Episode Transcript
Daniel chapter 2, verses 46 through 49.
The title of the message this morning is Gold on the Ground, One Man's Spiritual Journey.
Gold on the ground, one man's spiritual journey.
In verse 45 last week, the prophet Daniel concluded the interpretation of the dream that God had given King Nebuchadnezzar.
And as Daniel had promised in Daniel 2, verse 28a, he said the wise men of Babylon couldn't reveal the king's dream to him, quote, but there is a God in heaven that reveal secrets.
It maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you for each and every person here this morning, Lord, to take time out of this holy day and to come, dear Lord God, and to hear.
Your teaching, your truth from the word you've given us.
Lord, how exciting.
How encouraging it is to me to see people come here to listen to their voices sing, Father, and to watch their faces as they're attentive to the learning of God's Word.
Lord, may all of our attention be set on you this morning.
May your Holy Spirit feed us, Father, with your precious scriptures.
In Jesus' wonderful name we pray.
Amen.
God's Holy Spirit revealed the dream and its interpretation to Daniel.
And then Daniel relayed that message to King Nebuchadnezzar.
And as you can imagine, having a man tell you What you dreamed one night in the privacy of your own head, and you haven't told anybody that dream, and then someone tells you exactly what you dreamed.
I dreamed a crazy dream the other night.
I dreamed some weird ones.
And I woke up and I thought, I got to share this dream with Rick and Glinda.
I dreamt that Rick.
Was oper a hotel as big as the Dallas Airport.
And I went to check in at that hotel, and he drew me some big old complicated map.
And I never could find that room.
I mean, there were people everywhere.
I went all night in my dreams searching for that room, and I never did get a moment's sleep.
And Rick said he wanted Glenda to stay up with him at night, come that whole, because he worked the graveyard shift.
He wanted Glenn to come up here and talk to him.
She didn't want to do it.
She wanted to stay home and sleep.
And I thought that was funny.
I thought I got to share that dream with them.
But now, had I not told them that dream.
And had Rick sent me an em and said, you know, I just let you know, last night you dreamed that I was operating this b oh my goodness, something's tapping into my head.
Well, that's what Nebuchadnezzar went through.
He knew that this came from God.
He knew Daniel couldn't know it.
He knew that God that gave him the dream had to have given Daniel that dream, and thus he knew the interpretation was real.
Nebuchadnezzar now knew that according to the dream, three different world empires would rise after his.
And before that fourth empire fell, he knew that the God of heaven would set up a kingdom that would never fall.
Now, that was pretty humbling to King Nebuchadnezzar.
When you think about it, King Nebuchadnezzar was just reminded that the empire he ruled was going to be defeated.
That's pretty humbling.
He was reminded that no world empire would last forever.
He was then reminded that every world power would be thoroughly destroyed.
And replaced by a ruler who was not from this world.
And that's some pretty heavy stuff.
And having received this information from God, Our verses this morning document for us King Nebuchadnezzar's response to having learned these things.
And it's important that we don't overlook King Nebuchadnezzar's response.
And just skip on right down to what happens next.
Because his response reveals to us some Important truths about how some people respond to an impartial knowledge of God.
Being an evangelist by gift, I care very much to know how people respond to impartial knowledge of God.
And you should too.
And for ease of learning this morning, I have divided King Nebuchadnezzar's response into four categories.
The first category being this: Nebuchadnezzar had impulse.
Without inspiration.
Nebuchadnezzar had impulse without inspiration.
Good morning, brother from Kenya.
Good to see you on here.
I hope you enjoy the message.
Nebuchadnezzar had impulse without inspiration.
Now, look with me in Daniel 2, verse 46.
Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face.
Now remember who Nebuchadnezzar was.
He was the head of gold.
At the very to.
Of that im.
He was the man.
And now that head of gold is on his face.
That 's prophetic all in itself, isn't it?
King Nebuchadnezzar was the ruler of the kingdom of Babylon, and now this head of gold is lying with his face on the ground.
King Nebuchadnezzar realizes that he had personally heard from God in his dream and had just prophetically heard from God through the prophet Daniel.
When I worked for the state, I spoke to men who were assigned to the governor's security detail.
I sure Brother Shepherd knew some too and spoke to them.
And part of their job was not only to protect the governor's person, But it was to protect his image, his image.
