Daniel 2

I wanna welcome you guys back to our second installment of Daniel, part of a six part series for this year at least, looking at the first half of the book of Daniel, the narrative section of Daniel. If you do have your Bibles, we're going to open to Daniel chapter 2. If you were here last week, you would remember how we looked at Daniel being brought from Babylon, being taken at a young age, probably around 16, so our high school age kids. He was a nobleman, or at least a son of a nobleman, was brought to Babylon to be re-educated in the Babylonian way, to be taught the Babylonian literature and to be a walking billboard for how great Babylon was.

And this morning we will actually have a look at a very interesting experience for Daniel very early on in his ministry, I guess, his mission in Babylon, his job, his career in Babylon. What we see is we discover that Nebuchadnezzar undergoes a spiritual turmoil. In verse 1, we see in the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His mind was troubled and he could not sleep. So Nebuchadnezzar has a sense of turmoil, of trouble in his heart.

The Hebrew literally means he was struck in his spirit. Disturbing dream needed explanation. He needed understanding for this. Now Nebuchadnezzar was a spiritual man in a sense and he decided that he would ask his wise men, his astrologers, his wizards or whatever you would call them to come and interpret the dream to him. But not only interpret it, he made the extra criteria that they would have to tell him what his dream was.

He wasn't going to tell them what he dreamt. He was going to expect them to know and to be able then, on top of that, to interpret it. So we see that Nebuchadnezzar had this really high difficult expectation. He expected people to be able to read his mind pretty much and then tell him what that meant. And so that was in and of itself not that bad.

Well, it was tough. But he made this ultimatum: if you can't do it, I will put all of you to death. So it was a high expectation with a high risk. And the risk is your life. And so Daniel caught wind of this.

He wasn't himself clumped into that demographic of wise men, astrologers, wizards, and he needed to do something about it. So he cast himself on the mercy of God, it says, and he asked his friends to bow and to pray to God for wisdom, for understanding. So what we're going to, that's just a summary quickly of the context of Daniel chapter 2. There are two things in this morning's passage that we can see. The first is an example of a man who was completely sold out to the idea of God's working in Babylon, of God's working in the purpose of bringing Babylon to Himself.

The other aspect we see is how God is working in human history to bring all nations under His kingdom. All nations under His rule. Henry Martin, a missionary who died at the age of 31 of a severe fever while he was pioneering mission in India, wrote in 1812. He said, the spirit of Christ is the spirit of mission. And the nearer that we get to God, the nearer that we get to the spirit, the more intensely missionary we must become.

Isn't that interesting? The closer we get to God, the more missionary we must become. In our passage this morning, Daniel has the perfect opportunity to make a name for himself. He has the mystery revealed to him. He has Nebuchadnezzar as a captive audience.

He has a boss that can give him anything he wants. But instead, he pointed back to God. Everything. Everything. That's a sign of a missionary aware of his surroundings.

The story of Daniel and his friends shows us how to missionally live in our culture. How to be local missionaries whatever situation we find ourselves in. We've already seen how Babylon was very similar, or is very similar to our culture today. They had technology. They had the literature.

They had the culture. And in many ways, they didn't need God. And that seemed very, very familiar to me. But this is what Daniel's understanding is of mission. It's God's.

The mission is God's. The mission field around us, our families, our friends, our workplace is not ours to win. It's God's to win. It's God's mission field. In the mission to our community, to our city, to our country, we have to remember our place like Daniel did.

We are merely small cogs in a giant machine of God bringing the world to Himself. And we're going to have a look at that in more detail. Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, it is impossible for any human being, whether wise man, magician, diviner, astrologer, to tell you, O king, what you have dreamt. But God can. God is a revealer of mysteries.

Daniel said, it's been revealed to me what you dreamt. But not because I'm so clever, not because I am such a, I've got a PhD in psychology, but because God isn't finished with you yet. God has a purpose for you. It is for your sake this has been revealed. We can actually see in this book of Daniel how God is orchestrating His mission, how God is bringing together His plan.

We see that Nebuchadnezzar had a bad dream, but it wasn't just a normal bad dream. It was a dream that struck his spirit. A dream that troubled him so much so that he needed to do something about it. It's not that he had that weird dream where you feel like you're falling and you're like, woah, you know, that's pretty awkward but alright, I'll just turn around and go back to bed. It was something that stayed with him.

He needed to find the answer. That was a supernatural event. It was something that struck him at his call. And so God was setting up something here. So Nebuchadnezzar goes out.

Nebuchadnezzar goes out to search for some answers. We might not agree to how he does it. He organises or threatens the mass murder of all the local wizards, and that might seem like a good script for a Harry Potter book but it's pretty terrifying in real life, I'm sure. And especially if your name is Daniel and you are part of this crowd. You're guilty to being intelligent.

You're guilty to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And Daniel realises that his life and the lives of many others are in terrible, terrible danger. So he cries out to God. What Daniel hasn't realised though is that Daniel's place is also in God's plan. Daniel has been brought from Jerusalem 2000 odd kilometres to Babylon.

