Episode Transcript
Take God's precious word and turn to Daniel chapter 2.
Daniel chapter 2 and verse 8.
God willing we'll be expounding verses 8 through 11 this morning.
Good to see you all this morning both here and online.
The title of the message this morning is "That You May Know."
"That You May Know."
The king of Babylon and we had to put ourselves in his position.
I know a lot of times we think well we need to put ourselves in the position of Daniel and his three godly friends.
But the king here also is someone we need to put ourselves in his position because he also is an object lesson for each of us.
The king had it all except God.
And one troubling dream caused this man to not be able to enjoy anything in his kingdom.
He wasn't going to be able to rest until he found the answers to life's questions.
And it's the same with us.
We can have all the wealth, we can have the greatest job, the greatest family and everything seemed to be going our way.
But when you start considering eternity, you start considering where you're going to spend eternity, all it takes is one diagnosis, one turn of events and suddenly none of that means anything anymore.
And that's the way it is with the king.
He can't enjoy anything that he possesses.
And everything that we have in this world, the position we have, the power we may have, the wealth we may have, it will all be taken away from us one day.
And we won't be able to enjoy it forever.
We have to secure for us an eternal future, an eternal joy, an eternal hope.
And by God's grace, He's given us the ability to know that we have that.
So he was given a dream and he knows this dream came from God.
The problem is Nebuchadnezzar does not know God.
He does not know who the one true God really is yet.
If the God who gave him the dream is one of the false gods of Babylon, then that's easy.
The spiritual leaders of Babylon would be able to interpret that dream for him and give him the answers that he needs.
So Nebuchadnezzar called the spiritual leaders before him and he poured out his troubled heart to them asking for help in understanding the dream that God gave him.
The spiritual leaders told Nebuchadnezzar that he would have to tell them the dream first and then they would give him the interpretation.
But Nebuchadnezzar was no sucker.
Nebuchadnezzar knew that if he told them the dream, then they could make up any interpretation they wanted.
They could say, "Oh, that means this or that means that."
And he would never know for sure if what they were telling him was real.
So when seeking spiritual help, Nebuchadnezzar determined that he was not going to settle for just any old answer that the spiritual leaders told him.
He was looking for truth.
So he told the spiritual leaders that they were going to have to tell him the dream that he had.
He wasn't going to tell them, "You tell me the dream I had and then you give me the interpretation."
And that way he would know that the God who gave him the dream had really spoken to them.
If the God that gave him the dream was speaking to these people, well, he could tell them the dream just as easy as he could tell it to Nebuchadnezzar.
Of course, the gods that these men served weren't real.
They were false gods, gods that those men made up.
And so the men weren't real either.
They were fakes.
They were religious charlatans who didn't know the one true God.
So Nebuchadnezzar told these men that he would reward them if they could tell him his dream and the interpretation.
But if they couldn't tell him his dream and the interpretation, well, he would destroy them and he would destroy their homes.
And when they heard this firm decree from the king, if you'll look with me in verse 7 now, "They answered again and said, 'Let the king tell his servants the dream and we will show the interpretation of it.'"
So the king gave these men the terms of their professional relationship.
Tell me the dream and the interpretation.
Then they answered again and said, "You tell us the dream.
Then we will give you the interpretation."
And the king's probably thinking, "Wait a minute.
You know, we've already had this conversation and that's not the terms that I gave you."
And what I would imagine would be a very agitated voice about now in verse 8, "The king answered and said, 'I know of a certainty that ye would gain the time.'"
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your precious word.
I thank you for these precious people that are here and who are listening online.
What a blessing they are to me.
People, Lord, who love to learn your word.
Father, I pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit will teach us this morning.
We'll hear from you, dear Lord God.
Give us the understanding we need, we pray in Jesus' wonderful name, Father.
Amen.
So he says, "I know of a certainty.
I know what you're doing.
You would gain the time."
The king is saying, "Men, I don't know the interpretation of this dream.
But there is one thing I know for sure.
You're just stalling for time.
That's all you're doing.
You're stalling.
You're just trying to buy yourself some time."
These fake spiritual leaders couldn't meet the king on his terms.
If they tried to fabricate a dream, then the king would know that they were lying to him.
The king knew the dream, but he didn't know the interpretation.
So the men wanted the king to tell them what he did know, so they could fabricate what he didn't know, you see?
But once again, the king would not settle for anything short of verifiable truth.
And he wasn't about to let these men pull the wool over his eyes.
So he told these men, "I know what you're trying to do.
You're stalling for time.
Look back in your text, because you see the thing is gone from me.
Because you see that I am firm on the word that has gone out from me.
You're stalling for time."
