Episode Transcript
Daniel chapter 2, God willing, verses 26 through 28 is what we'll be expounding this morning.
Daniel chapter 2, verses 26 through 28.
In our verses last week, God revealed to Daniel the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had, as well as the interpretation of it.
And then Daniel went to Arioch, who had been commissioned to kill all the wise men of Babylon.
And he said, "Don't kill the wise men of Babylon."
He said, "Take me to the king.
I'll show him the dream he had and I'll give him the interpretation of it."
Verse 25 from last week says, "Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation.
And don't you know the king and everybody else in the palace must have been shocked when Arioch walked in and made that statement.
The king must have wondered, is Daniel stalling for time?
Or can he really tell me the dream I had and give me the interpretation of it?
Let's look now in verse 6 and see the King's response.
"The King answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar."
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your precious word.
And I pray, Father God, you'll fill us with your Spirit and teach us your truth today.
Open our eyes, give us the understanding we need, Lord.
May all eyes be on you this morning.
Thank you so much for the people who labor, Father, to make things work as they do.
And thank you, Father God, for your faithfulness to us.
Lord, we're so grateful.
As your Word says, "Great is thy faithfulness."
In Jesus' precious name, Amen.
The King answered and said unto Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar.
And I remember the eunuchs, the prince of the eunuchs rather, had changed Daniel's name and Daniel's friend's name.
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah.
He changed their godly names, which all glorified God.
And he gave them Babylonian names instead.
The name Daniel declares that God is the judge of mankind.
But Babylonians did not worship the one true God.
They didn't recognize Jehovah God.
They worshiped gods that they invented.
They worshiped the stars in heaven.
They worshipped many different false gods.
And so to them, Daniel's god was probably inferior to the gods that they made up.
They figured probably Daniel and the Israelites made their god up too.
So to the king, Daniel and his friends had common Babylonian names because he considered them and their God to be no different than the wise men on his staff and the false gods that they worshipped.
So the king said to Daniel, whose name to him was Belteshazzar, if you look back in your text now, "Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation of it?"
the words, "Art thou able?"
"Art thou able?"
That's good, isn't it, Brother Doug?
Are you able?
You see, Nebuchadnezzar had a problem that literally required the impossible to be done.
And the experts had failed him.
Nebuchadnezzar had given up hope.
In his frustration, He had ordered all the wise men in his kingdom to be put to death and now walks in this young Israelite captive, claiming that he will do the impossible.
That all of the seasoned experts in his kingdom and their connections with the superior Babylonian gods at least in his mind could not do.
And said in fact it was impossible to do.
And the king wants to have hope.
He wants his dream interpreted.
He's hoping Daniel's telling the truth.
He wants to have hope, but he doesn't want to get his hopes up.
He didn't.
Daniel didn't walk in and once this announcement was made, Nebuchadnezzar didn't say, "Oh, Daniel, thank God you're here.
So glad that you're going to be able to do this for me.
Uh-uh.
Daniel, can you really do this?
Daniel, are you able to do this?"
He wants to have hope, but he doesn't want to get his hopes up and be disappointed again, like he was before.
So he hesitantly asks, "Are you able?
Can you really do this, Belteshazzar?"
And I can tell you by experience, as perhaps some of you can, and I know some of you online can, but I can tell you by experience that being disappointed by religion is a painful Have you all ever been disappointed by religion before?
We've got a few hands.
We've actually got several hands going up.
Thinking you have life, death, religion, and where you'll spend eternity figured out, only to find out that you were misled and got it wrong.
That can be confusing, traumatizing, depressing, aggravating, and downright terrifying if you've ever experienced it.
You get to where you don't know who you can trust, who you can go to with your spiritual questions.
And like me, the king didn't want Daniel to be like everybody else.
The king was looking for the genuine article.
The king wanted truth.
And like Nebuchadnezzar, every person faces the impossible at some point in their life.
They face, number one, the impossibility of having peace on earth.
We've never seen it.
You may have peace locally, but then again, do you really have peace locally?
There's not a week that goes by that the news doesn't pop up on my phone that somebody got shot in the town I'm in or somewhere close to me.
And that's not even including the national news.
We face the impossibility of ever achieving peace on earth.
That's why many of us walk around with guns on our hips.
You go into town.
Why?
Because we know we're not going to have peace on earth.
