The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. I'm Stu Epperson. Honored to present to you our new podcast, Wednesday in the Word. A journey through the word of God to help our leaders of Wednesday in the Word and Women's in the Word that meets on Thursdays. Journeying through the Word of God together.
We'll give you special tools. We'll give you a review and a preview. Of what's going on in our Bible study.
So stay tuned, be encouraged, and be sure you pass this along to someone else and subscribe to the channel Wednesday in the Word. Here we go. To dream the impossible dream. I promise. Brother Sam Horn, that's the only singing we're going to do in today's episode of Daniel Wednesday in the Word.
I'm Stu Everson, along with Dr. Sam Horn. That song Maybe one of those inspiring march songs. To get you going, to tackle the dragons in your life that look like windmills. But there was an impossible dream.
And this dream ended up being one of the most profound dreams in the whole entire canon of scripture. And that's really the focus, isn't it, Dr. Sam Horn, of chapter 2 of. DANIEL AN OUR JOUNY THROUGH DANIEL. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with that.
I actually see the book of Daniel as we've been talking about, this is wisdom. This is wisdom from God for living life in modern-day Babylon and literally for reminding ourselves that as we live among the pagan, dark kingdoms of the world. There is a kingdom that matters more. And it's the kingdom of God. It's the kingdom of Jesus.
It's our kingdom. And while we live in the little kingdoms of the world that look so big and so mighty and so powerful and so overwhelming, we get to live in those kingdoms as members, as citizens of the most amazing kingdom, the kingdom that is coming. And we see Daniel and his three friends doing this in chapter two, probably better than any other place in the book of Daniel. Obviously, they're going to put it to the test in chapter three and in chapter four and later on in chapter six, but the heart of it is right here in chapter two with this amazing dream. Impossible is certainly a word to describe it because not only.
is the dream Just a deeper look at all of redemptive history, but there's also. A decree from the king. And it could be deadly. It could be lights out for these new young wise men, Daniel and his three friends. have come a long way.
And by way it will do review and we'll do Preview, review what happened last time in this episode, this journey in Wednesday in the Word for all of our Wednesday in the Word leaders and others, others who want to just journey through Daniel with us.
So, looking back at chapter one, and then we'll do a preview of what's to come. We're going to break up chapter two. into two lessons. And we're going to do two podcasts on chapter two.
So we're going to go verses one to twenty-three. This week, and then verses 24 through the end of the chapter, verse 49, I believe. In the next week.
So, but Dr. Horn, let's just by way of review. We last met our heroes there. I mean, everything that happened in chapter one, really, like you said, was a setup. For this monumental event.
that would raise them into great favor with God and man in chapter two. And so will you speak about that? And Nebuchadnezzar chapter two opens up with he was troubled. He started having dreams, multiple dreams, it says, in plural. And it says he was troubled.
He couldn't sleep. You have all the wealth, you have all the money and the power in the world, Doctor Horne. And you can't sleep, you can't catch a wink of sleep at night.
So, can you all been there? Talk about what led to this and who is Nebuchadnezzar as we get into chapter two, going from Give us a quick review. Yeah.
Well, we've all been there, right? We've all been there where God is. Plans. God interrupts. And that's true for Nebuchadnezzar.
If you remember, way back at the beginning of our journey through this amazing little book, we noted an interesting fact. We noted that when God told Daniel to write this down, Daniel wrote the first part of the book in the common language that everybody spoke in the whole world. Nebuchadnezzar spoke this language, it was Aramaic. But when we get to the second half of the book, starting in chapter eight and going to the end, it's like God pulls it all back in, gets his people around a little huddle, and he says to them, I've got special wisdom for you. And this wisdom is written in Hebrew.
So it's like, I'm going to give you wisdom that will help you navigate the kingdoms that I just talked to you about in the two dreams that show up in chapter two and in chapter seven.
So it's really helpful to have that in mind. As we come to chapter two and go all the way through chapter seven, it's like God explodes on the world scene. But before we get to chapter two, to your point, we've been reading about the God who works in human history in chapter one. Because when we got to chapter one, it looked like there was a whole lot of chaos going on. We saw that Nebuchadnezzar had come in this young general.