When people negotiate a price on something, they sometimes appear to be very firm on the price.
Some of you all may be very good horse traders.
I don't know.
I bet you're a good horse trader, Brother Mike.
That'd just be my guess.
But some people are very good horse traders.
And when you're trying to barter for a price, then a lot of people will appear to be very firm on the price, hoping that the other party will come around to their terms.
"No, no, I won't take anything less than this."
Or they say, "No, I won't give any more than this."
But you know what?
The truth is, they usually always have a little wiggle room, don't they?
And if they think the sell isn't going to go through, then they will either lower the sell's price or raise the offer price to meet the terms of the other party, so they can make the deal go through.
And these men were hoping the king had a little wiggle room.
They were hoping that the king would lower his requirement and then meet them on their terms.
But the king was firm.
The king wasn't going to budge.
Listen, the king would have rather died knowing the truth than live believing a lie.
And I respect King Nebuchadnezzar for that.
And we should have that same desire in our hearts.
We'd rather die knowing the truth than live believing a lie.
And this is where we all need to be.
Besides, if God gave him the dream again, then surely he had a purpose in doing so.
Why would God give him the dream and not give him the revelation?
Perhaps God would reveal the dream to Nebuchadnezzar in time.
He wasn't going to waste his time on these charlatans.
No, I'm not going to sell for anything less than what I know is the truth of what this God is trying to tell me.
So the king stood firm on his terms for truth and he told them, verse 9, "But if you will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you.
If you won't tell me the dream I had, then I've already made my mind up what's going to happen to you."
Look back in your text, "For ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me."
Now, if you'll notice the word "prepared," you might want to underscore that word "prepared."
You have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me.
You're trying to scam me.
The Chaldean word here, "prepared," has the idea of conspiring.
You men have conspired together to give me lying and corrupt words.
These spiritual leaders were shysters.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that false teachers are sincere people who are just confused.
I've heard so many people say that about false teachers.
Well, they started off well and then they just kind of went off the wrong direction.
No, if you started in the right direction, you'll continue in the right direction.
If you start in the wrong direction, you're going to end in the wrong direction.
And so, he says, "You've conspired to peddle lies to me."
These spiritual leaders were intentionally peddling lying and corrupt words.
And we have to understand there's people like that in this world.
Selling a false religion requires some preparation on the seller's part.
You think about all these false religions out here.
Joseph Smith come up with the story that an angel had showed him some golden tablets that only he was allowed to see.
You just got to believe me.
You can't see the golden tablets, but you got to believe an angel showed me some golden tablets.
And now, I have a special message about Christianity to share with you.
What they call today, "Another Testament of Jesus Christ."
And he convinced people to follow him contrary to the Bible.
Muhammad, what a mess that man made.
He told people back in the 7th century that he had received special revelations from God as well.
He told people to return to the teachings of the Bible and to return to the teachings of Jesus.
Sounds good, doesn't it?
You go back to the teachings of the Bible, you go back to the teachings of Jesus, but you know what he did?
Instead of teaching people what the Bible said, instead of teaching people what Jesus said, we come up with a whole new book.
A whole new book.
And his teachings, which are supposed to take people back to the Bible and back to the New Testament, have ended up causing his followers to consider Jews and Christians to be infidels who need to be killed.
Which you will not find in the Old and New Testaments.
Isn't it amazing how people can conspire and come up with something that appears to be so genuine?
"Yes, let's get back to the Holy Book.
Yes, follow this man, he's giving us a great revival."
And he says, "Now let me tell you what the Holy Book really wants to tell you.
We'll give another book."
And then they come back and say, "The Holy Books and the teachings of Jesus, they were all corrupted.
We don't have the real meaning of them.
And so now, here we go, you have the Quran, it can tell you all about it.
That's all you need to know now is the Quran."
But he told people to return to the Bible, but if the Bible had the message that we needed, then why did we need his message?
Think about it.
People don't think, "If he's telling me to go back to the Bible, he's telling me to go back to the teachings of Jesus, then how about we just take the Bible and the teachings of Jesus?
Why do his followers believe the Bible is corrupt if that is what we are to return to?"
Every day when the phone rings, we're faced with someone trying to scam us.
But the worst con artists are those who fabricate religious lies.
But they do.
They're not sincere.
They are shysters.
Just think about it.
There are people who sit around and intentionally think up stories that they can tell people, that they can claim came from God, so they can gain influence over those people for personal and financial gain with no regard for those people's spiritual welfare and their eternal soul.
That is nothing short of demonic.
It's a special kind of evil.
And Nebuchadnezzar wasn't going to be suckered by these religious scammers.
