FEELING ANXIOUS ABOUT THE FUTURE.
DANIEL 2:1-3, 27-29a, 36-43; 2:44
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO DANIEL 2.
The Life Question in last Sunday’s lesson was, “How far am I willing to go in conforming to my culture? We learned that God’s people can be included in and helpful to their society, but they must draw the line when it comes to allowing themselves to be dominated by their culture.
The Life Question for today’s lesson is, “Why should I not be anxious about what will happen in the future.”
The Biblical Truth is God’s people do not need to be anxious or troubled about the future, for God is sovereign and is in control of the kingdoms of this world.
Many people worry about their children’s future. Some worry about the future of our country and the world as a whole. People of faith do not need to worry about any of these things because they know the God who holds the future. They know that the empires and kingdoms of this world will all pass away. They have confident hope that the kingdom of God is coming and that it will never end.
At times in the Bible God revealed certain things through dreams. We can distinguish three types of dreams. A simple ‘message dream’ apparently did no need interpretation. For instance, Joseph in Matt 1 and 2, understood the dreams concerning Mary and Herod even though no mention is made of interpretation.
A second type, the ‘simple symbolic dream,’ used symbols, but the symbolism was clear enough that the dreamer and others could understand it. In the Old Testament Joseph had this kind of dream in Genesis 37.
‘Complex symbolic dreams,’ though, needed the interpretive skill of someone with experience or an unusual ability in interpretation. The dreams of Nebuchadnezzar described in Daniel 2 and 4 are good examples of this kind of dream. Another example was the dreams of Pharaoh in Genesis 41.
The situations faced by Joseph and Daniel have many similarities. In each case, a king had disturbing dreams, which none of the wise men could explain. In each case God gave the interpretation through a man of faith. A major difference in the two situations was hat Nebuchadnezzar demanded that his advisors tell him his dream as well as its meaning.
PLEASE READ DANIEL 2: 1-3.
A minor chronological matter must be addressed before we consider the message of these verses. Verse 1 mentions that King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams began in the second year of his reign. However, we see in chapter one that Daniel trained for three years in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. Did the events of chapter two occur while Daniel was still in training?
If so, chapter two would not fit naturally with the ending of chapter one, where Daniel completes his training and enters the king’s service. The most likely explanation is that Daniel was following the Babylonian practice of not counting the king’s accession year as his first year.
It was the second official year of his reign, but Nebuchadnezzar could actually have been king for three years by this time. Also, in Hebrew usage a part of a year was reckoned as a whole. Therefore, Daniel’s three-year training program could have actually lasted a full year and a part of two other years. So Daniel most likely had completed his training and was in the king’s service for a short time when the dreams began.
King Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that troubled him. The word for troubled means literally “his spirit was struck.” He was so upset by what he dreamed that sleep deserted him. Have you ever been so shaken by a dream that you knew sleep was over for the night? Here was the most powerful man in the word reduced to a cold seat by his inability to understand his dreams. He demanded answers.
The king summoned the diviner-priests, mediums, sorcerers, and Chaldeans to give him answers. Who were these professional counselors the king called for? The word for diviner-priests means literally “engraver” or “writer” and only secondarily refers to a diviner.
Apparently these men were religious scribes who wrote and preserved materials used in Babylonian religious activities. They also studied and chronicled the movement of stars. The word for mediums refers to a “conjurer.” Mediums used incantations and magic spells and were believed to be able to communicate with the spirit world, and even the dead.
The word for sorcerers refers to those who practice “witchcraft.” Sorcery was widespread in the ancient world and strongly condemned in the O.T.
The term for Chaldeans is normally used in an ethnic sense to refer to the Babylonian people. However, it can also refer to “astrologers.” Which is the meaning intended here.
These various wise men served in the palace and consulted with the gods for the king on personal concerns and on important matters of state. These practices sound strange to modern anti-supernatural sensibilities. However, Babylon, like all ancient cultures was steeped in polytheism and the belief that what happened in the sky and the spirit world had enormous importance for the visible world and the direction of history. If one could understand the movements and workings of the gods, then perhaps, it was believed, they could be appeased and even manipulated through ritual.
What a contrast to the way the God of Abraham related to His people. God taught Israel there was just one God, not many. He called His people to love Him exclusively and to be holy. God refused to be manipulated and opposed the manipulative practices of the pagan religions surrounding Israel.
In Joshua 1:8 He called His chosen people to trust Him by obeying His word in order to have success. His desire was always to bless His people and do good to them, even when He disciplined them by sending them into captivity in Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar did not know the God worshiped by Daniel. He may have heard of Him by this time because he was on his way to conquering Judah. However, he would soon learnt hat Israel’s God spoke to Daniel directly.
