God has a plan - Daniel2
Title: God has a Plan
Read Daniel 2:1-19
Read Daniel 2:26-47
Many years ago my parents decided to separate; they were divorced when I turned 10 years old. My Mother finally said there was nothing more she could do to save the marriage. My dad didn’t want to try anyway. It was time to go their separate ways and I felt torn between them. I had big questions for my parents and God. Why? Why? Why? I didn’t see God having a plan for me or my parents. Looking at some of my friends I wondered if God had a plan for them too, there were emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and drug abuse sometimes more.
Daniel and has friends are forced into a foreign land exiled and alone. They are forced to take up new names, under a foreign King with a personal agenda. From Daniel 1 Everything looks bleak for them, it seems that they will lose their personal identity and then must take on new Babylonian identities, by the end of the 1st chapter we see God working behind the scenes and works out in the end in Daniels favour. Now we are up to the second episode of this exciting story.
In the first part of Daniel 2 we read that King N has a dream. Now King N is no ordinary man. He is powerful, successful on the battlefield, commands vast armies, a huge kingdom and has powerful influence. He is treated like a god. This dream we read is causing the king so much stress he is basically pulling his hair out before long he’d have his hair like mine. He was so stressed that he was angry and furious – the most powerful man in the world. He issues this decree that any of his soothsayers, magicians and wise men could not tell of his dream and interpret it he would execute them. This put Daniel and his friends in a difficult position. This could be their last days alive. There didn’t seem to be any hope here. They were finished.
Read v10
Da 2:9 If you do not tell me the dream, there is just 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.”
Da 2:10 The astrologers answered the king, “There is not a man 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.
Ahhh ..only God can interpret dreams. Only God being sovereign and merciful could save Daniel and his friends from this powerful king. God had a plan.
Even though his situation seemed impossible, it seemed hopeless, how can God have a plan, where is he now? Well Daniel didn’t give up, he got together with his friends and they prayed that God will work it out for them. Daniel remained faithful to God even though he wouldn’t have known God’s full plan for mankind.
Sometimes we look at our situations, sometimes there is no way out, sometimes we struggle to see God’s plan for us in our lives. It could be for next year, it could be something that we are going through – work, marriage, and children. We don’t always see God in control but when we look at the bigger picture, when we look at the cross and Jesus God’s son we know that God has a plan.
In the second half of Daniel 2 we see that God did have a plan for Daniel and his friends. They were in an impossible situation and only God could pull them out of this deep well. God gifted Daniel with wisdom that surpassed everyone in the Babylonian empire and tact so that he can delay the execution. God also gifted Daniel with dream interpretation. So Daniel goes to the king – this could be life or death. In the end the king bows down to Daniel and glorifies the one true God. Daniel and his friends are promoted and become even more influential in this foreign evil empire.
We see God exercising his Grace, wisdom and might above even the most powerful empire in the known world. God had a plan.
Read v44
Da 2:44 “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.
Da 2:45 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 the interpretation is trustworthy.”
The dream tells us that empires will rise and fall; it tells us of a future kingdom that will never end. Daniel didn’t fully understand what this meant and the huge significance this will have on all mankind. Jesus has already come he has established his kingdom on earth by dieing on the cross and rising again, He has defeated death and as Christians we are a part of this magnificent kingdom. Jesus will come back and we will then be with him forever.
God has a plan for you and me. We may not always see that God is working and that he is in control of all things. Ministry will be difficult. Living in a sinful, fallen world is difficult but through the death and resurrection we can continue living knowing that God has a plan even for people like me and my parents.
Amen.