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. The Impossible Dream, Part Two. God is the God of The impossible. What is it impossible in your life right now that you're trusting Him to do?
Well, that's where we. We last left our friends, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I'm with Dr. Sam Horn. I'm Stu Everson.
This is the Wednesday in the Word. podcast and we're going to the second half. Of Daniel chapter 2, the impossible dream, chapter 2, verses 1 through 23. We covered last week, this week, Daniel. verses 24 through 49.
We'll get into maybe Arguably the most important dream In the entire Bible, that really connects the dots on a lot of apocalyptic and prophetic literature.
Some call Daniel the Revelation. Of the Old Testament, this dream. Sam Horn is a pretty big deal, isn't it, brother? Yeah, Stu, and thanks for again for having me on the call. And on the podcast, this dream, as you said a minute ago, if you had to pick.
a central message of the Bible, this is it in the next chapter. And it basically is the kingdoms of the world will become the kingdom of the sun. That's exactly what we're going to read in the book of Revelation. It's kind of ironic that you said that Daniel is the revelation of the Old Testament, because in Revelation 11, right in the middle of the book, the writer John makes the announcement, and it's the theme of the whole book of Revelation. In fact, it's really one of the main themes of the Bible.
And it's simply that the kingdoms of the world, and they're represented here in this vision that King Nebuchadnezzar got thousands of years ago, the kingdoms of the world are going to be the kingdom of the sun. It's an amazing dream. And I love the alliteration that I texted you. Maybe five o'clock this morning, brother, and for early text. But but I wanted to Share with you This this um Updated alliteration.
You have. The Impossible Dream. But then you also have The impractical Demand. And then you have... The implausible decree.
And then you have the Important decision that Daniel and his friends make. Regarding they're going to trust God and sleep like babies instead of worry. and be be scared for their life. And then when God answers. You have this immense devotion, one of the most powerful prayers.
In the whole Bible. And Dr. Horn, I love what David Jeremiah said in his book, Handwriting on the Wall, his commentary on Daniel. He says it so masterfully. He says If I got that answer from God like that in a night vision, And I was Daniel.
Instead of breaking out into a praise party, I would have jumped on my camel or my chariot and rushed to the king's house and told him the dream and the interpretation. But no, Daniel stops. And he gives God praise. And so we're going to look at the. Immortal Deliverance this week.
But Dr. Horne Take us into that. Take us into what was going on, kind of how Daniel got into the situation that we find him. in verse twenty four of Daniel chapter two, just by way of review. Yeah, so we noted in our earlier podcast that Daniel was taken by force from the kingdom of Israel to the kingdom of Babylon as a young man.
He was of the royal seed. He was of the royal lineage, part of the nobility of Jerusalem. And he ends up in the first wave of captives that are taken by this young general named Nebuchadnezzar, who eventually becomes the king. By the time we meet him in chapter one, he is the newly crowned king, having taken over from his father. And he's at the top of the world.
Literally, he is the king of the world. We're going to find out in the dream. that he rules over the whole earth and God has given that to him. And so Daniel is in Babylon, and there's this amazing way in which the story unfolds. Nebuchadnezzar has big plans for Daniel and his friends.
He's going to train them. He is going to prepare them. He is going to hone their skills so that they can stand before him and serve him, the king of the world. But God has a very different plan. He's been using...
little Nebuchadnezzar to get these four guys in the right place at the right time to represent a kingdom that is far bigger, far more amazing, far more eternal, far more glorious than Nebuchadnezzar's great kingdom, the kingdom of Babylon. And so here they are. They show up. And as you said so poignantly in one of our earlier broadcasts, Daniel determined in his heart that he would not defile himself, that he would not do anything. That would cause the blessing of God not to be upon his life, even when nobody was watching.
Even when he had every reason to turn his back on God and to wonder if the Torah really worked, he determined in his heart that he would be loyal to God in pagan Babylon. And he refused to eat food that was offered to idols. And that's where we left Daniel. Daniel had been honored by the Lord. He had been preserved.
And now in chapter two, the king has this stunning dream. And he is terrified by the dream because in Nebuchadnezzar's day, if you were Nebuchadnezzar and you got a dream like this, you instinctively knew that the gods were trying to communicate to you.
Now, Nebuchadnezzar had no idea that the God of heaven was sending him this dream. All he knew was that he kept having the same dream over and over and over, and it terrified him. And he was smart enough to figure out the gods were the ones sending in this dream.
So he gets the dream. People in. He gets the dream experts in, the Chaldeans, and he challenges them. To interpret the dream. That's your job.