His dad had risen to power. The Assyrians that Isaiah was worried about, that were around in Isaiah's day, had been dominated by the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar's dad rose to power, and at the head of his army was this young general who was a military genius, and his name was Nebuchadnezzar. And as he came to power, he put the Assyrian world-dominant power down. and he brought his dad's empire to the stage.
And part of that involved going down and conquering one of the other big players on the world stage was Egypt. And in order to get to Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar had to come through this little plot of land that God had given way back in Genesis to a man named Abraham. And that little plot of land was the kingdom of Israel. And so Nebuchadnezzar's armies came through on their way down to settle down Egypt and make sure Egypt understood: hey, we're the people on the planet that you're going to have to respect and you're going to have to pay tribute to. And as he came through, Israel, he's going to do this three times.
The very first time he does it is in chapter one. And it's during that time that he comes and he takes. The temple vessels, he takes some of the nobility, some of the young men. and he leaves a very stern warning to Jeremiah and to the people and to the king who are who are there in place, a young king named Jehoiakim. And so all of this happens in chapter one.
And what we discover in chapter one is that Nebuchadnezzar is making his plans, but God has bigger plans. And it's how he's going to get these three or four young men to Babylon to put them on center stage so that we have this amazing story of Daniel literally setting his heart that no matter what comes, he and his friends are going to honor God and they're going to obey his word. They're not going to eat food offered to idol. That's the big test in chapter one. Later on, we're going to find out, this is a little kind of preview of what's coming.
They're not going to bow down to a false image, an idol, which Nebuchadnezzar is actually going to make in chapter three. And then they certainly are not going to pray to anybody other than God, which is the big test in chapter six. And really, those are the big tests, aren't they? That we have. In our own day and age, are we going to defile ourselves with the things God told us to stay away from?
That's chapter one. And Daniel purposed in his heart: he said, I'm not doing that. Are we going to bow down and serve the idols of our age? And or are we going to do what? What the three friends did and said, you know what?
We can't bow. We don't want to burn, but we can't bow. And so if the choices are burn or bow, then we're going to have to burn and trust God to deliver us. And that's exactly what happened. And then at the end of his life, who are you going to pray to?
Who are you going to look to when all of your life you've been waiting for something and God didn't come through? Are you going to turn to the king or are you going to turn to the king of heaven? And so these stories are not just stories that we tell to our kids at night. They're actually stories that are supposed to frame up our faith. As we launch into the kingdom of the world that God has called us to.
And so as we come to chapter two, Got this amazing dream. This impossible dream. And you put it so well. It's followed by really some really impractical things.
So that's kind of what we're launching into in chapter two. I absolutely love it. And I just recently texted you this little alliteration. I love alliteration. And Dr.
Horne, this is how I broke down Chapter 2. Verses one through three, the impossible dream. Verses four through seven, the impractical demand. Verses eight through thirteen, the implausible. Decree verses 14 through 23, the important decision.
Made by Daniel and his friends. And then finally, verses 24 through 49. The immense Deliverance.
So, you have a lot of sums there. You have a lot of D's, but I really. Just to jump into our preview of what's coming for this week, you know, this opens up with this awful sleep problem that Nebuchadnezzar has. He's a rough guy, he's still newly crowned king early into his reign.
Some believe that that chapter 2 is uh kind of picks up where chapter One, like in the middle of chapter one. In other words, that maybe Daniel and his compadres haven't finished their training yet, and that's why they weren't in the front of the line. You know, to be brought up before Nebuchadnezzar, they found out secondhand. I don't know if that, and it's not a hill to die on, it's not something we want to spend a lot of time on, but those are the two, the two biggest interpretations. Issues in chapter two are that, you know, where were they timeline?
And then, number two, it says in this in the second year. Nebuchadnezzar's reign. And there's a real simple answer to that, Stu, and that is: you know, obviously, we trust the infallible word of God. But we also begin to understand that human history actually sometimes allows us insights into how people counted things. And so there was a common time in particularly the Babylonian Empire, and we think this was probably the case in Nebuchadnezzar's time, where you counted differently than maybe we would count today.