Nebuchadnezzar told his advisors to show the king his dreams or to tell him what he had dreamed. When the advisors appeared before the king, he said, my spirit is troubled to know the dream. I want to know what it means.” He wanted them to help and advise him.
These advisors had books of symbols that they relied on to interpret dreams.
They asked the king to tell them his dream and they would explain it. Nebuchadnezzar demanded that they tell him the dream.
The King James version says, “The thing is gone from me.” Other translations have “my word is final” and “this is what I have firmly decided”. These are different translations of he same Aramaic word (this part of the Book of Daniel was written in Aramaic).
According to one view, the king had forgotten the content of the troubling dream. The other view is that he was testing their contact with the gods. If they couldn’t tell him his dream, he threatened to kill them and destroy their houses. As they saw the situation, the king was asking the impossible. They said, “No one on earth can make know what the king requests. This made the king so furious that he issued orders for executing all his advisors.
PLEASE READ DANIEL 2: 27-29a.
Daniel and his friends were among the king’s advisors who were on the list to be executed. He went to Arioch (EHR-ih-ahk), the official responsible for carrying out the executions. Daniel asked him for time to seek the answer. He asked his three friends to join him in prayer for an answer to the king’s questions. When the answer came, he asked to go to the king with the answer he sought.
Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that no one living or dead could tell him his dream and its meaning. In saying this, he basically agreed with what the Chaldeans said in vs. 10, but he added that God could do what humans could not do.
Daniel added, “But there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets.” In his dream, Nebuchadnezzar had been shown some things concerning the latter days or the last days. Or what should come to pass hereafter or what will happen in the future.
Referring to the future as the “last days” or “latter days”indicate that Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was not just about his personal future or that of his kingdom. Instead, God revealed to him something about the movement of world history toward its consummation in the “last days.”
You may be troubled and anxious when you see nations warring and realize that our country is vulnerable to attack like any other nation. You may wonder what will happen tomorrow. The world turns to political consultants, futurists, trend spotters, psychics, astrologers, and the latest
False Prophets on TV to get handle on the future. However, you serve a God who makes known the end from the beginning, and alone knows the future, because He already has planned it for the nations, for His church, and for individuals. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, God has tomorrow in His hands. The one true God knows the future because He planned it in advance, and He reveals it to those He Chooses.
PLEASE READ DANIEL 2: 36-43.
Remember, Nebuchadnezzar had not told the content of his troubling dream but insisted that one of the wise men tell him his dream. Either he had forgotten his dream or he was testing his wise men. Thus he expected Daniel to begin by reminding him what he dreamed. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar his dream in verses 31-35. He said the king saw a colossal statue. It was huge, dazzling, and terrifying.
It had a head of pure gold, chest and arms of silver, waist and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet made of a mixture of iron and clay. In verses 36-45 Daniel gave his interpretation to the king.
The statue represented four consecutive kingdoms. The first kingdom was Babylon with Nebuchadnezzar as king. Daniel described him as king of kings. In his day, wherever people live, there was no king as great as Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel also reminded the king that his dominion came from God. The God of heaven has given you sovereignty, power, strength, and glory. Even wild animals, or birds of the air were Nebuchadnezzar’s, which was a way of emphasizing the comprehensiveness of his reign. Yet, they too were given to him by God, who made Nebuchadnezzar ruler over them all. He was the head of gold that he saw in his dream. Babylon was a truly great empire in its day, but God made it great. Babylon ultimately was under the dominion of God.
Scripture makes clear that God is sovereign over all nations. God give life and breath to kings. He raises them up for his purposes, and God disposes of kings as He pleases.
The nations may conspire and plot in vain against the Lord, but in Ps. 2: 1-4, the Bible says He scoffs a them.
Indeed, the nations are like a drop in the bucket to God, like dust on the scales. Nebuchadnezzar needed to hear this truth. Having it come miraculously through Daniel caused it to have an even greater impact.
After Daniel finished, Nebuchadnezzar was exhilarated by what Daniel had said. Apparently Nebuchadnezzar failed to notice that his kingdom, although superior to the others, had an end. Perhaps he took comfort that the end of Babylonia would not be in his lifetime.