He said, "You have prepared lying and corrupt words to tell me," look back at your text, "till the time be changed."
Or as one translation words it, "You've decided to make up a bunch of lies, hoping I might change my mind."
When it comes to religious doctrine, we must hold high the standards of truth and never compromise those standards for anybody.
People write me all the time.
I get weary with it sometimes.
I care about the people, but I get weary with it.
People write me all the time asking me to explain something they heard a preacher say.
I get so tired of that.
And you know what?
They would have never had to have asked me that question if they held the preacher to the same standard of God's Word that Nebuchadnezzar was holding these men to with this dream.
They would never have to ask me that question.
And see, as a pastor, I don't explain sermons.
I explain scriptures.
It's plain and simple.
God didn't call me to explain somebody's sermon.
He called me to explain scriptures, to let the scriptures do the teaching.
And if other pastors would explain scriptures, then people wouldn't be asking me to explain their sermons.
Could you imagine if every pastor just got up and said, "Here's God's Word.
Look at this verse now.
Look what it says.
This is what this word means.
Look at this in its context.
This is what the supporting scriptures say.
This is how we know this is true.
Next verse, next verse, next verse, next verse."
Then no one would have to call and say, "Could you explain what this pastor said over here?"
Because we're not worried about what the pastor said.
We're looking at what the scripture said.
Nebuchadnezzar is requiring these religious leaders to speak to him, not as men, but with divine authority.
This is what he was doing.
By making them tell him his dream, which he knew came from a divine authority, he was forcing them to speak to him on the basis of divine authority.
And the dream test was how he was holding them to that standard.
The dream was Nebuchadnezzar's leverage to hold these men accountable.
And the Bible is our leverage to hold spiritual leaders accountable today.
Wonderful leverage.
Trump likes tariffs.
That's his leverage politically.
We have the scriptures.
That's our leverage spiritually.
It's a wonderful, wonderful thing to have.
He said, "Give me the dream!"
And we say, "Give me the scriptures."
The king is telling these men, "You want me to give in to your sham, but I'm not going to fall for it."
Look back in your text, "Therefore, tell me the dream."
Here he goes again.
"Tell me the dream and say those three words with me.
I shall know that you can show me the interpretation thereof."
Underscore, "I shall know."
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
God wants you to know that your faith is on solid ground.
God wants you to know that your faith is on solid ground.
I don't want to guess at where I'm spending eternity.
I don't want to wonder if I'm believing the truth.
I don't want to hope that I have the right religion.
I want to know that I am basing my faith on solid ground, on rock-solid truth.
Matthew chapter 9 verse 6, "Jesus said, 'But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, then saith he to the sick of the palsy, 'Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.'"
Jesus didn't claim to see some secret tablets.
Jesus didn't claim to see some vision.
Jesus claimed to be equal with God, to be the Son of God, to have come down from heaven.
Jesus claimed to have created the world.
Jesus claimed to be the eternal God of the Bible, the author of the Bible.
Jesus claimed to be, again, one with God the Father.
And in John chapter 10 verse 37 and 38, He said, "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
But if I do, though ye believe me not, believe the works."
Why?
"That ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him."
Jesus met with Abraham, who believed in Him.
Jesus met with Moses, who wrote of Him.
Through the Old Testament prophecies, Jesus gave infallible proofs of His coming.
And then when Jesus finally came, Jesus did the works of God before eyewitnesses.
Raising people from the dead, healing people with visible infirmities, and making them whole.
Casting out devils.
And those people bear witness of Him to us.
Why?
"That we may know."
"That we may know."
Listen to how the gospel of John ends.
In the gospel of John chapter 20 verse 26 through 31.
"And after eight days again, His disciples were within, and Thomas with them.
Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, 'Peace be unto you.'
Then saith He to Thomas, 'Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands.
And reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side, and be not faithless, but believing.'"
Look, see my pierced hands?
You see where the spear got me in the side?
Put your hand in there and feel.
Don't be faithless, but believing.
"And Thomas answered and said unto Him, 'My Lord and my God.'
Jesus saith unto him, 'Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed.'"
Now listen, Jesus gives a special blessing upon us now.
Watch.
He's speaking of us now.
"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
Isn't that something?
Thomas, you have faith because you've touched My hand with your hands.
You have faith in Me because you put your hand where the spear pierced.
But there's a special blessing for those people that haven't done what you've got to do.
But through the prophecies of the Old Testament, and through the testimonies and the eyewitnesses in the New Testament, and through the cooperation of both Testaments bearing witness of each other, blessed are those people that have not seen with their physical eyes, yet believe with their spiritual eyes.
By faith.
Don't you do this?
