Take your Bible there now and go back to Daniel. We’ll complete the chapter two, long chapter. 49 verses. We’ll begin at verse 24, but before we hear the rest of Daniel chapter two, let’s ask his blessing upon the preaching of his word. Let’s pray.

Lord God, our Heavenly Father, we come again before you. Lord, we ask Your blessing upon us now. We ask, Lord, let the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight. Give us your grace, we ask. Lord, we confess that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from your mouth. And so we ask, Father, give us a great appetite, a hunger for this, your word, that it may indeed nourish our souls this morning in the ways of eternal life to your glory. We pray this in Christ’s name and all God’s people said. Amen, amen.

So we’ll continue to worship now in the hearing of his word, the preaching of that word, and I’ll be starting at verse 24 of Daniel. Daniel 2, 24, as we continue the narrative. Therefore Daniel went in to Ariok whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said thus to him, do not destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king and I will show the king the interpretation. Then Ariok brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him, I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king the interpretation. And the king declared to Daniel, whose name was Shadzar, are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation? And Daniel answered the king and said, no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mysteries that the king has asked. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions in your head as you lay in your bed are these. To you, O King, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. But as for me, the mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have, more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king and that you may know the thoughts of your mind. You saw, O King, and behold a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. And the head of the image was fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. And as you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them into pieces. than the iron, the clay and the bronze, the silver and the gold, all together were broken into pieces and became like chaff of the summer threshing floor. And the winds carried them away so that there’s not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom and power and the might and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, making you rule over them all. You are the head of gold, and another kingdom inferior to you shall rise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. and there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw, the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay, partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes and the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. And as you saw, the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and there shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break to pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke into pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great god has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.” Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel and commanded that an officer sorry, an offering of incense be offered up to him. The king answered and said to Daniel, truly your God is God of gods and Lord of kings and the revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery. Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. Daniel made a request to the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the provinces of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king’s court.

So for the reading of God’s word, indeed, wonderful as it is, John Wesley said this about preaching, He said, give me 100 preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and they alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. John Knox said, I have never once feared the devil, but I tremble every time I enter the pulpit. John Knox was a powerful preacher known for being such. These are examples of bold proclaimers of the word of God, and they can be multiplied to be sure. What we see in Daniel chapter two, We have boldness in proclamation, the declaration of God’s kingdom. And the message that we have there is that the kings of the earth and their kingdoms of the earth, they rise and they fall, but the decree and the desires of the one sovereign Lord. is what they rise and fall by, right? And it’s this mighty God’s kingdom alone that will last. You have an outline in the back of your liturgy there, the way this long chapter unfolds, and the first thing we see is the problem of the king. I think there’s a typo there. It’s the problem of the king, and then we have the prayer of the prophet, and then the proclamation of the Lord. So first in verses one to 13, we have the problem of the king. And we pick up in chapter two, verse one, carrying on from chapter one, and it says literally, and in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. And the story starts with one who is called later in verse 37 as the king of kings, interesting. He had everything, this king. but he also had a problem we learn in this chapter. And the problem wasn’t an inner revolt in his, amongst his people or an attack from the outside. The problem was that he had a bad dream, right? He had a nightmare and he couldn’t sleep and it says Nebuchadnezzar had dreams and his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Nebuchadnezzar was the big man on top of the world stage, but he’s troubled and he’s rattled by a mere dream. In verse two, we see the reality of what Daniel went through in his training there on display, right? It’s very interesting. We talked about these men being taken, these young men had trained for three years there in Babylon. And we’ll see this again and again, this interesting, thing about Daniel. And when they’re learning this language, you know, in the literature of the Chaldeans, one of the things they would do is act as scribes. Daniel and his friends would do so when they’re learning this language, the Aramaic, right? And part of their training was to make lists, right? That was the first thing that scribes do, they list everything. And we see this a number of times, this is all through Daniel, this list, giving list, chapter, I’m sorry, verse two. