Episode Transcript
Daniel chapter 2 verses 3 through 7. Dreamers without a dream.
Last week we learned that King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that troubled his spirit.
If you'll look with me in verse 2 where we left off last week, it says,
"Then the king commanded to call the magicians and the astrologers and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans,
for to show the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king."
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your precious word.
I thank you for these precious people who are here to receive it.
I thank you, Lord, for the wonderful time we had in Sunday school an hour ago.
And I thank you, Lord God, for giving us the truth.
And I pray all eyes will be upon you this morning. You'll feed us from heaven.
In Jesus' wonderful name we pray. Amen.
"They came and stood before the king. The king had a troubling dream given to him by God
that caused him to seek comforting truth."
What is the truth about this dream? This dream came from something bigger than me.
This dream came from some divine source.
And I'm troubled to know it. I know it came from a divine source.
I know it came from something above me. And I can't rest until I get the understanding of it.
God was the one who gave the dream to the king.
So only God could explain that dream to the king.
But Nebuchadnezzar didn't know God at this time. He was still an unbeliever.
So he called the spiritual resources to stand before him that he was familiar with,
that he grew up with.
This would be equivalent to being in Mexico and calling the priest for help.
It would be equivalent to being in a church that you grew up in here in the United States
and going to those resources for help.
Or going to some Buddhist teacher or guru or something over in India for help.
Something that you're familiar with at that time.
So that's what he is seeking here is truth from a familiar source.
So these spiritual leaders of the occult, and remember the occult means
any type of practice that seeks divine revelation outside of God, the Creator.
So he calls these people from the occult and they come and they stand before the king.
Verse 3, "And the king said unto them, 'I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.'"
"I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream."
Now remember this is the most powerful man on earth at this time.
And he's got all these grown men around him.
And I believe this must have been a difficult thing for King Nebuchadnezzar to do.
As the ruler of the empire, I would imagine that the king had quite an image to uphold.
Now I'm sure that he wanted to be seen as a tough, confident, and smart leader, you know.
But now the king is admitting to all these people that his spirit was troubled by a dream.
I mean we would expect a child to cry and say, "Mommy, I had a bad dream."
But here is the most powerful man in the world.
And in essence he's telling grown men, "I had a bad dream."
"I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know it."
The king was pouring his heart out to these men.
And I believe he must have felt somewhat vulnerable doing so.
I believe he was vulnerable.
This man, this king, he had pulled the finest, brightest, most educated spiritual leaders in his realm together.
And he was essentially telling them, "I need help. I need help."
And as a troubled man who once myself needed spiritual help,
I know what it's like to seek out trusted men to find answers that you desperately need.
A man will go to great lengths to calm his troubled spirit,
seeking spiritual leaders with a sense of desperation.
Have you ever been in that situation before yourself?
Perhaps you have.
Have you ever been in the situation where you, like the king, could not rest
until you found the answers that you needed in life?
That's where the king was here.
And now on the other side of that, being a spiritual leader myself,
I have been on both sides of the situation,
and I know what it's like to have desperate people seek me for help.
They write to me or they call me on a regular basis,
and I have had people pour their hearts out to me and tell me things, like the king,
that were very embarrassing to them.
Crazy things going on in their heads.
Things they've done in their past they wouldn't want anyone else to know.
But they divulge these things to me because they're trying to find someone
who can give them the answers they need for the circumstances they've experienced in life.
And someone has to hear what's going on in their troubled head.
Someone has to.
And it was these spiritual leaders' time to do so for King Nebuchadnezzar.
And I tell you, it's very sad.
And I get put out with false teachers.
I just... I used to be more patient with them.
And as Donald Trump told the Houthi terrorists,
"Your time is up."
And that's the way I feel about them.
"Your time's up."
And in verse 4, it says, "Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriac."
This is the king's native tongue.
This is the language of Babylon.
And they're going to speak to the king in what's most familiar to him.
That maybe some other people standing near them may or may not know,
but they speak to him in a comforting language, the language of home.
Why else would it be put in here that they spoke to him in Syriac?
Why not just say what they said?
But God wanted us to know they spoke to him in Syriac,
the language of home, the home tongue.
And that's what a false religion will do.
It will appeal to your culture.
It will appeal to your upbringing.
It will appeal to what grandma and grandpa taught you.
It will appeal to what brother so-and-so taught you when you were a little boy.
It will speak the tongue of home.
But when you're seeking truth, you don't need the tongue of the homeland.