It's important for powerful leaders to always appear strong and confident in the public eye.
So if someone on the governor's protective detail were to have foreseen an embarrassing situation com up for the govern, say he had some mustard on his face, just got through eating, and they, you know, didn't want him to go out in front of the public or cameras or something with mustard on his face, then they were supposed to give the governor a heads up to protect his image before the people.
President Trump once remarked that he had to be very careful that he didn't slip when he was walking, because if he did, the media would have it playing over and over and over to embarrass him.
And for the ruler of a world empire like King Nebuchadnezzar to fall on his face before Daniel, a man his army had taken captive.
In front of all of his servants, let me tell you, he was very humbled and probably very afraid at this time.
This was quite a religious experience for King Nebuchadnezzar.
It was a revelation of truth from God, whom Nebuchadnezzar still knew, understand this very little about.
Nebuchadnezzar still knew very little about God.
And in response to this amazing divine experience that Nebuchadnezzar just had, he fell on his face, look back in your text, and worship Daniel?
What is this all about?
Daniel didn't ask to be worship.
Daniel didn't want to be worshipped.
Daniel never claimed to be a god.
Daniel said he was there representing the God of heaven.
The king just got through learning about the God of heaven, and instead of falling on his face and worship that God.
The king is worshiping Daniel.
Now it's easy to read this and wonder what could the king be thinking.
I mean, he missed the whole point of that dream.
But God puts this in here for a reason for us, folks.
Don't be shocked by Nebuchadnezzar's response to this religious awakening.
Because God is leading this man on a spiritual journey.
And we will be wise to not scrutinize the king's act, but to learn from them.
In my know I'm sa.com ministry, I've had many people call or write me about their salvation.
And one of the things that's always amazed me.
Is that they've gone through a long spiritual journey, most of them have gone through a long spiritual journey before they ever reach out to me for help.
I've had so many tell me how they used to be atheists or how they used to belong to some false rel, some false teaching.
And how they struggled over a period of many years in sin and rebellion to God, or in this false teaching that they were caught up into, and then finally.
After God had worked on their hearts for so long a time, they finally come to realize that they need Jesus as their Savior.
And I believe we fool ourselves when we think that people with no religious background or a false religious background, which is even worse, that they become Christians in a five-minute session with a street evangelist.
Y'all ever see those street evangelists?
They'll grab someone off the street.
Now, this, step one, this, step two, this, step three, this, step four.
Do you believe this?
You're a Christian.
We're fooling ourselves.
People who are burdened by lies, they've had that religious baggage on them for years.
Man, when people write me for help on the know. website, I tell them, you didn't get into this mess overnight.
You're not going to get out of it overnight.
There's got to be some deprogramming.
There's got to be a setting aside of what is false before you can embrace what's true.
You have to.
People who are burdened by lies, they have to unload that religious baggage before they can embrace the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
King Nebuchadnezzar had been brought up to believe in more than one God.
Can you imagine trying to witness to a Hindu person, Brother Doug, telling them about Jesus?
Well, they believe in over a thousand gods in the Hindu religion.
A thousand.
And when you're brought up with that kind of belief and you're telling them about Jesus, he's just another idol on the shelf.
That's all he is.
And Nebuchadnezzar, he was a polytheist.
They were brought up to believe and to worship more than one God.
And because of this dream, the king now knows.
Clearly, that God is real, that Daniel's God is real, who he calls the God of heaven.
But King Nebuchadnezzar doesn't know that God is the only God.
And all the other gods are false, and that God created heaven and earth, as given us in the record of the book of Genesis.
At this point, the king doesn't know what to do, so being overwhelmed by the moment.
Of this spiritual enlightenment.
He acts on impulse rather than on inspiration because he doesn't have the inspiration of God.
He doesn't have all of that knowledge from God's Word that he needs.
We don't need to laugh at the king for worship Daniel.
We don't need to ridicule the king for worship Daniel.
We need to feel sorry for this man.
And we need to understand that the things that we see him going through in his struggle back then in the Old Testament.
With this partial knowledge of God, this incomplete understanding of God, are the very things that people go through today.
And if we don't understand that, then we will have people thinking that they belong to the church and they're still on the outside looking in.
The king didn't have the benefit of being raised in a family where God's word was taught.