That's what you're supposed to do. But he is highly suspicious. That they're going to tell him whatever he wants to hear, and he has a sense that this dream is so significant, he doesn't want. Uh, he doesn't want to be deceived, so he puts this amazing and as you said a moment ago, this impractical demand on them: before you tell me the interpretation of the dream, you've got to tell me the dream. And you and I both know the story, and we talked about it last time that nobody can do this, and that's what they end up telling the king at the end: King, there's nobody on earth that can do this, only the gods can do this, and they don't dwell with men.
And that's the point of the narrative, that everybody's attention. Uh, is supposed to get to. That's where Daniel was driving because they're right. Nobody on earth can do this, but there is a God in heaven. And he has servants on earth, and he has given them access to wisdom from above.
Remember, we said Daniel's a wisdom book.
So here they are. The king is upset. He's going to execute all of the wise men. Fact is, Ariok has been gathering the wise men and putting them in detention for the day of execution. And Daniel asks for a reprieve.
And God favors Daniel and grants the reprieve. And he comes to his friends and says to them, Listen, the king has given us time, and let's pray. And they pray. and they get the answer to the dream and they have a worship service and the worship service starts in verse 20 and goes all the way through 23. And there's one line in that worship service that I want to make sure we catch because it's going to show up.
Uh, at the end, and it's in the middle where he says, Blessed be the name of the God forever and ever. to whom belong wisdom and might he that's god changes times and seasons and removes kings and sets up kings So, what Daniel is about to remind King Nebuchadnezzar is the king of heaven. whose kingdom matters more has actually set you up. In the kingdom that you have, he's the one that changes times and seasons.
Now, not to get ahead of ourselves, Stu, and I'm going to quit here because I've been talking a little too long already, but we're going to see a second dream in chapter seven. And in chapter seven, we're going to meet. an arch enemy of god who is going to try to change times and seasons And we have already been told here in Daniel 2 that there's only one person who can change times and seasons, and it's God.
So, this dream is actually putting God front and center. And this worship service is making sure everybody on earth knows that. Daniel's not one just to talk about God with his Hebrew compadres, Dr. Horne. He's giving God glory all throughout the narrative, both in giving the dream, giving God credit.
He's the revealer of secrets, he's the God of all wisdom, the God of all might, but in giving the interpretation. And how and he doesn't he doesn't sugarcoat this interpretation or the dream. He gives the straight stuff. He's got the gloves are off. I mean, when you tell the greatest king of the greatest kingdom on earth.
That his kingdom is going to be destroyed. His kingdom is going to be, you know, the Medes are going to come in and the Greeks are. We'll get into all that quickly. But when that all is going on, you got to realize this guy is, he's speaking not his words. He's speaking the very word of God.
And that's a real important thing going back to. Him purposing in his heart that he would stand with God's word, God's revelation. and not try to tickle the ears. And honestly, this is a brilliant picture. of 1 Corinthians 2.14.
You know, the natural man doesn't understand the things of God, doesn't discern the things of God. They're foolishness to him.
Well, Nebuchadnezzar, what we don't see in this passage, but we do see a little bit, is the worldly wisdom, the ungodly wisdom like Psalm 1 talks about. Yeah. It had worn thin. It had gotten his granddad. It had gotten him.
It had gotten his dad nowhere. And these guys, like, I'm going to tell these guys my dream, and they're going to go to their little templates and all their little books and all the writings and all the scribal records and the history of dreams and the history of anthropology. When these sorcerers, these guys that advertise that they can solve all these problems, that they can read your mind, well, let's put them to the test. And Nebuchadnezzar was absolutely fed up to the point where when you want to kill. The smartest counselors that you've hand-picked.
You spent decades or months or whatever handpicking and vetting. When you want to kill all of them, you know you're fed up with the medicine they've been giving you. And so here you have this refreshing voice. Dr. Horn, just real quick, you've got three or four things happening just in sequence.
Let's just do a quick back and forth, if we could, okay? And I'll just kind of tee it up for you because you really actually teed it up for all of us in that review of kind of how we got here. Let's do a preview now of this coming week, the text, which is Daniel 2, specifically verses 24 through 49. And you have in the first few verses. You have this Daniel.
going to back to Ariok Yep. And getting back for the king. And the first words out of his mouth We're words of intercession. He's acting as A mediator Which is a bit of a kind of almost like a Kinsman Redeemer where he could have wiped out all his competition. And said, Hey, get rid of these guys, go ahead and kill the rest of them.
But spare me and my compadres. But in getting in front of the king, the first thing he says is. Don't kill any of the wise men. That's a significant picture of the heart of Daniel, even the heart of the gospel, Dr. Horn.
Speak to that real quick and then we'll jump in between. Everybody in this chapter, everybody in this chapter gets grace. Everybody. I mean, even the worst liars, even the people who Who are going to destroy King Nebuchadnezzar? They're going to do their best to destroy Shadrat, Nishi, and Abednego in chapter three.