People face the impossibility of having eternal purpose in a temporary world.
Wasn't that long ago an atheist said that I know, he said, "Life has no purpose."
And when you have a temporary world and you know everything that you work for, and everything that you're learning, and everything that you're striving to accomplish is one day just going to go "psh" and just be done away the moment you draw your last breath.
It's done.
So we face the impossibility of having eternal purpose in a temporary world.
We face the impossibility of overcoming a universal moral failure.
Universal moral failure in our world.
It's impossible to overcome.
We face the impossibility of arriving at perfection.
I'd love to be perfect.
But you know what we've done?
We've given up hope.
You know what we say?
"Well, we're only human."
Which is to concede saying, "Humans can't be perfect.
We're bound, we're imprisoned, we're shackled to error."
That's a tough concession to make.
We've just grown so accustomed to it.
We just waved the white flag. we face the impossibility of overcoming death.
And like the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers in Nebuchadnezzar's day, the world is full of religious experts, psychologists, counselors, philosophers, and scientists that offer their services to us in these matters.
I was noticed that Michelle Obama, she has a podcast now, and she was explaining how basically she's dealing with depression, and she's been going to a life coach to coach her and help her to make every decision she makes in life for her, not for anybody else.
Wow!
Do you know what that's going to lead to ultimately?
More depression.
More depression.
She's seeking eternal purpose in a temporary world.
And she's going to be let down by the life coach, just like Nebuchadnezzar was.
And so we have the religious experts, the psychologists, the counselors, the philosophers, the scientists, and the life coaches, and they offer us these services, but they're unable to do the impossible.
They fail to solve the great dilemmas of man.
And when one lets us down, we hesitate to seek help from another, lest we be disappointed again.
This was where Nebuchadnezzar was.
This is where many of us have been.
Looking for answers, we may pick up the next book and start reading it.
Watch the next video online.
Attend the next church. talk to the next pastor, and we wonder, "Can this person really help me?
Are you able?
Can you solve my life's unsolvable problems?"
When the king asked Daniel this question, look back in verse 27, "Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, 'The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show unto the king.
Brother Doug, we're not able, are we, brother?
We're not able.
The psychologists are not able to help you.
The counselors are not able to help you.
The life coaches are not able to help you.
No, the doctors aren't able to help you.
They can't even overcome death.
They may put a plug in a leaking tire for a while, but that tire is going to blow.
Are you able, Daniel?"
Daniel says, "No, I'm not able."
I will tell you right now, I'm not able.
But I tell you what, I preach not myself, but Christ Jesus our Lord.
King Nebuchadnezzar, you've been asking your worldly experts to do the impossible for you, and they can't.
Your religious leaders, your worldly experts, and your false gods, King, have let you down.
They were unable to reveal to you the mystery of the dream.
And it may seem hopeless to you now, verse 28, but there is a God in heaven."
Are you able to do the impossible, Nebuchadnezzar?
No, but there is a God in heaven.
Can the psychologists and the counselors and the doctors and the life coaches and all these people, can they do the impossible?
No, but there is a God in heaven who can.
And so Nebuchadnezzar needs the impossible, and Daniel is not letting him become more acquainted with Daniel.
Daniel is introducing him to the God in heaven.
And that's our job.
Not the stars in heaven that they worshipped, but the one who made the stars in heaven.
Not the false gods who could not do what the king required, they had let the king down.
But the God in heaven who made all things, whom Nebuchadnezzar did not yet know.
The world can't do the impossible for us, but there is a God in heaven who can.
He can achieve peace on earth.
In fact, that was the theme of His coming, wasn't it?
The angels said, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace."
Goodwill toward man.
God, through Jesus, is going to achieve peace on earth.
God can give us eternal purpose in this temporary world.
I've got it.
God can overcome and will overcome our universal moral failure.
Do you realize that one day there will not be a universal moral failure?
There will be a universal righteousness.
God can and will.
God can cause us to arrive at perfection.
God can overcome death.
And in Nebuchadnezzar's impossible situation, he is a God, look back in your text, that reveals secrets.
He reveals secrets.
And the Chaldean word translated "revealeth" here, now I have the freedom to move around now that Jeff's up there, am I right?
Brother Jeff?
Alright, I see the thumbs up.
Thank you, sir.
Praise God!
