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Daniel 2
     King Nebuchadnezzar is in total control. He’s risen to power in record time, conquered most of the Middle East, including Assyria and Egypt. He only has to speak and he gets what he wants and his staff are scared of him, for good reason, as we’ll see in a moment.

We saw in the first chapter how he set out to re-program the young men who’d come from Judah but in the end was won over by them. And now as the story continues we discover that for all his outward show of power, on the inside he’s just as weak and superstitious as anyone of his time. 

Night Terrors

We’re told he dreams a series of dreams that leaves him very worried. In fact it seems like it’s just one dream repeated over and over again.

He doesn’t understand it but he does have a solution: he has a number of wise men: magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers, who are employed by the palace for just such an occasion. So he calls them in and tells them he wants the dream explained.

You may have known people who’ve had very vivid dreams and managed to find someone to interpret them. But this case is different. He doesn’t trust them to simply explain the dream. He doesn’t want some manufactured explanation, some motherhood description of what it means. It’s far too worrying to take any risks with.

So he tells them that they not only have to explain the dream, they have to tell him what it was in the first place. And if they fail, they lose their heads (and won’t have a leg to stand on).

Well how are they to do that? Most people can’t remember their own dreams, let alone knowing what someone else has dreamt. So they argue with the king, but with no success. He insists.

Then the Chaldeans, i.e. the astrologers, make a statement that forms the crux of the chapter: “11The thing that the king is asking is too difficult, and no one can reveal it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with mortals.” You see, although they claim to be using divine power to tell the future the truth is they have no contact with the divine. As far as they’re concerned the gods are inaccessible.

Yet, is that true? Is God’s dwelling not with mortals? We know otherwise don’t we? Daniel and his friends know otherwise. God had made Jerusalem his dwelling place. The prophets tell us that God is present wherever we are, from the depths of Sheol to the heights of heaven. And of course for us, Jesus says he’ll send his Holy Spirit to dwell within us.

But the king doesn’t know any of this. So he loses his temper, and orders all the wise men of the palace to be put to death – including Daniel and his three friends.
Well that brings Daniel into the picture. He hears about this decree and immediately goes and speaks to the chief executioner to ask what all the fuss is about. Then he tells the king if he’ll give him some time he’ll tell him what his dream means.

Now at this point you might think that Daniel’s making a big call. Does he sound over confident, do you think? Well look at what he does next.

Night Prayers

He goes home and organises a prayer meeting. Daniel and his friends get together and pray, seeking mercy from the God of heaven to explain this mystery. Notice that word, by the way. “Mystery” is one of those theological words we find in the New Testament, particularly in Paul’s writings, referring to God’s plan of salvation in Jesus Christ; and that’s exactly what this dream is about.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Notice that Daniel doesn’t do the sort of thing you might imagine a magician or sorcerer of those days doing. There’s no chanting or dancing about, no cutting of flesh or calling out in a loud voice to God. They simply ask for God’s mercy. And in the quiet of the night Daniel receives a vision that explains it all.

So what does he do? Run through the town in his nightshirt yelling: “Eureka, I have it!”? No, first he stops and praises God. And again we see the theological point of the chapter. The pagan gods were of no use, but the God of Israel has given Daniel the answer. And so we get this wonderful psalm of praise: “Blessed be the name of God from age to age, for wisdom and power are his. 21He changes times and seasons, deposes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. 22He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him. 23To you, O God of my ancestors, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and power, and have now revealed to me what we asked of you, for you have revealed to us what the king ordered.” Daniel’s confidence before the king earlier might have sounded like self-confidence, but here we see its true nature. His confidence rests in the wisdom and power of God.
Do you find that exciting? Or at least reassuring? Our God is the one who changes times and seasons, who raises up and puts down kings, who knows what’s going on in the depths of darkness because light dwells with him; and he’s chosen you to be part of his family.  No wonder Daniel stops to praise God long before going to see the king.

But when he’s finished praising God he goes back to the executioner to tell him that he has the interpretation of the dream for the king. And again we see the point of the story being emphasised.

The king asks Daniel to tell him what his dream was, but Daniel first insists on pressing the theological point. Rather than take the credit for what he’s about to say, the way Aroch the executioner did for finding Daniel, he turns the king’s attention onto God. He says: “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or diviners can show to the king the mystery that the king is asking, 28but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has disclosed to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen at the end of days.” He’s almost rubbing his nose in the fact that his pagan holy men were unable through their pagan gods to divine the truth but the defeated Israelites through their God could.

