Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Have you ever had a red letter day in your life?

Maybe more than one.

The phrase came from the Middle Ages when church calendars would put special and holy days in red ink to make them stand out.

Today, the phrase means “a an important or significant day.”

As we begin chapter 4 of Daniel this week we will see the account of two red letter days in the life of King Nebuchadnezzar.

In chapters 2 and 3 of this book we have seen two events of God that have influenced him for a season, yet he had not surrendered to God.

As we go through this chapter the next two weeks (we will pause for Palm Sunday and Easter and resume after Easter), I want you see the lengths God will often go to get someone’s attention.

Whether we respond to His leading. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

The Testimony

This chapter begins differently than the first three.

This is a letter, a decree, a testimony from King Nebuchadnezzar.

Unlike his proclamation to bow before the statue of gold.

This is a testimony of what happened him.

He is writing as he reflects back on what we are going to read about in this chapter.

He addresses it to all the people, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth!

It is going out to his Kingdom, but maybe it going further.

He says peace be multipled to you.

STOP.

Is this the same guy that we have seen in the first three chapters?

Peace be multipled to you?

The same guy that says cut them to pieces and make their homes an ash heap.

It gets better.

His purpose is this letter this testimony is show and tell of the signs and wonders of the Most High God and how God has done these for him.

We have this beautiful verse 3.

How great are his signs,

how mighty his wonders!

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

and his dominion endures from generation to generation.

It is like a Psalm.

A Psalm of Nebuchadnezzar

These three verses at the beginning should wet our appetite to ask, what could have happened to King Nebuchadnezzar that would cause him to write these words?

What encounter with God could change him?

He had his dream told and interrupted for him in chapter 2.

He saw three men go into a furnace of fire and not even have the hairs on their head burnt or the smell of smoke on their bodies, yet whatever this event that he is writing this testimony about, it takes the cake.

Troubled Mind

He continues on with the testimony.

Reading this passage I was thinking in my mind that that effect you see in TV or Movies where the screen starts to flicker as they go back in time.

That is what I think of as he continues on here.

A time jump backwards.

I was just chilling in my house.

I was relaxing.

Rest/Ease at his house.

Chilling in my crib.

Very content /carefree

He has a dream/vision (this is his second dream).

The first one was in chapter 2. And like the first one.

This one too freaks him out.

It alarms him.

I saw a dream that made me afraid.

As I lay in bed the fancies and the visions of my head alarmed me

He is afraid and he is alarmed.

He made a decree to get all the wise men of Babylon to come to him to tell him what the dream means.

This is different from the first dream.

If you remember he refused to tell the dream the first time, this time he is telling the dream, yet he tells the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and the soothsayers could not tell him what this dream meant.

Daniel Comes with the Wisdom of God

The way this testimony is written is like a drama that could play out on a stage.

Daniel appears before me.

He is the last of the wise men to come in.

It appears that the King knows his Hebrew name by this time as well.

He makes reference that his name is Belteshazzar, a name according to the Babylonian god.

In this phrase we see that the relationship between the King and Daniel has grown to where he knows what his Hebrew name is.

The wise men of Babylon have been rendered as lacking.

King Nebuchadnezzar tells of Daniel’s character.

“in him is the Spirit of the Holy God or of the holy gods.

O Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too difficult for you, tell me the visions of my dream that I saw and their interpretation

He calls him by his Babylonian name here (but once again this event that the King is writing about—something has changed him).

His job title (chief of the magicians)

The King knows what Daniel has done before.

I know that the spirit of the Holy God or of the holy gods is in you.

No Mystery is too Difficult

The king’s recognition of “the spirit of the holy gods” betrays his understanding of the source of Daniel’s power: God, who is among the holy gods (see v. 8 and note; 2:47 and note).

Explain to me the visions of my dream that I have seen and its interpretation

The King is going to tell the dream / the vision and he wants to know what it means.

The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold

You will have to wait until next week.

Conclusion

What event has made you stop in your tracks?

What red letter day or days has God shown Himself in such a powerful way that You just have to share it with someone?

When you look back on that event you know that God was redirecting your life forever.