I'm going to get to moving around brother Doug.
He's a God that reveals secrets and the Chaldean word translated "revealeth" here, it has the idea of people taken captive in war.
Now in time past, they would march people taken captive in war.
Do you know what they would do?
They'd strip them naked and shame them. and then lead them off captive naked, that be humiliated.
And so this word "revealeth" has the idea of being taken captive and then stripped down like that.
To have the clothes taken off.
Now you think about that just a moment, don't think too much about it, But you think about the concept behind that just a moment.
You see, it's in this sense that the word is translated, "revealeth," as man's clothes.
They cover that which exists in nature, but which is improper for others to see.
And we'll repeat that again.
Our clothing covers that which exists in nature, but it is improper for others to see.
And in that same way, God clothes that which exists in nature, but which is improper for us to see.
Hence, the secret.
You got it?
The secret.
God reveals secrets.
God takes the clothes off of secrets.
It's fascinating.
And so secrets, the secrets here are things that exist today.
They exist now.
They exist right now.
But they're improper for us to see, so God clothes them.
And certain parts of those clothed things that exist, God lets us take a little peek at.
He'll maybe let us see through a glass darkly, as the scripture puts it.
And so, like a sunscreen, at the courthouse where I work, they've got these new sunscreens put up.
And when you walk, you can see all outside, but you can't see it clearly.
It's filtered light.
So most of it is covered, but there's little, these little pinholes in it, and a little light gets filtered in, so you can see some of it.
Now think about that just a moment.
God clothes that which exists in nature, but is improper for us to see.
You see, the future already exists.
This is hard for us to understand because God created us within a time, space, matter continuum.
That's how God created us.
Everything in our world exists in that continuum.
And that's the way we understand.
That's why when Brother Shepard gets up here, he goes, "It's 10 o'clock."
Why would you need to announce that?
Because we exist in a time-space continuum.
And time is relative to everything we do.
But the future already exists.
It does.
See, to God, the beginning and the end are all the same.
The light and the dark are the same to Him.
Everything's the same.
The future already exists, but God clothes that which is improper for us to see.
Does that make sense?
I hope it does.
God tells us in Proverbs 27, verse 1, God says, "Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
Now God does know, but to us, tomorrow is clothed.
We can't see it.
God knows what each day will bring forth, but you and I don't, for it is not proper for us to see.
God created us to soak in the grace of each and every day that He gives us.
To live in the moment, unencumbered with the cares of the future.
That's the way He designed us.
And if we didn't live in the moment, then we would never be able to enjoy a nice surprise has laid up for us.
We'd never be able to learn a new truth about His creation.
We'd never be able to trust God for the unknown.
We'd never be able to discover new places and people or be delighted by a sudden unexpected blessing.
So it's not that God forbids us to see the future.
The future already exists.
To us it's future.
But it already exists.
God doesn't forbid us to see the future.
He doesn't forbid us to see it because we shall all see the future in a matter of what?
Time.
He regulates how we are exposed to it.
Does that make sense?
All we have to do is continue to live and we shall see it.
God doesn't forbid us to see the future.
He regulates the manner in which we are exposed to it.
The future to us is like a coded time-released pill.
You take it all in, it's all in there.
It's all there.
We already have all of God's grace and all of God's plan for our lives for all eternity.
It's already there.
But God administers that to us gradually over time.
And that being said, however, God doesn't leave His people entirely in the dark either concerning the future.
It's kind of like the filter from my sunscreens.
You get to see a little bit.
So God doesn't leave His people entirely in the dark concerning His plan for them.
He rather pulls back the curtain, reveals a little of what's improper for us to see.
He pulls it back slightly and lets us peek into the future that lies ahead of us.
So Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that God reveals secrets, He removes some of what is covered, look back in your text, and maketh known.
See that?
And maketh known.
That is, He lets us get a glimpse of what lies ahead of us so we can know his future plans for us.
Daniel said God makes known, look back in your text, "to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days."
You might want to underscore that.
"What shall be in the latter days."
God makes known what shall be.
He makes the things that shall come to pass known to us in the latter days.
In the latter days you're speaking of the end of the world.
Daniel is saying that God is letting Nebuchadnezzar, and thus letting us through the book of Daniel, peek behind the curtain to see how the story of this world would end.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
I'll slow down and repeat it since we don't have it on the screens this morning.