When you read the Bible, and you read about Him putting His finger in the side, how many of you all actually visualized Him putting His finger in His side?
Almost everybody.
When you read the Scriptures, and you read about Jesus going on the cross, and the other malfactors there being crucified next to Him, how many of you all visualize Him on the cross as you're reading those Scriptures?
Don't we do that?
That's the eye of faith.
That's what that is.
It's the eye of faith.
It's where you can see Him, not with these eyes, but you see Him with the Scriptures.
The Scriptures paint the narrative in your mind.
And you seeing that, you believe the record that's given you.
It's quite an amazing thing that God's done for us.
How many of you all, when you've read the story of Isaac and Abraham, and the ram dying in Isaac's place, and Isaac going free, how many of you all have a visual of that in your minds?
Every one of us do.
Jesus saying, "Blessed are those people who have not seen, and yet believed."
Do you know why He said that?
Because He knew that there would be people like us, thousands of years later, hundreds of years later, ten years later, people even alive during that time, who did not have the opportunity that Thomas had, but through the record of God's Word, would still believe.
I'm grateful for that great blessing.
I'm thankful I didn't see it.
I'll be honest with you.
A lot of times, I think, you know, it's been so nice to have walked with Jesus, and listened to Him teach.
But I'm glad I wasn't alive during that time, because I wouldn't have had the blessing of the opportunity of believing Him based only on the written Word of God.
It's quite a blessing that He's given me.
He says, and then John goes on to say, "In many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through His name."
Because of the prophetic Word, because of the written Word, because of the living Word, we have not seen, but we know.
God's Word and God's work in Jesus Christ gives us a certain assurance of the Gospel.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 6, verse 69, Peter told Jesus, "We believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
And I am just as sure that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, as Peter was then.
The same Holy Spirit that convinced him of who Jesus was, and caused Him to put His faith in Him, is the same Holy Spirit who's convinced me of who Jesus is, and caused me to place my faith in the same."
I had a precious phone call last Sunday after church.
Karen's gone.
She stepped out.
It was Karen's son-in-law.
Precious phone call from him.
He's in the Genesis to Jesus class next door.
And his son, Christian, has been watching online.
He lives far away.
He's in the military.
So he can't be here to watch in person.
But he said he and his son, who's been watching online, have confidence in the truth of what they're learning.
They have confidence in the truth of what they're learning.
Do you know why?
Because when I teach in that class, everyone turn here.
They turn there.
I wait for them.
They go to the Scripture.
We read the Scripture.
Look what it says.
Turn here.
Look here.
And next thing you know, they see the New Testament explaining the Old.
They see the Old Testament confirming the New.
They see that the New is in the Old concealed.
The Old is in the New revealed.
And they see that only God can do this.
And the Scriptures are teaching themselves.
And when the Scriptures are teaching themselves, who's doing the teaching?
God is.
You see what's happening?
Nebuchadnezzar didn't want to hear from men.
He wanted to know that he's heard from God.
He held those religious leaders to that standard.
And as a teacher of God's Word, I'm thankful to say, we can fulfill that standard.
We can let the Scriptures do the teaching.
And thus God does the teaching.
And His Spirit confirms and bears witness in the people's hearts that this is true.
It's true.
The Bible says His Spirit bears witness with our spirit.
It confirms.
You teach the Scriptures, and when you hear the Scriptures, you hear the truth of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit says to that person's heart, "Amen, this is true.
You need to believe this.
This is true."
And God does the teaching to the people He created.
For many years, I've been teaching that Genesis to Jesus class, and I never cease to be amazed at how God, through the simple explanation of His Word, not through me teaching so well, I'm telling you, but through the simple explanation of His Word, it convinces people of the truth, and it gives them a rock-solid certainty that they can live by, and a rock-solid peace that they can die by.
And I thank God for that.
Now listen to how these religious leaders answered the king.
Verse 10.
"The Chaldeans answered before the king and said, 'There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter.
Therefore, there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asks such things as any magician or astrologer or Chaldean.'"
Now here's the first thing that they said that's true.
There was not a man upon the earth that could show the king his dream.
That's true.
Only God could do that, and the king knew that.
But a man didn't show the king the dream to begin with.
It was God, and the king knew that too.
Here's another kingdom truth for you.
Let me make sure you understand what's happening.
The king knew that only God gave him the dream.
The king didn't want to hear from these men.
He wanted to make sure that God gave him the interpretation.
You got it?
Here's the kingdom truth.
Once you have received the revelation of God, the revelation of man will no longer satisfy you.
Once you have received the revelation of God, the revelation of man will no longer satisfy you.
That's why believers will never be satisfied unless the word of God is being explained to them.