You need the tongue of heaven.
You need the language of Almighty God.
That's who you need to hear from.
And now from this point for the next several verses,
everything is written in this Syriac language,
which we'd call Aramaic today.
And so from this point for the next several verses,
I'm not going to say now this word in the Hebrew,
because it's not Hebrew.
I'll say this word in Aramaic means this.
So if I say that and we depart from what we usually do in the Old Testament,
then you'll understand why.
Now the word Chaldean, because the Chaldeans are speaking,
remember the word Chaldean not only stood for the word
that described the nationality of the people, the Chaldeans.
It also was a catch word to describe the occult.
Okay?
So it served as both.
And these Chaldeans in their native tongue said,
look back in your text, "O King, live forever."
"O King, live forever."
Now if you're taking notes, write down the word false concern.
The words false concern.
I want you to notice the false concern that these men showed to the king.
Now saying, "O King, live forever," that was a common thing to tell the king back then
when you wanted to pay him a high respect.
So these Chaldeans were letting the king know,
"King, we're on your side.
We are here for you.
And I want to tell you that a false teacher will approach you with a voice of concern.
A very soothing, comforting voice of concern.
I remember when I reached out to someone for help one time with my salvation,
he had the most soothing, comforting voice.
And he would say, "O beloved, beloved."
And he would speak to me and comfort me concerning my salvation.
And I remember he said, "You know, if you're not sure of your salvation,
just do what I tell other people to do."
He said, "Just repeat your prayer.
Just repeat your prayer."
And I thought, well, I've done that a thousand times,
but he is an ordained minister.
I'll do what he said.
I repeated my prayer.
A little bit later, I called him back because I was still doubting my salvation.
And I said, "Sir, this is Richard Fulton."
I said, "Do you remember speaking to me a little while back?"
He said, "Oh, yes, beloved.
How could I ever forget that golden voice?"
And then he goes on to tell me the conversation that we didn't have.
Ah, a big sigh.
Big sigh.
"O King, live forever.
How could we forget your golden voice?
We are on your side, King.
A false teacher will approach you with a voice of concern."
Genesis chapter 3, verse 4 through 5,
"It was the first time a false teacher approached mankind with a voice of concern.
And the serpent said unto the woman, 'Ye shall not surely die.
It will be okay. You're not going to die.
For God does know that the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil.'
The devil made as if he had nothing to gain from telling Eve
to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
He's just looking out for her.
I'm telling you this for your own good.
You're not going to die.
God's ripping you off if you eat from that tree, like God said.
He only told you that because He doesn't want you and your husband to be as gods.
He's trying to hold you down.
Put the glass ceiling on top of you.
A false teacher always has a sales pitch.
There is no documented promise that God gave Adam before the fall of man.
Have you ever noticed that?
There's no promise.
He gives him everything. Everything's perfect the way it should be.
And he said, "But don't do this."
He doesn't say, "Now if you do this, you can have this and this and this and this."
Eve doesn't argue with the serpent.
Eve doesn't say, "Well, but if I eat from that,
then maybe I'll miss out on this promise that God said."
You never see anything like that.
God tells her like it is. The devil comes in with a sales pitch.
This false concern.
Adam already had it all.
And he was expected to follow God, not for what he could get out of the deal,
but because God was his sovereign creator.
The serpent showed concern.
These Chaldeans showed concern.
False teachers show concern.
But they are only concerned for themselves.
I'm convinced of that.
The Chaldeans were saying, "King, we are here to help you.
We have your back.
And we as your spiritual leaders have the answers and can solve your problem.
All you have to do, King, is look back in the text,
tell thy servants the dream,
and we will show the interpretation."
Having noticed the false concern of these men,
I now want you to notice the prideful confidence of these men.
The prideful confidence of these men.
"We will show you the interpretation.
We have this knowledge, O King.
We have a special relationship with the gods.
And so we can reveal this to you."
And notice how the emphasis is not put on the false gods they serve,
but it's put on themselves.
"Tell us the dream and we will show you the interpretation."
Here's the Kingdom Truth for you this morning.
False teachers interject themselves between you and the false religion they teach,
making you dependent on them in their false religion's name.
I'll say it again.
False teachers interject themselves between you and the false religion they teach,
making you dependent on them in their false religion's name.
The Catholic Church was the first thing that came to mind here.
It's huge.
And you know, you don't see anything about some great Baptist leader in the news when he's sick, do you?