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, right, be summons to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. In chapter three, we have this a number of times as well, where it says, then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, the officials, right? List, list, list. And then later on in chapter three, a number of times, as soon as the people heard the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, right? And it’s like, come on, Daniel, summarize, would you? But this disturbed the king. It disturbed King Nebuchadnezzar, not the listening, but the fact that he doesn’t know that this dream is. And he calls in the people, he summons them, the highest and best trained, most accomplished people are summoned to tell him his dreams. And Nebuchadnezzar says, I had a dream and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. And his experts asked the king, the Chaldean said to the king in Aramaic, O king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream, and we’ll show you the interpretation. And so then we have another problem that comes after this. The king is troubled, he’s got a problem, and now these religious elites are about to be troubled because we read in verse five, the king answered and said to the Chaldeans, the word for me is firm. If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you should be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. That was Nebuchadnezzar’s decree. And these Chaldeans, these enchanters, they could interpret dreams, and their writings were full of this, they were famous for interpreting dreams. But how would they tell him his own dream, just from out of thin air? I remember one of my professors in seminary, a beloved figure really at the seminary and in the Presbyterian Reformed world, and he would teach class and he would always stop at some point and he was with a heavy Welsh accent and he’d say, I’m thinking of a verse, what verse am I thinking of? And we’d all look at each other and say, oh. We don’t know, how can we know what verse you’re thinking of? And we guess and throw out suggestions and you go, no, no, that’s not it. No one ever gets the verse, not once. And to come to find out every student that ever took this professor tells the same story, right? So it’s something that was common for him to do this. But we see this kind of thing too, right? These experts that Nebuchadnezzar summoned must have felt the same way. but with grave consequences, not just a humorous story of a beloved figure, grave consequences. And then in verse seven, they have another run at getting the king to tell them. They have another chance. And it says, they answered a second time and said, let the king tell his servants the dream and we will show its interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t buying it and he says in verse eight, I know with certainty that you’re trying to gain time because you see that the word for me is firm. And it’s clear that the king didn’t have the greatest confidence in their ability to interpret dreams or the authenticity of that because we read in verse nine, you have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. And so we see in verses 10 and 11, there’s this incredible confession This statement born out of the common grace from these, even these Babylonian magicians, they get parts of this right, right? Because truth spurts out, right? Even in these dark areas. And listen to these verses, verse 10 and 11, in response to King Nebuchadnezzar’s task before them. It says, the Chaldeans answered the king, and said, there’s not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asked is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh. Very interesting. These were the greatest spiritual leaders in the world, but they’re feeble, they’re incompetent, They’re impotent before the king and his requests because only the true divine power, only true divine power could provide what it is that was being asked by the king. And Nebuchadnezzar does what? He goes ballistic. And he commands that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed, including Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And this is a huge deal. This is a dramatic event. Right, this king has a problem, and now the Chaldeans have a problem, and the problem of the king is now a problem for these young men that were taken in exile and trained in Babylon. And so there’s a problem that the king has, and then in verses 14 and 24, we have the prayer of the prophet, right, the prayer of the prophet. As Nebuchadnezzar’s assassination squad, led by this man Ariad, goes out, It says, he went out to kill the wise men of Babylon. Daniel does what as this happens, is what the chapter tell us. It’s like in verse, similar to verse one. He knows what to do. He knows who to talk to and he knows what to say to this person. And notice it says, Daniel replied, how? With prudence and discretion. And we think about Daniel and the heroic feats or the things that he went through. We usually don’t think, like in chapter 1, that that stand that he took at the table, regarding the food that he would