The men said, verse 11, "And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can show it before the king except the gods."
Here's the second thing that they said that's part true.
The gods couldn't show it, but God could.
They knew it had to be a divine revelation.
They said, "No one except the gods can show the king this dream, and it's true because only God could show the king this dream."
And in this they contradicted themselves.
For if the gods were the only ones who could show the king his dream, then how could men show him the interpretation?
You see that?
They contradicted themselves.
That's why I'm so confident when I stand behind the pulpit.
It was a liberating truth that I came across years ago.
Years ago.
I don't have to come up with sermons.
I don't have to come up with something to teach people.
The sermon's already there in the Bible.
The material's already there the way God wants it to be.
All I have to do is get up and break the loaves into bite-sized pieces so people can eat.
God's given me a basket full of loaves and fishes.
And you just go out and hand it to the people.
And so you stand up with confidence, not because you have confidence in your preaching ability or confidence in your sermon, but you stand up because you have confidence in God's Word and confidence in what God will do with His Word when His people hear it.
And so these leaders didn't have confidence because they didn't have God's Word.
And so they said, "Only the gods could do this.
We can't do this."
Well, if you can't tell them the dream, how can you tell them the interpretation?
Are the gods going to speak to you and tell you the interpretation?
If so, let them tell you the dream.
Are they not going to speak to you and tell you the interpretation?
Well, if only the gods could give the dream, only the gods could give the interpretation.
These religious leaders came to the same conclusion that Nebuchadnezzar had come to.
A man can't give the king what he wants.
Only God can.
And that's who the king wanted to hear from.
I said this morning in the Genesis to Jesus class, I remember when I had so many people telling me so many different ways that it took to be saved and go to heaven.
And I was so confused and I was so tired of that confusion.
And I remember thinking to myself, "I am only going to listen to God.
I will not, I refuse to stand before God and tell Him, 'Brother so and so said this,' or 'Pastor so and so said this.'"
I am going to stick to the Scriptures.
I am going to hear from God myself.
And I remember thinking, "I speak English.
I have a Bible that's in English.
I'm going to go to the Scripture and I'm going to see what it says."
And I thank God that I had people who told me the truth.
And when I was seeking the truth, I like Nebuchadnezzar, I didn't want to base my faith on what some man told me but on what God told me.
When Pastor Charles Spurgeon explained the Scriptures to me, it was as if God had spoken to me Himself.
It was that real, that confirming.
For He assured me of the truth that I had learned from His Word.
That's what God did.
Pastors had spoken to me before.
Many pastors had spoken to me before.
But this time God spoke to me through a pastor.
I'm going to say that again.
You see the difference?
I had all kinds of pastors telling me how to be saved.
Many pastors had spoken to me before, but this time God spoke to me through a pastor.
What was the difference?
God's Word was the difference.
One group of men told me I was saved, assured me that I was saved, and that caused me to doubt.
The other group of men explained the Scriptures to me, which caused me to hear from God and know the truth that He had for me.
That's the only difference, the Bible.
I just wanted to understand what the Bible said.
And when I did, God spoke to me through a pastor.
And I confirmed it with my own reading.
These men said, "The gods are those whose dwelling is not with flesh."
You see, a false god doesn't dwell with flesh anyway.
But I'm glad to say the true God does.
God said, "We were looking this morning about Jesus being the mediator."
Then God said, "I will raise up a prophet from among you, who is one of your brethren, who is like unto you.
And I'll put my words in his mouth, and I'll command him what to say, and you're going to listen to him."
A false god doesn't dwell with flesh, but the true God does.
"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory."
John chapter 6, verse 56, "Jesus said, 'He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him.'"
That's the beauty of the gospel.
The gospel is about Jesus.
Jesus is the truth.
When you believe the gospel, you have the truth dwelling inside you.
God gave us the Spirit of Christ that we may know the truth.
Because when the truth lives in you, nobody will be able to convince you otherwise.
With that, we'll go ahead and close.
Thank God that He has given us a way that we may know that we have heard from God.
Have a truth that we can live and die by.
Thank you, Father, for your precious Word.
Thank you for these dear people.
Thank you, Father, for giving us the ultimate standard of holding religious leaders accountable so that we don't hear from them, but we hear from you through them.
That they don't preach themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and themselves our servants for His sake.
Oh, Father, help me and Brother Shepard and Brother Doug to always remember to stay in our lane.
Help us, dear Father God, to never seek glory.
Help us, Father God, to never preach, Father God, our own views.
Help us, dear Father God, to feed the people your Word.
As Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."
And, Father, there's no other food but Him.
In His precious name we pray. Amen.