So would the first year of your reign Uh b On December, let's say you got anointed and put on the throne December, January 1st, and you went the entire year. Is that your first year, or does your first year start? Uh January 1st. The next year. And in the Babylonian way, that's what you did.
You kind of looked at your first year sort of as the year before. And your second year would have been the year before.
So this could have actually been in Nebuchadnezzar's. Third year, you had this sort of year of ascension, and then your throne years would actually start after year one. And so there's a way to do that. But again, whether it's before or after Daniel. Finish his training, what we do know is that God is going to bring Daniel to the forefront.
Yes, sir. And in verse 4, it starts in Aramaic. The Chaldeans give their answer, and all the way through chapter 7, you have Aramaic. And we touched on that a lot in the previous podcast.
So, folks, please go back and listen to the importance of that, the different languages, and how God is revealing Himself. You got the Hebrew, you have the Aramaic in here.
So, all the nations can know. That God is in control. Dr. Horn, I'm going to throw some volleys at you, and I want you to come right back at me, okay? They're going to be softballs, but I just want to go through these 23 verses real rapid fire in our limited time we have left.
Just we've got just a few minutes left, and I want to start with. This impossible dream because you have a lot of people today, even in Christendom, even among the good guys with good doctrine. that are putting way too much stock in dreams.
So can you talk about the importance of A God can and and has worked through dreams, but it's not necessarily. You got to be careful not to get too far away from it is written. Speak to that real quick for those that go to this passage and say, okay, now. I, you know, I had too much pizza last night, and wow, listen, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know, I'm moving to uh, I'm moving to the Arctic, and I'm gonna live with uh polar bears, you know, because of this. The God has told me, you know, speak to it real quick, and then I'll hit you the second volley volley.
Yeah, so, so, so, the picture I would paint is this: you know, sometimes we go to a particular verse in scripture and we kind of yank it out because we're wanting to support something that we're doing in our current day. But if you look at the entire Old Testament, two things to come to mind: number one, uh daniel in daniel's day you didn't have the entire old testament you really didn't have any of the new testament obviously but you really didn't have the entire old testament and secondly you don't have that many people having dreams in the old testament And there are two primary stories that I call the dream stories. And they're intentional.
So, for example, the other pagan king who gets a dream like Nebuchadnezzar, he's gonna get it twice. Nebuchadnezzar gets it twice, and this other king gets it twice, and it's the Pharaoh of Egypt in Joseph's day. And in both cases, God is communicating to these pagan kings. And there's only one person on the planet who can help them understand what God is trying to say to them, and it's God's servant. In Pharaoh's case, it was Joseph, and in Nebuchadnezzar's case, it was Daniel.
The whole point of the narrative is not to encourage us to go seek truth and dreams. That's not what God was telling Nebuchadnezzar to do. God was saying to Nebuchadnezzar: if you want to understand the dream, you've got to go to my servant. You've got to go to the person who has wisdom from above that you don't have. And so today, if we want to know what God's will is, he's given us his Bible.
We can go there.
Now, having said that, let me be really careful here because you and I both had experiences, Stu, where we've met people in certain contexts. I know I've met people in third world countries, maybe Iraq or some of these places, and they'll have a dream. And they'll come back and say, you know, I had this dream. And in the dream, somebody told me that I'm going to send someone to talk to you about my son. And I want you to believe.
And somebody showed up and talked to me about Jesus. I remember in my dream and that's how I became a Christian. And I would never deny that God has the ability to do that. What I've always said, and I think that most conservative evangelical pastors would say this, that whatever is going on there cannot contradict the stated word of God, number one. And number two, it cannot be binding authoritatively on the life of anybody else.
So, if somebody has a dream and they're trying to get the entire church to buy into it. That's not what the scripture is talking about here. Does that make sense? Oh, okay. Excellent.
And so, along those lines, and you look at that, those, you know, those first three verses where it really sets it up, and it's really, Nebuchadnezzar is in a. Anxious, frenzied, not. He is just struggling. He's losing sleep.
So then you have this impractical demand. Dr. Horn, I'm going to volley this one to you real quick on this demand. He not only Ask them for their interpretation But he asked them to tell him to be able to read his mind. to do the and it's something very impractical, impossible again.
