compensate for all our inability with medicine and technology and education and power and money.

But there’s only so far that those things will take us.

Humanity cannot secure life for itself.

We need divine intervention to solve our greatest problems.

We need someone outside our brokenness and limitations to come in with what we truly need.

We cannot even understand a word from God unless God helps us by sending His Spirit to illuminate the pages of the Bible and have the veil removed from our eyes.

God sent a man to Neb.

to remove the veil and reveal the message!

God Provides the Mediator & Message (v14-28)

News goes out to round up the whole cohort of wise men - counselors, magicians, priests, etc. send them to the chopping block.

I’m sure it was a lot more dramatic in person, but the way the text writes it makes Daniel seem so non-cahlont.

“Oh, may I ask why we’re going to be put to death?

Oh, really… would you mind pressing pause on that for a minute and see if I can sort something out?”

A question that may come to mind is, why wasn’t Daniel involved before?

Well, who knows.

He may not have been involved in those high level discussions, as he was pretty new to the palace at that stage.

Or maybe he just was trying to stay out of it initially thinking that it was out of his wheelhouse.

Now that the life of his friends, and in fact all the wise men of Babylon, Daniel acts as a mediator - twice actually- stepping in between both Neb.

wrath & God’s people (in the mates), the also mediating between God & Neb.

So Dan secures the extension of time and turns to God for help!

He enlists his friends to pray with him to provide the interpretation of the dream.

Our faithful God responds!

He hears their prayer!

Even though it was Neb.

who was making threats to kill them, these guys turned to God to protect them.

They asked for His mercy.

Even though they had been exiled from their home country by God, as a nation they were going through a severe trial, but they knew the Lord was their hope, so they turned to Him, and the Lord delivered - the mystery was revealed.

How does Daniel respond?

The right response to God’s revelation! - Praise & Honour & worship to the Lord!

Daniel knows that despite Neb.

seemingly great power - God can give or take away that position.

God is the one with the power & knowledge, as evidenced by Neb.

not being able to find peace or understanding of his dream.

Daniel also knows that despite all his own wisdom and position and education, all he has came from God.

The revelation of the mystery come from God, not Daniels own abilities.

So God provided what was needed at every stage.

Of course the whole affair is God’s plan, so that Daniel would be there to bring God’s message, but nevertheless, God likes to show up where human ability runs out so he can demonstrate his power.

It’s when we’re at the end of ourselves, when we’ve finally given up trying to wrangle reality and bend it to our will, there we are now ready to see how God might acts.