eat, was brave and a bold thing. We think of the lion’s den, right? But even here, again, we see this act of courage and tact and wisdom. Right in the middle of this drama, there’s this furious tyrant who’s murder crazed, his executioner is going down the list, and the lives of many are on the line. And what does Daniel do? He goes right to the very person who has power and command to take his life. Verse 16, Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time that he might show the interpretation to the king. And this brings to mind All that’s going on, the words of Christ, right? It says, do not fear those who can kill the body, if it cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10. And so, why are Ariok and Nebuchadnezzar listening to Daniel? Why do they even give him their ear? Remember from chapter one what it said. God gave him, Daniel, favor in their eyes. God gave them favor to hear him. And so it’s all God’s power, God’s grace that this unfolds at all. And then in verse 17, it says, then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and his companions. and told him to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. And so notice what the author’s doing as we read this, this sweeping sense of the text, the author draws us to feel it, this urgency, the urgency. Nebuchadnezzar is urgent, Ariok, urgent, and then Daniel’s friends, there’s urgency there. And what do they do in this urgency? Nebuchadnezzar in his troubled mind, he’s driven to seek wisdom from men. Daniel was driven to seek wisdom from God. And their lives are hanging in the balance. So they were driven to the Lord in prayer to seek his mercy. And I think there’s something that we can learn from this as well, brothers and sisters. In the urgent times and matters of your lives, are you driven to seek the Lord in prayer? Are you driven to seek the wisdom of man or driven to seek the wisdom of the Lord in prayer? Do you plead with urgency before the Lord? Is this kind of urgency with which we pray? I’m afraid that we’re often rather weak and passive, pleading nothing, expecting nothing before the Lord in prayer, and then not surprisingly what? We remain unchanged. And that’s not the kind of prayer that we see, for example, Christ praying, His prayers are urgent, they’re expecting, He surrendered to His heavenly Father. His prayers had weight, they’re even physical. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, He’s pleading with the Father. And Luke 22 tells us, and he went and withdrew himself about a stone’s throw from the disciples, and he knelt down and prayed, knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And then it says this in verse 44, and being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. It’s urgency. to be sure. And we see Daniel here and his companions, they seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery. They’re seeking mercy regarding this mystery. And we read in verse 19 that the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. And what does Daniel do in response? It says, he blessed the God of heaven. He blessed the Lord, he blessed the God of heaven. And in that blessing, Daniel praises God for his wisdom to disclose and interpret mysteries, and for God’s might in ruling over all the kings of the earth. Listen again to what he says, starting at verse 20. Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons, he removes kings. and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness. The light dwells with him. To you, O God of my fathers, right? Again, remember his identity is unwavering. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise for you have given me wisdom and might and you have made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king’s matter. And so as we look at this, this is very instructive for us as well. This story in chapter two is not mainly about Nebuchadnezzar, this tyrant king, this troubled king. It’s not merely about Daniel, the prophet. It’s about the Lord God Almighty, the great king. It’s about the true king of kings who gave a nightmare to this earthly king. And this king will be the same one who explains that nightmare. And this is a glorious prayer that we read from the prophet of the king here. May we remember the centrality of Christ in all of our lives, in all of our praying. And though all the world seek to distract us from Him and to distract us and push all kinds of things to displace Christ out of our center, let us hold fast to the same proclamation that we see even here of the prophet and acknowledge and affirm the greatness and power of the Lord and the centrality of who He is in our lives. for our identity is in him, we’re united to him. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God, but with God in Christ. And so we see the problem of the king and then the prayer of the prophet. And then in verses 25 and following, we see the proclamation of the Lord. The proclamation of the Lord, right? What does Daniel do? He goes back to Ariad who brings him before Nebuchadnezzar. And he says, are you able to make known to me the dream that I’ve seen and its interpretation? Right, the same thing that he laid out before to the magicians and the sorcerers. And Daniel answers in verse 27, he says, no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show the king the mystery that the king has asked. And the king, you know, he’s like, that’s what I led with, but you need to tell me what it was. And Daniel goes on in verse 28 and he says, But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. And why is it? Because he’s the author of the dream anyway, right? And then in verse 30, it says, but as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, Daniel says, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living. And so again, he