Daniel was born with intelligence, with the gifts of being able to discern mysteries, of being able to understand literature and all these sort of things. God had given Daniel this and God had made him one of the royal advisers in the kingdom. He wasn't a fringe guy. He wasn't on the outskirts of Babylon. He was right in the heart of where everything was going on.

Daniel had a purpose as well. And so Daniel throws himself on the mercy of God. He says, God, I need to understand this. There are hundreds of people whose lives depend on this. I need to understand, Lord, you need to let us know what this is.

And lo and behold, God reveals to Daniel in a dream what Nebuchadnezzar had experienced. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing how God had brought these opposites together? How God had orchestrated this whole thing? It's God's mission, guys.

It's God's mission. It's not Daniel trying to force Christianity down Nebuchadnezzar's throat. It's not Daniel trying to persuade or convince Nebuchadnezzar in his own strength, in his own intelligence. Daniel is simply working where God is already busy. And so Daniel gives himself over to be an agent in God's hand.

And he does it by simply being faithful. Simply being faithful. In your friendship circles, you know, the guys, the girls that you hang out with on Friday nights, Saturday nights after work, after school. Those crews that you've been with for your whole life perhaps, that's your mission field. Are you consciously looking for where God is busy in those guys' lives?

Are you consciously asking God to open your eyes? The question is not, is God working? The question is, where is God working? Do you realise that you might be called to be involved in revealing God just like Daniel did? What an amazing privilege that would be.

Whether it be your boss, your coworker, or even someone close to home, a spouse perhaps or your best friend. We should ask God to open our eyes. I mean, Daniel was thrust into this position. It was do or die. Perhaps it's not necessarily the same situation for us.

But I believe that if we ask God to open our eyes, He does it. It is a dangerous prayer. It is a dangerous prayer to ask God, I want to be involved in mission. I want to be involved in evangelism because more likely He's gonna give it to you. So you might say, well, KJ, I don't know anyone like that around me.

I don't have family or friends who aren't Christian. All my friends are Christian. My family are, by the grace of God, all faithful. Okay. That might be true.

Maybe your friends aren't worshipping a bronze idol like Nebuchadnezzar was, you know, blatantly non-Christian. But I'm sure you know of people that have walked away from the faith. I'm sure you know of people that have decided to cut and run from church, to cut and run even from God. I don't know if there would be anyone here that would say, I don't know anyone like that. If you look closely at the lives around you, I'm sure you will see those individuals.

Living missionally in our friendship circles is what God calls us to do. But what I want us to look at today, what I want us to understand from the story of Daniel is that the work doesn't depend on us. Thank God. The work doesn't depend on us because it is God's work. God is ultimately the author of eternal life.

He is the author and the guide of mission. Work where He's already busy. So what we see in Daniel is that he doesn't rely on his own persuasive words to convince, to manipulate, to force. He just says, this is what God has done. He just witnesses.

He just testifies. Now aren't those very biblical terms? And that is what evangelism is. It's not knowing all the answers. It's not being able to give a Nebuchadnezzar a complete watertight worldview so that he can adopt that instead of his own worldview.

It is saying that this is what God has done in my life. God has revealed this to me, king, and I need to tell you what He has told me. That's not hard. You know, we can say in our witnessing, I was in the gutter. I was on my way to the gutter when Jesus Christ reached down and touched me and saved me and brought me back.

That is evangelism. That is sharing the gospel, but just testifying to what God has done in your life. You know, if others might say, I've always been a Christian but Jesus has showed me that it's not only important to believe but it's important to know what I believe and how I live my faith out. Jesus said, come follow me. Do what I do.

Take up your cross daily. Deny yourself and follow me. And so I'm not walking anymore. I'm running. I'm not jogging.

I'm dancing. I'm running after Jesus. I'm not a pew warmer anymore. I'm not a Sunday Christian anymore. This is what Jesus has done to me.

That, friends, is evangelism. That is what evangelism is. It's just witnessing. It's just testifying to what God has done in your life. Daniel just pointed Nebuchadnezzar back to God.

And so we move on to verses 31 to 45, the last half of this, and where we see really how God is bringing about His plan not just for Nebuchadnezzar but for the whole of human history. And I get goosebumps thinking about this, reading this passage of scripture. We see a statue made of many metals: of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay. Daniel tells us what Nebuchadnezzar saw. In his dream, he saw a statue that looks like this one.

Daniel says that each level in this statue represents a progression of empires. The first one is the head of gold which is Babylon. Babylon was at that time the greatest empire the world had ever known. It was, like I said before, just at the forefront of technology, mathematics, science, and culture. It was so progressive that it adopted any religion that you wanted.

As long as you pay tribute to the king, and we're gonna see that further on in Daniel chapter 3. As long as you pay tribute to the king or the emperor, you were fine to worship any god you wanted. That's a very progressive, politically correct way of reigning. And so that meant there was peace throughout the empire. You know, people of different religions, different cultures could actually live together in harmony.

