Daniel 2 - His Kingdom Come

HBI - Though Kingdoms may rise and fall God is in control and His eternal kingdom will come to pass.

Chapters 2-7 in Aramaic.

Intro

How often does it seem to you circumstances seem to favor the ungodly, those that do not have a relationship with Jesus. but what we are going to see today is that God will overpower them all. The Kingdom of God will come to pass, He will reign over all.

I was sitting thinking about all of this and I remember an episode of Star Trek TNG. How many trekkies do we have out their? there is one episode called the inner light. Captain Picard and His crew and ship is exploring space as usual when again something comes up that they go to explore and things do not g as planned. They are scanned by an alien probe which knocks out Picard. He wakes up in another place that he doesn't remember and a wife and family he does not remember. He begins to live a life and grow old on this planet and raise His kids all the while never really believing that He belongs there. There is a problem though, this planet is dying and he realizes there is nothing really that he can do about it. in the end he finds out the life he lived on this planet is all a dream, a dream set up by the people of a dying civilization who wanted people to not forget who they where and what they had accomplished.

People and civilizations have come and gone over the years and lots of them thought that their empire would never fail. But time and time again time has proven them wrong. Look at the might of the Mayan empire at one point, the Egyptian and Roman empire. All that the built and accomplished to try and establish their dominance but in the end they fell. Kingdoms will rise and fall but God will always be in control and His eternal Kingdom will always come to pass.

This is one thing that Daniel An Nebuchadnezzar found out through a dream that needed to be interpreted. through the dream this is what we learn, we realize that wisdom comes from God, all has been established by God (He is all powerful) but the fact that we are going to go through today remains, God will rule over all in His eternal Kingdom and we can trust and have faith that no matter what happens to us or to the world God wins.

The Story

It all starts with a troubling dream.

Daniel 2:1 “In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that troubled him, and sleep deserted him.”

I have had many bad dreams before but this was apparently a doozy of a dream. He must have sensed the significance of the dream because He was doing all that He could to figure out the meaning. God still speaks through dreams today. We do here stories of people that have come to Jesus through dreams they have had but this is not the sermon to talk about cessationist ideologies. He had a dream that he could not understand and He wanted someone to interpret it for him.

He summoned all of the people that could have and should have been able to interpret the dream for Him. This is another thing that we spend so much money on as a pagan culture, trying to figure out what our dreams might mean. In verse 4 is where the Aramaic starts. People say it is because it moves from the future if the Israelite's to the future of all the world.

but the thing is that they wanted to hear the dream to be able to tell the king what it meant. This seems like a reasonable enough request. after all how else are you supposed to tell someone what a dream meant. Likely they would have given him some meaning behind it all. But he wanted it to be a real interpretation and was about to test their powers. The consequences where going to be dire.

Daniel 2:5 (CSB)

The king replied to the Chaldeans, “My word is final: If you don’t tell me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be made a garbage dump.

SO here was the deal, tell me the dream and what it means or you and everyone who does what you do is going to die a very painful death. Whether the king knew what the dream was even we don't know. The KJV says he forgot the dream but that was due to a word they interpreted different then everyone else. I have a hard enough time remembering some of my dreams let alone asking other people to remember it for me. The Chaldeans responded with this is impossible.

Daniel 2:10 “The Chaldeans answered the king, “No one on earth can make known what the king requests. Consequently, no king, however great and powerful, has ever asked anything like this of any magician, medium, or Chaldean.”

an impossible task they called it, not very wise if you ask me. I would buy for time until we could maybe figure something out. So far this is all centering around the dream and the fact that interpreting the dream seemed like an impossible task. No one on earth could interpret the dream, the Chaldean's said

Daniel 2:11 (CSB)

What the king is asking is so difficult that no one can make it known to him except the gods, whose dwelling is not with mortals.”

No one can make it known except the gods they told Him. well Daniel had favor among the people it seemed like so when the executioner came to call at His house over a dream only a god could interpret. so what did Daniel and His friends do? He went to the King and asked for time then asked the other 3 to pray on his behalf. The did not know the answer to the Kings riddle, they knew they had no hopes sod they approached the Lord in prayer. We do not always understand what is going on in the world. We do not know why things are the way they are or why the world seems to be against is sometimes but one thing we do know. And that is that we have a God that does know and does care and Daniel knew this. and when The Lord answered his prayer he cried out in praise to God and we can learn something from this prayer.

in the prayer there is emphasis on 2 of God’s attributes. His wisdom an power. God’s power is illustrated in His complete control over the events of history. (read vs 20) What this tells us is that God’s power is seen in the fact that He is in control over all. He determines the times and the seasons. verse 21 He determines when events are going to take place. He decreed the fall of Jerusalem and How long it waS GOING TO LAST BECAUSE hE KNEW THE SIN OF THE PEOPLE. The rulers of the world may think that they are in control but they rise and fall at the hand of God. They are permitted there temporary authority and the fall to sin and God removes them and establishes another. This i the power of the God we serve.