To tell him what the dream was itself, it seems like there is some.
Someone's been burnt. Maybe his dad. Maybe he was tired of the counsel of the ungodly. These soothsayers and Chaldeans and magicians who always spun it. And and he was maybe the paganism.
The world's wisdom had just kind of worn thin on Nebuchadnezzar to the point where, like, I'm not just going to tell you because he refused to tell them the dream. Speak to that real quick.
Okay, so man, you just raised one of my favorite things in the whole book, brother.
So let me, let me. Let me peel back. The curtain just a little bit because we're not supposed to know this till later on in the book. But when we get to the end of chapter four. Nebuchadnezzar is actually going to become a follower of Daniel's God.
In other words, when we get to heaven, we're going to see this pagan king. And he's going to be glorifying God. He's going to be standing around the throne. He's going to have his hands raised in praise. It's going to be awesome when we look over there.
And I think he and Daniel are going to hang out in heaven together and we're going to get to meet Nebuchadnezzar. But in chapter two, we don't know that yet. All we know is that this young king has just come to the very top of the pile. He has dominated the world. and he's troubled by a dream.
And he instinctively knows that the Chaldeans, that's a formal term in the book for the people who are in charge of dreams and interpreting the king's dreams. And if you remember back, we talked about all those manuals. And he's suspicious. Like you said, I think he's suspicious. And I think God is putting the suspicion in him.
I think God's actually starting to work. 20 something years before his conversion, God is starting to slowly introduce doubts, peel back things in his own heart, so that he looks at the people that are supposed to be the world experts on wisdom in his kingdom, and he says, I don't trust you guys.
So if you're going to tell me the interpretation, you first have to tell me the dream. And it doesn't matter what their exalted status is. It doesn't matter how expansive or extensive their training is or their collective expertise. They know they're cooked. And they actually tell him that.
They're like, king, that's not the way it works. Like the way it works is you tell us a dream, we go check the manuals, we confer, and we come back and tell you. And the king says, that's not how it's going to work this time. You're going to tell me the dream and its interpretation, and I'm going to give you great treasure, or you're not, and I'm going to give you great wrath. Wow.
And there's that great line. And there's that great line. I hate to interrupt you. There's that great line where they say there's no man on earth, only the gods in heaven.
Well, that's the point. All the believers that see that are jumping up and down, clapping, saying, Hello. Yes. Yeah.
Well, that's the whole point, right? He's getting the wisest man on the world, the wisdom of the world has to acknowledge that they don't have the capacity. To do what the king wants, and they say it there's nobody on earth, only the god in heaven, and his dwelling is not with men. And we're going to find out: wait, wait a second, he actually dwells with Daniel. And Daniel's going to be the one to give the answer.
So it's a beautiful play on God working even in the paganness of Babylon to bring his servant. To the place where he can serve King Nebuchadnezzar.
Okay, and I want to jump right to the implausible. Decree Which is where we see firsthand the king, he makes it a decree. He uses that word in verses 8 through 13. And he basically sets out.
Now, Dr. Horne, are wise men or Chaldeans or soothsayers or magicians or astrologers, are they actually killed? It's another question because it says they set out to kill them. But, you know, apparently that, you know, when they came to Daniel, they stopped. But are they, or do you feel like the it doesn't say it concretely, but it just says that it was kind of in motion?
I don't know that I wrestled with that when I was working my way through the book. It seems to me. That that And I'm just thinking about the mercy of God here, brother. It seems to me that they came to Daniel and you know, they were collecting the wise men and they weren't slaughtering them right away, they were bringing them to a holding place for the day of execution, and they were going to execute them all at one time. And Daniel, you know, Daniel does intercede for them in verse 24, which we'll get to next week.
And so there's a powerful picture of that. This kind of atoning.
So that's how I see it.
Okay, you know, excellent. And they, and, and the, and the, and the, and, you know, Ariak comes and uh knocks on the door. And, you know, I kind of, in my mind, Daniel opens the door, says, Oh, hey, Ariach, what's happening? And Erik says, I got bad news. Get your, get your hat because we've got to go and we're going to have to cut your head off.
Imagine that.