So he's acting on impulse rather than the inspiration of God's Word.
People often do this, they often act on impulse when they lack the full truth of the gospel.
And like Nebuchadnezzar, it sometimes manifests itself in bizarre ways.
Just like Nebuchadnezzar worship Daniel.
Do you know in some parts of the world, how many of y'all have seen in certain parts of the world where the men Allow themselves to be crucified on crosses.
Y'all ever seen that?
How many of y'all have never seen that?
Wow, most of you haven't.
Yeah, in some parts of the world, every year.
Do you remember what country that is?
Philippines.
Well, we've sent a lot of tracks to the Philippines, haven't we?
And still, you've got people in the Philippines.
Who every year you got these men, they'll lay them down on a cross and they'll start nailing their hands into the cross.
And ah, and they're trying to please God.
They're acting on impulse, not on inspiration.
The Bible, the inspiration of God's Word, gets the gospel completely opposite of what they're doing.
They're trying to be crucified for God.
Jesus was crucified for us.
How bizarre.
But.
That's what happens when people have an imperfect understanding of God's word.
Nebuchadnezzar didn't know what to do.
So he did something.
You see, he just did something.
Kind of reminds me of Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration.
And they want to build little huts for Moses and Elijah and Jesus.
It's good for us to be here.
Let's build some huts.
No, they didn't come here to stay.
Nebuchadnezzar had impulse with an inspiration.
Number two, Nebuchadnezzar had ritual without redemption.
He had ritual without redemption.
Caught up in the emotion of the moment, Nebuchadnezzar fell down and worship Daniel.
Look back in your text and command that they should offer an oblation and sweet odors unto him.
False religions often mimic the way God prescribes for us to worship Him, and that's what this is.
Nebuchadnezzar was used to oblations and odors.
They used that in their worship of their false gods.
And all of that stemmed.
Don't ever let anyone tell you that the Jews got their religion from these heathen nations.
It's the opposite.
The heathen nations got their religion from the one true religion that God gave way back in the Garden of Eden.
And then they perverted it.
Remember, with Cain and Abel?
Back in the very beginning, you got Cain bringing the appropriate sacrifice by faith.
You got Abel messing it up.
And it's been like that ever since.
The true gospel and all the false religions of the world that often mimic the true gospel in what they do, the perversions of the truth.
And so here's Nebuchadnezzar.
He's commanding they offer an oblation and sweet odors to Daniel.
Oblation is another word for offering.
So don't get caught up in that.
And don't get oblation confused with libation.
That can be easy to do.
Libation is the pouring out like of a drink offering or something.
But oblation is just another word for offering.
In fact, this word's translated as offering in the scriptures.
So, and then sweet odors here, that's that sweet savor that God smells.
During a burnt offering, remember?
They would offer a burnt offering, and it would be a sweet savor unto God.
That was a picture of Jesus being crucified on the cross.
And God seeing the travail of his soul and being satisfied.
Ah, it calms me.
That's what that idea of the sweet savor.
Ah, it's so calming.
So you have a God that's angry with sin and now propitiated, calmed, pacified, satisfied with the sacrifice that Jesus made for it.
So the king commanded that a burnt offering be made to Daniel.
Burnt offerings were a picture of Jesus being sacrificed for our sins, and that sweet odor that came from that was a picture of God being pleased with the sacrifice he's made.
But the offering the king wants to make has nothing to do with the offering that Jesus made to God for us.
N's offering is nothing but empty ritual, void of any redemptive truth or power.
Boy, you look at the Catholic Church today, they're full of rituals, aren't they?
Just full of rituals.
You got Mormonism full of rituals.
I was telling someone the other day about the special underwear they wear, and they started laughing.
But it's true.
I wasn't making it up.
Man, they got all kinds of stuff that they do.
Ritual.
Empty ritual.
Boy, those Catholics, they love rubbing those beads.
What are they doing?
Rubbing?
Are they trying to create friction?
Are they trying to get the mojo worked up in those beads?
What are they doing?
You can rub those beads down to powder.
And it will never give you the power of Christ's redemption on the cross.
They cons bread and wine, which they claim is Jesus, when they're eating it.
But they're consuming bread and wine instead of Jesus.
When we believe on Jesus Christ crucified for our sins and the blood He shed, we're eating, we're partaking of Christ and Him crucified.