A historical review of ancient history kingdom might help. The Babylonian Empire was not the first world empire. There were earlier ones in Egypt and in Assyria. There was even an earlier kingdom of Babylonia, so historians call Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
It began with the defeat of Assyria in 605 B.C. and lasted to 539 B.C. when the Persian Empire assumed dominance. The Persian Empire lasted to 331 B.C. when Alexander the great conquered the world in the name of Greece. He died young and his kingdom was divided among four of his generals, the two most important for the Jews being the Ptolemy kings of Egypt and the Seleucid kings of Syria. Judea was dominated by first one and then the other.
Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria persecuted the Jews and desecrated their temple. The Maccabean family led a revolt that resulted in a century of Jewish independence (165 B.C.),
Before the Roman general Pompey brought Palestine under Roman control in 63 B.C. The Roman Empire lasted longer and covered more territory than its predecessors. The Western Roman Empire lasted until A.D. 476 and the Eastern Roman Empire until A.D. 1453.
Little is said about the second kingdom, the chest and arms of silver, except that it was inferior to Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom. Though silver is a precious metal, it is less valuable than gold. The Medo-Persian Empire, led by Cyrus the Great, toppled Babylon for its place of dominance in the Middle East around 539 B. C.
What is meant by inferior? Certainly not size. Medo-Persia controlled much more territory than Babylon. The most reasonable explanation is that Medo-Persia was morally inferior to Babylon. Daniel seems to be saying that sinfulness and human corruption will increase more and more as history progresses.
Whenever a nation adheres to principles of righteousness, God exalts it. When a nation acts wickedly, even God’s own people, God will eventually bring it into disgrace.
The third kingdom, represented by the stomach and thighs, of bronze, would rule the whole earth. Greece conquered Persia in approximately 332 B.C. as part of a bid to bring the civilized world of the day under Greek rule. Greece controlled large areas of the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe at the height of its power.
The fourth kingdom was represented by the legs of iron with feet and toes partly of iron and partly of clay. Daniel said this empire will be as strong as iron, and like iron it will crush and smash all the others.
Rome eventually displaced all the previous empires represented by the statue. Rome ruled the nations with an iron fist. The world had never seen such a powerful empire. Rome was good to her own, but nations that fought against her were crushed and smashed into submission.
Interestingly, this empire had feet and toes made partly of a potter’s fired clay and partly of iron. According to Daniel, this meant that it would be a divided kingdom. Iron can be mixed with clay, but it will not hold together permanently. The Roman Empire would be like a mixture of iron and clay, It would have the strength of iron, but it would be made up of a diverse number of individual nations and people groups.
The peoples will mix with one another, but because they are so different they will not hold together. Nations that are a melting pot of different ethnicities must work hard to develop loyalty to the ideals of the state, which transcend local customs and ethnic distinctives.
The Roman Empire conquered and forcibly assimilated many nations and ethnic groups under its rule and dominated the ancient world for many generations. After Octavian’s victory in the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. Roman dominance was finally assured.
The ancient world entered an era known as the Peace of Rome (Pax Romano). However, in spite of Rome’s grip on power, the empire never truly became one people. Their individual cultures and national identities endured and eventually emerged when the empire began to crumble in the fourth century A.D.
What these ancient empires accomplished in architecture, art, literature, political theory, philosophy, and military conquest is amazing. Their governments wielded unimaginable wealth and power. Archeologist and historians continue to uncover new information about their achievements that staggers the imagination. Yet, what strikes me, when I see their glory foretold in Nebuchadnezzars’s dream and study their actual greatness, is that now they are gone. They exist today only in books and archeological digs, as tourist attractions and in aspects of their culture handed down through the generations. But the empires themselves have vanished. They are a reminder that earthly kingdoms come and go. You should never look at the greatness and power of any human empire and be fooled into thinking it is invincible.
Evil kingdoms are eventually overthrown by God, and good kingdoms tend to lose their luster and go bad over time. History proves that all the kingdoms and empires of this world are transient. God is sovereign over human history.
From His perspective, as seen in the statue, empires become weaker and poorer not stronger and better as time goes by, Yet, the fate of the kingdoms of the earth is not the end of the story. History is following the path God has decreed for it. Lam. 3:37 says, “Who is there who speaks and it happens, unless the Lord has ordained it.” In the end, the nations will serve His purposes. God know human history in advance, especially the rise and fall of nations, because He has decreed it. All sovereignty, power, and glory that rulers possess ultimately come from God, who raises up kingdoms and disposes of them as He pleases. God reveals the direction of human history to his servants and has recorded it in His word. All human kingdoms and powers, no matter how powerful they appear in their prime, are transient and will one day pass out of existence.