But more is to come as we hear the dream unveiled and explained. The king had dreamt he saw “a great statue … and its appearance was frightening. 32The head of that statue was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, 33its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.” No wonder Nebuchadnezzar was worried by it. But worse was to come because as he watched a stone was cut out, not by human hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then it proceeded to totally destroy the entire statue so that nothing was left.

So what does that all mean? Daniel says “37You, O king, the king of kings—to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, and the glory, 38into whose hand he has given human beings, wherever they live, the wild animals of the field, and the birds of the air, and whom he has established as ruler over them all—you are the head of gold.” Nebuchadnezzar thinks his kingdom is all his doing, but Daniel sets him right. No it’s all God’s doing. God has given him the kingdom, the power, the might and the glory. This reminder will be repeated when we read about his second dream and again at Belshazzar’s feast. Nebuchadnezzar’s pride is just that: empty boasting. He’s just a small part of God’s eternal plan, even if his part has a certain glory to it.

In fact the reality comes out in v.39: “But after you…” He may be a glorious king, but his kingdom will end, and surprisingly soon in fact, and then he’ll be followed by another whose kingdom is not quite as glorious, followed by a third that’s not particularly glorious at all but stronger, ruling over the whole earth.

It’s important we remember this, isn’t it? Kingdoms come and go, political leaders come and go, even Christian leaders come and go. I was reflecting last week on the fact that Leon Morris would have been 100 this year, but in fact he isn’t 100 because he’s dead. That’s an important lesson for the control freaks among us. There’s only so much you can do to control your world. In the end all your works will come to an end.

But there’s more to the dream than that. The fourth part of the statue is made of iron with feet that were a mix of iron and clay. Again the degree of glory is diminished but the power is increased such that this kingdom will crush all others. Yet this kingdom will be a divided kingdom, with one part strong and one part brittle. They’ll mix in marriage but not hold together.

These 4 kingdoms have traditionally been interpreted as Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, but in a sense that doesn’t matter. What matters is what comes next.

What comes next is the most frightening part of the dream: a stone cut out by a hand, that isn’t human, striking the statue and destroying it, leaving nothing behind.

But what happens to the stone? It grows to become a great mountain and fills the earth.

So what does that mean? “44in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.”

Here’s what Peter says in his first letter: “6For it stands in scripture: "See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." … 8‘A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:6-9)

What God has done here is to give Nebuchadnezzar a vision of his eternal plan; a plan to establish Jesus as king in an everlasting kingdom. But he’s also given him an overview of all of human history. There’s a progression in the vision of this statue isn’t there, that parallels the history of empires? Their glory diminishes from gold down to iron, while their hardness increases. But even there we see a paradox in the fourth kingdom where there’s both strength and fragility. Kingdoms inevitably degenerate into fragmentation. Whether it’s a great empire, or a political party, or even a church, you see this pattern over and over again: Splits take place or power struggles arise, that divide what were once colleagues and make them enemies. We don’t study history to see how to succeed. We study it to see what mistakes were made. But then we tend to forget them anyway.

But don’t be disheartened. God is in control and he’s moving human history to an end that he’s devised from the beginning of the world: to a kingdom that will last forever, that’ll overcome every kingdom in the end.

If you look around our world today you may wonder how long it’ll take. God’s kingdom appears to be fairly weak still. You may even think it’s weaker now than it was 100 years ago. Every year hundreds of thousands of Christians are killed or injured as a result of persecution. The world is outraged at the kidnapping of those 200 girls in Nigeria but they’re only a tiny percentage of the Christians who have suffered for their faith in the last year. Even in our own “Christian” country Christians are sidelined or mocked or criticised for being narrow-minded or arrogant in our claim that Jesus is Lord. If we protest about the neglect of the poor and helpless in our society we’re accused of being bleeding hearts. If we campaign for justice for asylum seekers we’re accused of undermining our national security.

But think about Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The stone that appears is just a stone. “Not carved by human hands” I think implies that’s it’s just a rough piece of rock, with nothing particular to recommend it. It has neither beauty nor strength. Yet that rough piece of rock crushes the statue; then it grows and becomes a great mountain that fills the whole earth. For now the earthly kingdoms continue. We continue to hold elections for governments that always seem to disappoint. Regimes rise and fall. Power groups wield influence that they don’t deserve. But as Nebuchadnezzar says at the end: “Your God is God of gods and Lord of kings.” The Gospel continues to spread to the ends of the earth. In the end all those kingdoms will be overthrown and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.