So they're facing this is really a situation where they're facing death. I mean, they're, you know, we talk a lot about the, you know, this past week, for those of you who are in Wednesday in the Word, we spent a lot of time. Time on the favor of God. How do we see the favor of God? And then a lot of folks shared in our studies, in our groups, this is how God's shown his favor.
You know, I was in a situation, I was in a job interview, I was struggling, I had nothing, and God just showed up and showed up. Look at George Mueller, look at all the stories of God's favor on believers throughout history. But look at Daniel, God raised him up, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, the 10-day challenge, and then the three-year challenge, and so on.
So, you, but, but it's crazy. Yeah, but think about this. Think about this. What if your life depends on the favor of God? You are going to be cut into pieces, and your house is going to be turned into a dung heap.
That's the language Nebuchadnezzar uses of these wise men, of Daniel's ilk. If you don't have God's favor, if you don't have an impossible work of God, you know, making, you know, on this impossible situation, you're done. Yeah, so Daniel never forgot that. And in chapter five, many, many decades later. He's talking to Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, Belshazzar.
And let me read you one verse.
So when he gets in front of Belshazzar, he says, about your dad, your granddad. He said in verse 19, and because of the greatness that God gave him, All peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he killed. and whom he would he kept alive. Whom he would, he raised up, and whom he would, he humbled.
In other words, Daniel remembered in the early days of Nebuchadnezzar's life. This king had absolute power and he wasn't afraid to kill people. He killed whoever he wanted to kill.
So when he said what he said to those wise men, they knew he meant business because they had seen it before. Wow. And so the response that Daniel has to all of this. And it's fascinating. I really hope all of our leaders will point out the difference between what Daniel did with the king.
It says he went into the king, and the difference between what the wise men, the other wise men, the pagans, the ones that worship the stars rather than worshiping the God who made the stars, they went in and they asked for the dream so they could manipulate an interpretation. They could conjure up something to come up with. Daniel didn't go in and ask for the dream. He went in and he asked God. He asked the king.
For time. And so it's interesting that the different favor of God, once again, you see. In God, where Nebuchadnezzar gives Daniel time, in effect, saves the skin of all those guys.
So that's, you know, but the important decision they made, speak to this real quick, I'm gonna throw you another volley.
So this decree goes out to kill them all. To slaughter them all, they can't tell them the dream, much less the interpretation. Dr. Horn, the important decision. And we'll talk about the immense deliverance next time because that'll be in the final verses of the chapter 24 through 49.
But, Dr. Horne, real quick, talk about this important decision to go to God in prayer and this beautiful prayer. Real quick, give us some kind of quick high points of it, if you would, highlights of it, so to get our leaders and everyone studying things to look for and some significance there. This is maybe one of the most important hinge points in the whole book. Yeah, well, for example, I would just say Daniel understood that in order to get.
The truth that God was going, that God wanted to communicate to Nebuchadnezzar, he recognized God's trying to talk to this king. Yeah.
And I'm going to need God to tell me what he's trying to say to the king. Yeah.
And so immediately he goes back to his three friends and he says, if you look at the text in verse 17, he goes and he tells Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The matter.
Now, notice that this is one of the places where he uses their Hebrew names. Yeah.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in public are being used. Their pagan names are used. But here in this text, it's their Hebrew names. In other words, he's coming to the people of God and he's saying, We've got to talk to our God to get. The answer.
And what we most need from our God is mercy, right? We want mercy. God's got to show us mercy. And I believe he wants to show Nebuchadnezzar mercy.
So let's ask God for mercy. When we pray in many ways, we're asking God for mercy. Every time we pray. God says to Moses, You want to know? If you want to know who I am, you want to go to my core.
First and foremost, I'm a God of mercy. And so here Daniel is praying to God, and you would think it's like, I need you to spare my life. I need you to protect us. And I'm sure that there were times in the prayer that are not recorded for us that Daniel asked for those things. But what God wants us to know about that prayer is: my servant came and he asked for mercy.
And then he asked. For wisdom, we need you to tell us, God, what's going on here? We need insight. And then, as soon as they prayed, the vision was made known to Daniel. And so, there is this incredible confidence that Daniel has in God.