God designed us to live in the present with a view toward the future.
God designed us to live in the present with a view toward the future.
As we've been studying in the book of Proverbs on Wednesday nights, we've learned that a repeated theme of the book of Proverbs is that God has a righteous way.
It's called a way in the Proverbs.
We would call it today a highway.
All the same thing.
But God has a righteous highway for us to travel.
So when you think of God's will, when you think of God's will, think of it like a highway.
We've learned that in the book of Proverbs.
And understanding that, think of your life as a road trip on that highway.
Okay?
Think of your life as a road trip on that highway.
God doesn't give us the whole trip at once, does He?
I'm about to take Tammy to DFW after church today, after our lunch, and fly her off to Indiana.
And she's going to bring some family back from Indiana.
They'll be in church with us, God willing, next week.
But He doesn't give us the whole trip at once.
He wants us to enjoy every mile that we travel.
He wants us to soak in all the scenery as we travel each and every mile or each and every moment and all the stops that we make along the way.
He wants us to soak it in and enjoy it.
At the same time, however, He wants us to know the purpose of our travel.
They ask you that when you're getting a ticket at the airport.
You know, I buy my tickets online, it says, "Purpose of your travel, is it business, is it leisure?"
Could you imagine saying, "Well, you know, I don't know."
Everybody knows the purpose of their travel.
No one gets on a plane and doesn't know why they're going there.
That would be scary, wouldn't it?
So, God wants us to enjoy all the scenery.
He wants us to enjoy each and every mile, but at the same time, He wants us to know the purpose of our travel and the destination we're traveling to.
Tammy knows the purpose of her travel.
Go see family, go visit grandchild, right?
Go visit kids.
She knows the destination of her travel.
If she didn't, she may never see those family and kids.
Her purpose may never get fulfilled if the right destination wasn't there.
Same with us.
The prophecies of the Old Testament, they're not men speculating the future.
They are God revealing it to us, you see?
It's a God that reveals secrets.
It's a God that takes that which is improper for us to see the future.
It takes part.
It reminds me, Brother Shepard, of when Moses wanted to see God.
God said, "Well, I'll let you see part of me.
You can't see my face.
No man can see my face and live," is the way he told Moses.
So God turned around like this and he let him see the back part.
So you can see part.
That's all.
And so God takes the future that's already there and he just pulls a little back to let us see.
That way we know the purpose of our travel on God's highway And we know our destination.
So the prophets of the Old Testament, they're not men speculating the future.
They are God revealing it.
Bible prophecy is God making known to us the purpose and destination of life's travel.
That's what we're going to discover here in the book of Daniel.
By God's design, we don't know what lies around the next curve in the road, do we?
And because of that, our focus is on the stretch of the road we're on right now.
That's what it's supposed to be.
But, thank God, because of God's Word, we know where we're headed and we know why we're going there.
And though we're enjoying our trip, we're looking forward to our destination.
And if you don't know the purpose and destination of your trip, then your journey is going to be full of mystery, rather than anticipation.
It's going to be full of vanity, rather than purpose, and uncertainty, rather than confidence.
God wanted Nebuchadnezzar and us to know our purpose and our destination, so He gave Nebuchadnezzar this dream.
And He gave us the book of Daniel, so that we can learn of what will happen in the latter days.
Do you want to know what's going to happen in the latter days?
Just keep on coming, you'll see.
So the Holy Spirit of God, through the prophet Daniel, now speaks to Nebuchadnezzar and thus now speaks to us, saying to him through Daniel, look back in your text as we close, "Thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these."
Here's the dream and all that you saw when you were sleeping in your bed, King Nebuchadnezzar.
Here are the answers you've been waiting for, and God willing, the Holy Spirit of God will let us peer behind the curtain next Sunday.
He's going to take some of that clothing off the future, and we're going to see what lies down the road for us.
Father, we thank You so much for Your precious word.
Thank you, Father, for being the God who does the impossible.
Thank you, Father, for being the God who reveals what goes on down the road.
Thank you, Father, for already having the road laid, the destination prepared, the purpose established for those, Father, who believe in your Son.
We are so grateful to travel in confidence, to travel in purpose, and to travel with great anticipation.
In Jesus' precious name we pray.
May we now go enjoy the ride in your grace until we meet again.
Amen.