And so it was just a fantastic place to be. And so it was the head of gold, Daniel says. After that, a second kingdom would come, and a third and a fourth. Now we can pretty easily trace these empires and that will definitely come also further on in Daniel, to the three other successive empires. The one after Babylon would be the Persian Medes empire led by Darius or Cyrus as we'll see later on.

The next one was led by Alexander the Great, the Greek, the bronze torso. And then after that, the Roman Empire which came over and destroyed or took over from the Greeks. But Daniel says that these four empires wouldn't last forever and that a fifth kingdom would come, which is totally different to the statue. It was a rock, a boulder cut out from a mountain but not by human hands, it says. Now this boulder, this stone would strike the statue.

It would break the feet of clay but then also at the same time shatter the entire statue and turn it into dust. Have a look at verse 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 in itself endure forever. What was this kingdom that God would set up and when?

When? Is this a kingdom that will come in the future? Is this when Jesus will finally return and we will be together with Him forever? Is this the idea? Is it perhaps something more historically bound?

Perhaps there was an interim kingdom that would happen after the Roman Empire. Or perhaps it's to do with, yeah, the new heavens and the new earth of God renewing the world. About six hundred years after Daniel made this prophecy, a man from a backwater town in a back alley place called Judah came and said, repent for the kingdom of God is near. Jesus' first sermon was the kingdom of God has come. This man Jesus was claiming something.

He was executed, however, for his statement and his supposed leading of a rebellion against the Roman empire. So did the kingdom ever come? Did it ever come? What happened to the message that the kingdom of God was near? The kingdom that would overcome all kingdoms.

The kingdom that would rise to fill the whole earth. What happened to that kingdom? Where is the kingdom? Where is the King? Well, have a listen to this.

In the night before his execution on the cross, Jesus was questioned by Pilate, the man who had the power to give Him His life or to take it. And Pilate asked him this question in John 18 verse 33. He said, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus asked him, is that your own idea or did others talk to you about me? Am I a Jew?

Pilate asked. It was your people and your chief priest who handed you over to me. What is it exactly that you have done? Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. Does that ring a bell?

Not cut by human hands. My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But no, my kingdom is from another place. So you are a king then?

Asked Pilate. And Jesus answered, you are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason, I was born. And for this reason, I came into this world to testify to this truth. For this reason.

This kingdom was at hand alright, but it wasn't going to conquer, it wasn't going to destroy, it wasn't going to smash the kingdoms like all the other kingdoms that had done through military victory. Oh, it would come through violence. Alright. It would come through bloodshed but only violence and bloodshed done to one man. It would come through death but only the death of Jesus Christ.

In Jesus Christ, the kingdom did arrive. That very next day as Jesus breathed His last, as He proclaimed, this is the end. It is finished. That day when the earth itself shook and the sky turned black. The battle for the kingdom had begun.

Three days later, Jesus would rise from the grave having won the victory, having won His kingdom. He was dead no longer. Blood would never need to flow again. But this time, He didn't return as a teacher. He didn't return as a preacher.

He came back as the King. He was so magnificently different to what He was before that people didn't recognise who He was. At His ascension, at the time when Jesus went back to sit at the right hand of God who had sent Him, listen to what He said about His newly established reign in His kingdom. His last words to His disciples were the words of a king. In Matthew 28 verse 18, Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

And so we see this amazing revelation that Daniel makes of a kingdom that was gonna come. We see a kingdom that would fill the whole earth. And luckily, you know, Nebuchadnezzar didn't end up killing all the wise men including Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar is absolutely amazed at God and praises God, although perhaps just in words. But he gives honour and respect to Daniel and promotes him to the highest ranking that there was.

He becomes prime minister in a sense of Babylon. But God isn't finished, we see, with Nebuchadnezzar just yet. There's still a lot that needs to be done with Nebuchadnezzar before he comes to a real living faith. But you'll just have to come back next week to come and have a look at that. What we see this morning, however, is that we have a role to play in God's mission to bring His kingdom fully on earth.

The mission of bringing people under His rule. We are witnesses to the power of God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God who raised Christ back to life. In the same way as Daniel revealed God's power in being able to read Nebuchadnezzar's mind and then interpret his dream for him. And all we have to say is this is the God I worship.

This is the God I worship. The second thing we've seen is that God's rule centres on Jesus Christ and the work that He did on the cross. The kingdom that would overcome all kingdoms was established two thousand years ago. It's not a kingdom that will have to wait until the end of times that will fully come and destroy all those kingdoms. Jesus' death and resurrection crushed the empires of this world.

He is the only His is the only kingdom that reigns. You know, the combined time of reign for those four empires, the Babylonians, the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman empire lasted about a thousand years. Guess how long Christianity has been around? Guess how far Christianity has spread in this world. Every tribe, every language, every culture.

Where are the Romans now? Where are the Babylonians now? God is busy with His mission. He asked us to be involved and we just need to point back to Him. Let's bow our heads.