As Jesus said, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
They're eating bread and wine, thinking they're eating Jesus.
We're eating Jesus.
And we're commemorating that when we're eating the bread and wine.
And they get it completely backwards.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning: a ritual can represent Christ.
But it can never replace Christ.
A ritual can represent Christ, but it can never replace Christ.
Nebuchadnezzar had impulse.
Without inspiration, Nebuchadnezzar had ritual, without redemption.
Number three, Nebuchadnezzar had knowledge without understand.
He had knowledge with understanding.
Look with me now in verse 47.
The king answered unto Daniel and said, Of a truth it is that your God is a God of gods.
And a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.
Well, that sounds good, doesn't it?
That's a step in the right direction.
Of a truth, he said, your God is a God of gods.
And some would probably take that as a profession of faith and welcome Nebuchadnezzar into the church and put him on the deacon board.
But Nebuchadnezzar has knowledge without understand.
Nebuchadnezzar is acknowledging the existence of God.
But he doesn't yet understand the truth of God.
You see, God is not a God of gods because there are no other gods.
We say Jesus is a king of kings.
That's easy to understand.
Nebuchadnezzar was said to be a king of kings.
Nebuchadnezzar could only be a king of kings if there were other kings underneath Nebuchadnezz Jesus is a king of kings because there's other kings beneath him.
But to say God is a God of gods is not true because there is no other God beside him.
He simply is God.
He is the great I am.
Isaiah 45, verse 5a.
God said, I am the Lord, and there is none else.
There is no God beside me.
Nebuchadnezzar didn't know that yet.
Someone may say, Now, Brother Richard, as long as someone believes in God, as long as someone believes in Jesus Christ, they don't have to know that there are no other gods beside Him.
Oh, yes, they do.
That's an impartial knowledge of God.
An impartial knowledge of God is a misunderstanding of God.
Listen, Jesus didn't come to die on the cross so we could hedge our bets for heaven.
You know what it means to hedge your bet?
How many gamblers do we here?
I'm kidding with you.
You don have to answer that.
To hedge your bet in gambling but also in finances, you know, it's where you say, okay, Diversification.
I'm going to put some of my money and invest it over here in this investment.
But you know what?
I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket.
Now, if you got as much money as Sister Ann does, it's different.
But you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket.
Because what if that company fails?
What if that sector goes down?
So you say, well, I'm going to put some of my money over here, too.
That way, if this goes down, maybe this will go up.
I kind of hedge my bet.
I'll get a hedge, a hedge like a hedge of protection.
Jesus didn't come down so we can say, okay, well, and I've had people tell me this before.
I used to think this way myself before I became a Christian.
I remember before I understood the gospel.
I remember thinking, I want to find the most diff Christian religion I can, that has the the most requirements, because I'd rather do too much to be saved and not do enough.
Now see, to the carnal mind, that makes sense.
And I've had other people tell me that.
Well, I'd rather do too much than not do enough.
But the thing is, that's hedging your bet.
And I would talk to and I, Well, now, look, you understand this is about what, oh, yeah, you've got to have Jesus.
But then I got to do this too.
And so they're hedging their bet.
I'm going to put my money on Jesus and his death on the cross.
I'm going put my money on my baptism, on my special underwear.
I'm going to put my money on my works over here.
I'm going to put my money on my bead rubbing and on my idolatry.
And you know what?
There's nothing wrong just in case.
What if some of these gods the Hindus worship?
I can respect them too.
I just hedge my bed.
We'll love all of them.
And that's why a lot of people You've heard them say, all religions are a valid way to God.
Do you know what they're doing when they do that?
They're hedging their bet.
Oh, sure, Jesus is great.
God's Christianity is wonderful.
Hinduism, that's good too.
I've heard quote unquote Christian preachers preach that way, that all religions are acceptable way to God.
Man, Jesus didn't come to die on a cross.
We looked over his crucifixion this morning.
He didn't come to die on the cross, to be nailed to a cross, to be mocked on and spat on so people could hedge their bets.
He didn't send us and tell the church to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature on earth so that other people could just add another God to their religious portfolio.
You go preach the gospel to them.
Oh, that's wonderful.
Well, we'll accept Jesus and we'll sit him right alongside of our gods.
No, no, no, no.