But boy, if the Pope has a cold and fever, he gets put on the news.
If the Pope makes a quote, he gets put on the news.
Catholic Church is huge.
And the Catholic Church teaches that Christians need their priests
to be released from the flames of purgatory.
Father Scott Snyder, a writer for the Catholic Times, and I say "Father" sarcastically.
A writer for the Catholic Times says the following.
Now, this will be a blessing to you.
In the Holy Eucharist, Christ comes to us every day with food for the journey of life,
and at the time of our death, fortifies us to pass into the new life of the resurrection.
When we stumble along the way, the sacrament of reconciliation picks us up and sets us back on track.
Add to this the possibility of indulgences,
and you can see that there is a wealth of opportunity to call on the help of God in achieving holiness.
Now, the Catholic Church teaches, as do I, you have to be absolutely perfect to go to heaven.
Now, we agree with that part.
But the thing is, how do you do it?
Well, the Holy Eucharist is the way.
The sacrament of reconciliation is another way.
The possibility of getting an indulgence is another way.
That God gives you the opportunity of achieving holiness.
And those are just three, man. They got a bunch of them.
Man, I read so many, I just got tired of reading.
You see, for the Eucharist, you need a priest.
For the sacrament of reconciliation, you need a... anyone guess? A priest.
For indulgences, what do you need? A priest.
To go to heaven and be resurrected from the dead, you need a priest.
For indulgences, listen to what he says.
This is the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois.
They offer their parishioners much comfort on this matter.
They say, "In cases of sickness or right before death,
the church offers a treasure of graces that can lead us to heaven."
So if you're about to die, that's why they call for priests.
They need them to... you don't get them on up there.
The church offers a treasure of graces that can lead us to heaven.
For example, the sacrament of anointing of the sick confers absolution from sins.
In serious health situations where death is imminent,
the apostolic blessing, which is an indulgence that allows for the remission
of temporal punishment due to sin, can be imparted by a priest.
Wow!
I thought to myself, "I wonder what the Mormon church...
how they interject themselves between the person they're teaching and the false religion they teach?"
I started studying on that. The Mormon church teaches that Christians need them to be saved and be born again.
You got to be both. You got to be saved and you got to be born again too.
The two different things, you see.
According to them, the Mormon church says the following,
"To be cleansed from sin through the Savior's atonement..."
Oh, well, you'd think, "Man, they're right on the same page with us, Brother Doug."
"To be cleansed from sin through the Savior's atonement,
an individual must exercise faith in Jesus Christ,
repent, be baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Those who have been baptized and have received the Holy Ghost
through the proper priesthood authority have been conditionally saved from sin."
Woo!
Boy, that almost sounds like us, doesn't it?
But then you add the baptism in there,
and then you got to make sure it's through the proper Mormon priesthood authority that does all of this,
or you don't get saved, and then when you do get saved, it's only a conditional salvation.
In this sense, they say, and this is taken right from the Mormon website,
in this sense, salvation is conditional.
"Depending on an individual's continuing in faithfulness
or enduring to the end in keeping the commandments of God."
Then they say about the new birth, "For people to keep their new birth current..."
I guess you got an expiration date on it, I don't know.
"For people to keep their new birth current,
rebirth can be renewed each Sabbath when they partake of the sacrament."
You need them for both rebirth and salvation, and the continuation of it.
Have you ever noticed that people who supposedly are slain in the Spirit,
you all have seen those people that go to the charismatic church and...
they fall down and do all that?
Have you ever noticed that the people who get slain in the Spirit,
they always need a charismatic preacher to initiate that experience?
They don't just...
you know, they're just not there in the room reading their Bible,
and suddenly they go...
No, they got to go to this guy, or woman,
that has this gift of slaying people in the Spirit, they say.
They have to touch them, blow on them,
gesture their hand toward them, or throw something at them.
And I've seen it all, I've seen it all.
And I thank God that He has given us the gift of helping people understand the Scriptures.
I thank God for pastors and teachers and evangelists.
But having that gift, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.
We thank God for the church, we thank God for the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
and for the pastors and teachers that God ordains to oversee His flock.
But a true pastor will happily tell you that you don't need anybody but Jesus.
And pastors who don't tell you that are liars.
They told Nebuchadnezzar, "We will show you the interpretation to which..."
Verse 5, "The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, 'The thing is gone from me.'"
The thing is gone from me.
And I believe this is a poor translation of this Aramaic language.