Notice several things about the list of nations as a whole. For one thing, each kingdom is represented by less expensive materials: from gold to silver to brass to iron to a mixture of iron and clay. Scholars puzzle about what this means. The metals do not represent size or length, because the kingdoms got larger and lasted longer. One explanation is that there was a moral decline in human history with each kingdom.
“Through the portrayal of each subsequent empire as inferior to its predecessor, Daniel seems to have been suggesting that the sinfulness of the world would continue to increase until the culmination of history…According to Daniel, the world’s kingdoms are not moving toward utopia but in the opposite direction.”
Several things are obvious from this passage. All earthy kingdoms are transient or temporary. Each prospers and come to an end. There have been many kingdoms and nations that have come and gone since Daniel’s day. Often boastful leaders have made more of their glory than is justified as they and their kingdoms soon are lost beneath the shifting sands of human history.
The world’s superpowers are not here to stay. One succumbs to another. People of biblical faith need to recognize that even the most stable political entities are temporary and transitory. Thus we need to live accordingly. All sovereignty, power, strength, and glory that rulers and nations have ultimately come from God. God is sovereign over human history. He moves in the affairs of nations to bring in His kingdom.
PLEASE READ DANIEL 2: 44.
The king’s dream took a dramatic turn, which must have shaken him. A rock broke off and struck the feet of the statue. The entire statue was shattered by the rock and became like chaff on the threshing room floor, which the wind blew away. Suddenly the rock that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. In an instant the glorious statue was gone, replaced by a mountain that smashed it to bits.
The climax of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream revealed the coming of the Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ. “In the days of those kings” refers to the previous succession of kings and kingdoms through history, and especially the fourth kingdom.
During the days of this kingdom the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and this kingdom will not be left to another people.
The kingdom described by Daniel is represented by the rock that struck the statue. Several truths are revealed to Nebuchadnezzar about this future kingdom. First, God will set it up. His kingdom is of divine and not human origin, symbolized by the rock that broke off “without a hand touching it.”
Second, it will never be conquered and left to another people. Each empire shown in the dream was conquered by the next one in line, but not God’s kingdom. Kings may try to conquer it, but they will not prevail. The third truth revealed is that God’s kingdom will last forever. God’s kingdom will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself endure forever. The fourth truth is that God’s kingdom will spread over all the earth. The rock became a mountain that filled the whole earth.
Consider how the Gospels speak of he coming of God’s kingdom in Jesus Christ. Jesus was born under the reign of the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus. His birth was heralded as the coming of a king and a kingdom that would last forever
Jesus declared that God’s kingdom was near in His preaching ministry. He taught us to pray for this kingdom to come on earth and He gave it to His followers. His kingdom is not of this world, though one day it will be. Right now it occurs within the heart of everyone who submits to Christ’s rule.
Jesus wants the gospel of the kingdom to be preached throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, so that eventually His rule is extended throughout the earth. The only w ay to see this kingdom for now is to be born again.
Every day an increasing number of people are hearing about Jesus and putting their faith in Him. More and more nations and people are being penetrated wit the good news that Jesus saves. The world as a whole still does not acknowledge Christ as King , but one day every knee will bow. The kingdoms of the world will one day become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. God’s kingdom will expand and take over the whole earth and it will last forever. Believers in Jesus should pray for the coming of God’s kingdom and share the gospel of the kingdom with all nations. God’s kingdom will culminate in the reign of Jesus Christ over all the earth.
We are not told the feelings of Daniel in the crisis of his life, but we know that he faced the kinds of situations that cause people to be anxious about the future. He was uprooted from his homeland and taken to serve a pagan king in a foreign land. He was expected to conform to the customs of the foreign land. In Chapter 2 he was the only one who might stop the frustrated king from killing him and all the royal advisors. He believed that the Lord had put him in that place and in that situation for a purpose and that God would give him what he needed to meet the challenge. Thus he prayed and he asked his friends to pray that the Lord would enable him to do the impossible. Behind these actions was his faith in a sovereign God who promised to be with him and to give him what he needed to do God’s will.
Therefore, faith in a sovereign and loving God helps us face situations that could create fears and worries as we move toward an unknown future.
I know not what the future hath of marvel or surprise, assured alone that life and death
His mercies underlie.
I know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in the air:
I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care.
This assurance gives people of faith what they need to face an unknown future mercies underlie.
I know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in the air:
I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care.
This assurance gives people of faith what they need to face an unknown future
In the kingdoms of this world.
NEXT WEEK FROM DANIEL 3 WE ANSWER THE LIFE QUESTION, HOW FAR
AM I WILLING TO GO IN STANDING FOR MY FAITH? A.V. DAUGHERTY.