He sent us into the world so that the world could know the truth of their Creat, so they could cast off all other gods and all other religious belief.
And they could embrace the truth of the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ as their only hope for eternal life.
Without that, there's no salvation because you can't believe the gospel.
Unless you believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Him.
Can Like many people in this world, Nebuchadnezzar had impulse with inspiration.
He had ritual.
Without redemption.
He had knowledge without understanding.
Next, he had contribution.
Without consecration.
He had contribution without consecration.
Look with me in verses forty-eight and forty-.
Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon.
And chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.
Then Daniel requested of the king, and he sent Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedneg, and remember that was his three Christian friends.
Over the affairs of the province of Babylon, but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.
Man, Daniel had the highest position of all.
He promoted these four godly men and put them over everything.
Nebuchadnezzar threw his support behind the men of God, but he did not yet know the God of the men.
He was impulsive, he was ritualistic, he was supportive.
But he was not saved.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning: you can't be a man of faith if you don't know what to believe.
Boy, that's pretty simple, isn't it?
You can't be a man of faith if you don't know what to believe.
There'd be plenty of pastors.
Who would love to have Nebuchadnezzar at this point in time in their church?
I saw a cartoon the other day that a pastor put on the uh on his uh social media profile.
And it had a picture of a what's supposed to have been an independent Baptist pastor.
Who was looking at a first-time visitor out in the church?
And then it says that He's thinking inside his mind, as soon as the sermon's over, he's going to go down and say, So, would you like to join the church?
Man, you'll never see me do that.
No, sir.
We wait.
We make sure they understand the truth because when if we're like that, And we go out and we, Well, now, would you like to join the church?
And they make some kind of positive.
Statement toward God and toward Jesus.
And next day, we have them down here.
Everyone's coming around shaking their hands, saying, Well, look, we've got a new member.
I want to praise the Lord.
And that person doesn't yet know Christ as their Savior.
We're harming that person, and now we're harming our church.
You know, there's people, there's churches who have members who don't know Christ as their Savior.
They don't even know the gospel.
As y'all know, I've spoken to a lot of people who were raised up in church.
You share the gospel with them.
They, I've never heard that before.
That's happened many times to me.
And so you have lost people who are voting and making decisions on the kingdom of God and don't even know God.
And then, next thing you know, the church starts drifting away the way of the world.
Why?
Because the world's running the church.
And there'd be plenty of pastors at this time that would love to have Nebuchadnezzar in the condition that he's in in their church.
Think about it.
He idolized the man of God.
He admired the power of God.
He supported the people of God.
Pastors would love that.
Sadly, though, he was still missing the truth of God.
And that's what a pastor has to get at.
I was praying for the people in this church this week.
I don't want a single person who sits in this pew, whether they are here in person.
Or whether they are in church sitting in the virtual pew online listening to us, as some are this morning.
Praise God, Leah.
I appreciate that comment you just sent in.
It's encouraging one of our online members.
And I don't care who they are.
I want to know, and I want, and I pray that to God that every person that listens to me on a regular basis, I want them to meet me in heaven.
What good is it if we put money in the offering plate, if we fill a pew, and then a person dies and goes to hell?
He was still missing the truth.
Nebuchadnezzar wasn't a new Christian.
Nebuchadnezzar was a man who was beginning his spiritual journey.
A journey that begins with a God he didn't know, so that one day.
He will know no other God but him.
And I'm looking forward to continuing through this book.
Thank you, God, that we know no other God but you.
And your Son, the stone cut out of the mountain, as the one who paved the way for us to heaven.
I was teaching this morning in the Genesis Jesus class.
And they wrote up above that cross.
This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.
I think if I'd have been there, Brother Shepherd, and I'd been studying through Daniel, I think I'd have wrote on there, this is the stone.
Cut out of the mountain.
Praise God.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
We thank you, Father God, for the wonderful truth you've given us.
I thank you, Father God, that Lord, before we can know Jesus as our Savior.
We have to know, as your word says, neither is there salvation in any other.
For there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved but the name of Jesus Christ.
And knowing, Father God, that He, like the Ark, is the only way of salvation that you've provided.
Then we can rest our hope on nothing else but Him.
In His precious name we pray, and we thank you for this study of Daniel.
Guide us the rest of the way through.
In Jesus' name, amen.