When we read this, it makes it sound like the king can't remember what he dreamed.
Y'all read that and think the king can't remember what he dreamed?
I think most people think that.
The thing is gone from me.
But listen as I read to you the definitions of some of these words in Aramaic.
The Chaldean word translated "thing" means word or command, discourse, or subject.
Word, command, discourse, or subject.
The Chaldean word translated "gone" has the idea of being firm.
Firm.
One translation words it this way.
"The word is firm from me."
You getting the idea of what the king's doing now?
The Jewish translation of the Bible, here's how the Jews word this in English.
They word it this way, "The thing is certain with me."
The thing is certain with me.
They told the king to tell them his dream so they could tell him the interpretation.
And the king responded by saying, "The word has gone out from me."
Or literally, "This word is firm from me.
This command is firm from me."
Look back in your text.
"If you will not make known unto me the dream with the interpretation thereof, you shall
be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made a dunghill."
The king didn't forget what he dreamt.
What would be the purpose in telling them his dream if he had forgotten?
He wouldn't even know if that was the dream or not.
Unless he said, "Oh, now that brings back my memory here."
What he's saying is, they say, "King, tell us the dream.
We'll tell you the interpretation."
The king is saying, "Listen, I've made my mind up about this.
Here's the terms."
They come to the king with their terms.
"You tell us the dream.
We'll give you the interpretation."
The king says, "No, I'm settled on this one thing right here.
Here are my terms.
You tell me the dream and the interpretation."
That's what's going on here.
And if you don't make known unto me the dream with the interpretation thereof, then you're
going to be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
So okay, we have seen their false concern.
We have seen their prideful confidence.
And now we see their sudden collapse.
That's what we're seeing here.
Nebuchadnezzar rejected their terms of service.
The Bible tells us to try the spirits to see if they are from God.
And that's what Nebuchadnezzar is doing.
Nebuchadnezzar told these spiritual leaders, "No, here's the deal.
If the gods that gave me this dream are really speaking with you, and if you are really speaking
on behalf of these gods, then you let the gods tell you the dream that they told me,
as well as what it means."
He's putting them to the test.
He was trying the spirits.
If these men were truly speaking on behalf of the pagan god who had supposedly given
the king Nebuchadnezzar this dream, then the god who gave them the interpretation could
also give them the dream.
On the other hand, if they were not speaking on behalf of the pagan god, then they would
not be able to tell the king his dream.
The king was very shrewd here.
Nebuchadnezzar wasn't a believer, remember, at this time, but he wasn't going to let these
men play him for a fool.
He was troubled.
He knew this came from a divine source, and he was not going to settle for less than verifiable
truth.
Nebuchadnezzar could have easily given them his dream, and they would have surely given
him some false but legitimately sounding interpretation.
You don't believe me?
Tell me a dream that you dreamt last night, and I will give you an interpretation thereof.
I'll come up with a doozy for you.
But if there's one thing you have to give Nebuchadnezzar credit for, when it came to
this dream, he refused once again to settle for anything else than verifiable truth.
And whoever stood before him, unable to give him that truth, was to be cut in pieces, and
their houses made a dunghill.
Now this is how you handle false teachers.
This is how you handle real teachers.
You put forth something to them, and you say, "I need verifiable truth, and if I can't
receive verifiable truth, then you're going to be cut in pieces, and your houses will
be made a dunghill."
That's how you handle false teachers.
You don't coddle them.
You don't compromise with them.
You don't join the ministerial alliance with them.
You don't look for common interests.
You don't support them in spite of their faults.
You don't work alongside them.
You put them away from you altogether, and you consider their house a dunghill because
that's what they're teaching.
Nebuchadnezzar said, verse 6, "But if you show the dream and the interpretation thereof,
you shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honor.
Therefore show me the dream and the interpretation thereof."
Man, Nebuchadnezzar was more than willing to celebrate their teaching.
He was more than willing to celebrate their religion if only he knew it was true.
This is a sincere man here reaching out for help.
But verse 7, "They answered again and said, 'Let the king tell his servants the dream,
and we will show the interpretation thereof.'"
The false claims of these spiritual leaders collapsed when tested by the king.
They couldn't show the king his dream because they didn't have any contacts with these false
gods.
The gods were not real.
They were a bunch of fakes.
So they couldn't show him the interpretation, and they couldn't show him the dream.
Church, when it comes to spiritual matters, never settle for anything less than verifiable
truth which we have in God's precious Word.