God has already revealed himself in chapter 1.
So Daniel knows that God can answer. And Daniel has been faithful. And experience the favor of God. And here again, he depends on that. And that's really a great way.
If you think about these Hebrew names, listen to what they mean: Hananiah, God is gracious. Azariah, God helps. Mishael, who is like God? There is nobody like God. And when you get to know God, he wants to help and he's gracious.
And so when they say, ask God for mercy, that's why Daniel wrote the Hebrew names because he wants you to think about the God who is merciful to his people. And he's even merciful to Nebuchadnezzar. And he will be merciful to you. And he will be merciful to me. That's why we can pray in confidence.
Wow. And that's why we can sleep peacefully. You notice you have a lesson on diet in chapter one, which is the bigger lesson is trusting God and committing fully, being resolute to God. Chapter two, you have a lesson on sleep. You have the most powerful man on planet earth who can't sleep a wink and is devastated by a dream.
And you have the man who serves the most powerful God and the only God, the true God, sleeping like a baby. Dr. Horn, he didn't even have the answer. To the vision when he went to sleep. God gave him a vision after he went to him and his three friends, they prayed, they trusted God.
And then they went obviously on into, you know, to sleep. And then God gave him that vision. Hey, will you pray us out here on that note? Because that is such a blessing. And that is such a, this is, I'm so encouraged.
But pray for everyone as they get their arms around this first half of Daniel 2 and pray that we'll have three friends. That if I'm stuck, if I'm facing life and death, that I can call, we can get on our knees and pray, maybe fast and pray with. Who are your friends that you join with in prayer? Who calls you for prayer? Who do you call for prayer?
You know, is that is, are you in that kind of relationship? Let's pursue those relationships in our, in our, in our marriages and everywhere else. Dr. Horn, will you take us out here? We got to.
Yeah, that's so good, brother, because that's what we've been to each other over the years. One quick thing, and then I'll pray. You know, when Daniel prayed for mercy and God gave it to him. The first thing you see is Daniel shows mercy. And we'll get into that in our next, but don't forget that when we receive mercy.
When Daniel received mercy and when we receive mercy, God wants us to show that mercy. And Daniel's going to show it in a stunning way. In our next podcast together. God, thank you so much that you have given us. Such a wonderful example in your word of how you give us wisdom for hard places.
Lord, there couldn't have been a harder place and a more discouraging and a more fearful place for Daniel than that day when Ariach came to knock on his door. And Lord, I'm sure there are people who will be in these Bible studies and even some of our leaders who got a knock on their door this week. And maybe that knock had to do with their marriage, or maybe it knock had to do with their health, or maybe that knock had to do with their job. And all of a sudden, when that knock came, it opened up a world of fear, a world of just discouragement. Lord, I pray for them.
I ask that this. podcast. This chapter in Daniel would be such. a help, that it would banish fear, that we don't have to be afraid when Ariok knocks on our door, because we can do what Daniel did. We can get with our godly friends and we can go to our knees and we can pray to you, the God of heaven.
And Lord, what you did for Daniel, you can do for us. And we pray that you would in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Dr.
Horn. Everyone, be sure you subscribe to this. This is our third of three podcasts in our journey through Daniel for Wednesday in the Word. We have 12 men's groups that meet on Wednesday. We have Women in the Word that meet every Thursday morning.
And one of those groups in Jacksonville, North Carolina, they meet actually on Tuesday morning. Journeying through Daniel, so please reach out to me. We're on social, we're on Facebook. You can see the teaching on Facebook. We're on YouTube, Instagram, and all those places.
And Dr. Horn. God bless you, man. Thanks for hanging out with us today, brother, and enriching us with this wonderful journey through Daniel. Oh, what a blessing.
Thank you so much. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I'm Stu Everson. Thank you for joining us for this week's Wednesday in the Word. We'll be back next week as we drop another episode of what God is doing in the Word of God with a review and a preview of everything going on in our study.
Wedintheword.com is our website. We're also on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to watch some of these messages right before you're there. You can download, you can follow, you can like, you can share. And a special thanks to our friends at Dario for being such amazing hosts this week. God bless you.
Stay in the Word. and keep sharing it everywhere you go.