His wisdom is beyond measure. verse 22 We tend to be proud over the wisdom that we think we have and our understanding of nature and the things around us. When it is only by the grace of God that we accomplish anything. But God knows all things, even the things hidden in darkness that we do not. not only this but He thanked God in advance for answering his prayers, or more like assuming the answer He got was of God and not out of his own thinking.

we get to the dream of the statue. So much time has been spent trying to figure this out. A statue with 5 layers made of 5 different things to represent decreasingly powerful kingdoms. Then a stone broke off on its own it seemed like, crushed the statue that represented the 5 kingdoms and established the greatest kingdom of all, the kingdom of God.

I was having a talk with a good friend of mine about this once. I cant remember how we got on to the topic but I was asking what He thought the different kingdoms might be or something like that. And He told me, Michael, you are missing the point. The kingdoms are never mentioned and it is not for us to know. What the main point is Daniel 2:44 ““In the days of those kings, the God of the heavens will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and this kingdom will not be left to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself endure forever.” It left me thinking for a second. How often I focus on the small details that do not really matter and forgot the essentials. That it matters not here the kingdoms, as interesting as that might be but rather that God is coming.

in the end of the chapter the king bowed in submission to a slave, an exile and promoted Him and His friends as some of the highest in the kingdom, though short-lived.

application

There are a few things we need to focus on that come out of one main point of this passage. The main point is not the statue or the kingdoms but that Kingdoms may rise and fall God is in control and His eternal kingdom will come to pass.

Gods Power - God’s power is seen in His being in control of all things that come to pass.

This is something that we often have a hard time believing. Times and seasons happen by the hand of God. Some people believe that God treated the world like a wind up toy. Created it ,wound it up and let it go till it runs out. But the bible is clear that God has a much bigger part to play. No matter what happens, God will be glorified and His plan wilkl always come to pass.

there are two things that work together, we have free will and often we see people choose to sin and disobey God. God knew this was going to happen and the Bible is clear that He uses them in their sin, sometimes hardens their hearts even. We need to remember that God’s power is seen in that He is in control and His eternal kingdom will come to pass. God has seen it all and knows what we are going to do and has even ordained and predestined certain things to happen. God has never ordained evil but used people in their evil desires to bring glory to His name.

God is a powerful God and it should be reassuring to know that in all the things that happen God’s power is seen in His having control over all things and His kingdom will come.

Godly Wisdom - Because God is in control we can ask freely for His wisdom which comes through a relationship with Him.

Because of this we need to freely ask for the wisdom of God, for if he is in control and knows all that will happen we need to come to Him and next ask for His wisdom in what to do. We do not know God’s plans, we do not know many things but the Lord says we need to ask for His wisdom which He will freely give. We need to ask for the wisdom to understand what God’s plans are and hoe we can live a life faithfully for Him.

We need to understand that Daniel could not interpret the dream on his own, but had to ask for the wisdom to interpret the dream. Only God knew. Trevor Longman noted in His commentaRY ON dANIEL THAT “Wisdom is not a concept to be learned; it is a relationship to be enjoyed”. Wisdom comes from a relationship with Jesus. Job learned that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is divine in it’s origin and that means that we need a relationship with Jesus to receive the wisdom that He offers. The wisdom that Daniel received came from a conversation with God

Because God is in control we can freely access the wisdom He offers to His children but we need a relationship with Him first. There is hope for faithfulness in this hostile world and to understand How to do this we need to seek Jesus. In order to get through this life, in order to be able to withstand the hostile world we need the wisdom if God which comes only from a relationship with Him. How are you seeking God to understand what He has planned for your life?

This all comes to the point that Kingdoms will rise and fall but God’s kingdom will always come to pass.

God is in control, his power is beyond understanding and is seen in His control over all things. We are given the wisdom to begin to understand what God is doing and the wisdom it takes to be faithful to Him but this only comes with seeking a relationship with Him.

For a long time we have been trying to seek the kingdoms included in the statue in Nebuchadnezzar dream to try and figure out when the Lord is coming back again. How often when giving told to do something without instructions we try to look for the most difficult way to accomplish the task first? In doing so we miss the main point. But I think that we are not told on purpose. We miss the point. The point that all this boils down to is that God is coming again and going to establish His kingdom. Everything else will pale in comparison, like chaff being scattered to the wind. Jesus is coming back, we do not know when but He is coming to establish His kingdom. It is going to get worse before it gets better. But as followers of Jesus we are given the tools we need to remain faithful to Jesus in this Hostile world. The main point is God’s kingdom will come and we are here on earth now to prepare people for the coming of that kingdom.

Are you ready for the return of Jesus? If not you need to turn your life to Him and live your life for Him. There is hope for faithfulness in this hostile world and it comes through a relationship with Jesus.