In my Genesis to Jesus class, I love it when we get to the parts of the Bible where you
kind of get bogged down when you're reading it.
And this person begets so and so, and they lived this many years, and they died, and
they beget so and so, and this person was the father of these people who lived over
here and these people who lived over here, and it just goes on and on and on.
You think, "Oh, what has God... tell us all this information."
And I explained to the people in Genesis to Jesus course my experience as a law enforcement
officer when I interviewed so many people and took lots of confessions and caught lots
of bad guys.
And you know what I learned?
When someone's lying to you, they hold off on the details, don't they, Brother Shepherd?
They don't like giving details because the devil's in the details.
When you give the details, you give a bunch of details, that's when your lie will get
figured out.
If what you're telling is true, you can give all the details you want to.
If I say, "Hey, where did you buy this stolen piece of construction equipment at?"
If they weren't telling the truth and they stole it or they knew it was stolen, you know
what they would say?
"Well, I bought it down here on the corner of this place and this place.
I had a 'For Sale' sign on it."
"Well, who sold it to you?"
"Juan Gonzalez."
"What was this?
You got a bill of sale?"
"Well, not on me."
"Which means?"
"Well, let me go to the house.
I'll make one up."
And they would tell you a story that was absolutely impossible to verify.
Absolutely impossible.
Now if it was a legitimate person, they'd say, "Oh yeah, I got that from so and so.
He works down over here.
He got this construction company over here."
And they'll tell you, "Yeah, here's a bill of sale.
I got it right here.
And here's the guy's phone number right here.
Man, I can't believe he'd sell me something that he knew was stolen."
That's the way it went if they was telling the truth.
And you could always verify it.
And you know what happens?
You look at all of those so and so begat so and so and lived here and did this and this
person begat these people and these people begat these people and here's this and that
and the other.
And then you finally get to the New Testament.
And you see Jesus being born of this person who was born of this person who was born of
this person who was born from this person who...
And you start walking it backwards all the way back to Adam.
You talk about some details.
You talk about some verifiable, confirmable truth.
And not only that, but you got the prophets in the Old Testament giving half understanding.
Then you got the prophets in the New Testament giving the rest of the understanding.
And they all meet up in the person of Jesus Christ.
Absolute, verifiable truth.
There will never be an honest person.
Do you all see the other day, the last week, where it was the co-founder of Wikipedia.
The co-founder of Wikipedia at Liberal Wikipedia came out and announced that he had read the
Bible from cover to cover in 100 days and he was convinced that it was true and that
Jesus he accepted as Savior.
Praise God.
You know what, all you have to do is to be honest.
Now that's Wikipedia.
That's somebody who is used to reporting on facts.
And after discovering the Bible, who read that?
Anyone besides me read that?
I mean, wasn't that a blessing?
You'll never have an honest person give the Bible a look, give God's Word a look, and
turn their head from Jesus Christ.
Never.
Not honest.
The king said, "I want verifiable truth."
And that's what we get in God's Word.
The king's dream came from God, but these false teachers didn't know God.
Now it's time to show them the door.
And now it's time for the king to continue his search until the God who gave him the
dream finally gives him the answers.
And that's how we have to approach our spiritual journey.
That when God, remember when he was troubled, that word trouble meant tap, tap, to tap consistently.
When God taps on our hearts, and he says, "Eternity is too long to be wrong.
You need to know the truth.
You need to know where you're going when you die."
That we don't, when we go to the religion we grew up in and they can't verify and they
can't give us the comfort we need, at some point in time we've got to show them the door.
We have people watching this morning who had to show their former people the door.
And they had to stay with verifiable truth.
And God willing we'll follow this exciting story in the next verse, next Sunday, when
the God who tapped on Nebuchadnezzar's heart and troubled him will finally reveal him the
truth that he can lay his head on at night.
Father, we thank you so very much for the wonderful truth of your word.
God, when I remember the time when many, many religions stood before me trying to give me
the answers to my troubled heart, and Lord I thank you, Father, that I did not by your
grace, Father God, embrace them but show them the door.
And the only thing left standing was the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I thank you for the verifiable truth of your word and the comfort of knowing, Father, that
I'm going to heaven through Jesus.
Thank you, Father God, for giving that opportunity to everyone who hears this teaching today.
And I pray, dear Lord God, that anyone listening today will never be satisfied with their current
belief system unless that current and until that current belief system, Lord, is satisfied
with no one but Christ.
In his precious name we pray. Amen.