pushes away from himself and points to God, even in that prayer. And so Nebuchadnezzar’s nightmare in verses 30 to 35 was this massive, bright, frightening statue or image that he sees made up of different components, gold, silver, bronze, iron mixed with clay. And there are many people who’ve made very much We’ve given lots of detail and interpretive attempts about this image and about everything about this description of this image, this statue. And some have developed complete end times theologies around this chapter and around this description almost alone. But what’s going on here? Big picture. The reason that this is being set up in Nebuchadnezzar’s mind, in his head, was so that it would be knocked down, ground to shaft, and blown away in the wind. Again, how is this done? It says, and all by a stone cut out by no human hand, and becomes a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Now, if you’re astute, you may have noticed that this imagery is not new or unfamiliar in Scripture. Right, ground, knocked down, ground to shaft, by, blown away in the wind. We read these very things in the beginning of Psalms, the book of Psalms. Psalms one and two. We read about the wicked, they are what? Like shaft, that the wind drives away. Psalm two nine says, you shall break, that is the nations, break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Right, so this imagery is there, We need to make that connection. And then in verses 37 to 45, we have God’s interpretation through Daniel of what this means, right? Nebuchadnezzar is the head of gold, he says. But this, it goes on to powerfully declare that all the vast and great things that Nebuchadnezzar has, all of them, he has them, why? Because what? It says the God of heaven has given them. The God of heaven has given them. And we read of all these kingdoms, right, and make these correlations that it talks about, the third or fourth kingdom, how we can correlate that to kingdoms and nations in history. And again, people get lost in this. And in doing so, we can miss the point. And the point is this, the macro big picture, is that these historical kingdoms that are pictured there, they are pictured as what they truly are before the Almighty God of heaven. Ultimately, they are not enduring, they are not unending, they are not all-powerful. Kings and kingdoms rise and fall, but God’s kingdom remains. The kingdom of God remains. And that little stone that was cut from the mountain and used as a wrecking ball against the great kingdoms of the earth is Jesus Christ. And God tells us quite a bit about his kingdom and the king of that kingdom, Jesus Christ. And we see what Daniel gives us here, puts this on full display. Listen again to the description of what Daniel says. And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. It shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break into pieces all those kingdoms and bring them to an end. It shall stand forever. This sounds like the New Testament, right? And then fast forward, the Lord is silent as the Old Testament closes. And you have these 400 years of silence. And what do we have after that silence? At the beginning of the Gospels, what is heralded, what is proclaimed? It’s the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is here. And we know the kingdom has come because the king has come. And God says through Daniel that the small stone filled the whole earth. Brothers and sisters, the kingdom has come in Jesus Christ. That’s the message and proclamation of the New Testament. Luke 1.32 says, he will be great, and he will be called son of the most high, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And then what? Of his kingdom there should be no end. He’s echoing Daniel. And we who receive him as our king have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, Hebrews 12 tells us. Because we have a king, brothers and sisters, who currently reigns and will reign until his enemies are made his footstool, right, Paul tells us. If you’ve not trusted the king, this king, Jesus, for your life, trust, believe, find hope, refreshing, full life in him. It is dangerous not to do so. What does Luke go on to say? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. Hear Daniel again. And he bids you to come, and his promise is that he will in no way cast you out, cast you away, if you do so in faith. May we always remember what the Lord has for us here, brothers and sisters, that the nations and kingdoms of this earth are in his hands. He rises them up and he brings them down. May we never place our hope or our trust or our assurance in any king or kingdom or any nation or political leader. May we rest our lives in hopes, where? In Christ alone, in Christ alone. Because we have a more sure word about this king and his kingdom. Listen to Revelation chapter 11. It says, then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God. And may we also, dear Christian, fall on our faces and worship Jesus, our prophet, priest, and king, here and always.

Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your mercy in giving us this word. Lord, we confess that we are slow to understand. We have weak faith to believe. We pray, Lord, increase our faith. Help us, we pray, to believe what you tell us. Help us to embrace the reality of what Christ did for us and that it is true of us that we have died to sin and been raised to walk in newness of life. Father, Help us to increase in believing that truth and that reality. Give us freedom as your spirit works through us to do so and live the lives that you desire for us. Walking in this pilgrim life for Christ, we pray that we would go back into the world with the love that we’ve been shown and the message of the gospel alone where life is found. We ask this in his name, amen.