Later on, descendants of theirs later on at the end of Daniel's life are still going to be Adam. Everybody in the chapter gets grace, and the grace gets mediated through one man named Daniel. It's just a beautiful picture of what we're supposed to be like in our own and age. As modern-day Daniels, we become the way God mediates grace. To people who don't deserve it.
Think about the hundreds of people that are going to be impacted by this broadcast or by this Bible study and who they work for. Many of them are going to work for bosses, or they're going to have people that are unbelievably difficult to work with, that have done everything they can to stand in the way. And yet, God is gonna mediate a measure of grace through somebody who listens to this Bible study. And so, one of the big lessons in the book is that God is a God of grace. And Nebuchadnezzar, the worst person in the book, actually, by the time you get to chapter five, you find out he's been killing whoever he wants to kill.
This is not like this. Gentle king who's meek and gracious and loving and kind and fair and equitable. He kills whoever he wants to kill. And he gets grace. And so, one of the big lessons here from Daniel is: it doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter where you've been, it doesn't matter how far you've been at the bottom or how high you've been at the top.
You need grace, and God is going to give that grace. He's a God of grace.
So, that's what you find there in the mediation there between Ariok and Daniel and the wise men. Yeah, and what a contrast with chapter 3, verse 8, where the wise men are ruthless when it comes to Shadrach, Masha, and Abineago. They're not offering grace for those guys saying, Hey, they don't need to bow to this large image. You know, they're Hebrews. Let's get them off.
No, they just jumped right on them. They couldn't report them quick enough to get them thrown into the fiery furnace.
So, there's no reciprocation on that, but you don't act in grace and you don't intercede for others based on what you're going to get. It's based on the goodness of God and what He gives. Dr. Horn, so we have this Daniel coming in front of the king, instantly telling the king, this is a difficult. Difficult thing, giving God the glory, saying, You know what?
No man could come up with this. None of your wise guys could. Don't kill them. But there is a God in heaven. That's a classic phrase that you pointed out on our very first podcast: there is a God in heaven, which is just an epic verse.
that Daniel reminds the great king on earth That he would have no power if it weren't for God. And God, you know, changes the times, the seasons. He is all-wise, all-powerful, and so on and so forth.
So you have all these attributes of God in Daniel's words, both in his prayer earlier and then his words to Nebuchadnezzar. And then he gives the king. The dream, and you have a fascinating depiction.
Now, I don't want to, we don't want to. Uh go Too deep, too granular, Dr. Horn. But real quick, in the next few verses of chapter two. You have a dream.
So, Daniel tells him the dream, which is a miracle in itself.
So, God gave the dream to Daniel what was in the mind and heart of another man. God revealed that directly to Daniel in the night vision. And then he gives Daniel the interpretation. Can you take us through kind of the fine points of this? Because you have a lot of people that jump to amillennialism or they jump to pre-millennialism.
They maybe. Push too hard. On the prophetic calendar, but there is some important stuff, and it's really a picture of all of history breaking out in front of us.
So, yeah, speak to the truth, speak to the dream and the interpretation. Just give us a quick kind of. Blow by blow, you got the the the head of gold. You've got the, I gotta make sure you get this right. You've got this head of gold, then you've got these shoulders.
You know, of silver, and then you've got this breast or chest and stomach of bronze, and then you've got these legs of iron. And then you've got these kind of feet, which is a blend of clay. And iron together Which is kind of the foundation of this massive image that Nebuchadnezzar, you know, that haunted his sleep in his dream. Talk about, if you would go through those and the significance of it for us, real quick here. Yeah, I appreciate that too.
And I really would encourage all of us as we share this with different people that this is way more than just trying to figure out if you're a pre-millennial or post-millennial or amillennial. This is the history of the world, starting with Nebuchadnezzar going all the way until the arrival of Messiah's kingdom and it's being set up on earth.
So that's the scope of the dream. It's human history. from Nebuchadnezzar forward. And we, you know, as we think about Daniel, all of this was future tense for Daniel. Most of this is past tense for us.
Like he's going to describe the kingdoms of the world in four big ideas. There's going to be the head of gold. Then as you said, that's Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian kingdom. Then there's going to be this middle section of silver. That's going to be the Persian kingdom.
And then there's going to be this middle section, upper thighs area that's going to be made of bronze. And that is a shining bronze. That's going to be Greece. And then later on, we're going to read about a fourth kingdom. And that kingdom is going to come in two sections.
It's going to be a kingdom of iron, but then there's going to be a part of it that's mixed with clay. And that's the kingdom of Rome. And it's going to extend all the way to the arrival of Messiah and the setting up of the kingdom.
So, in essence, the first thing you need to know is the scope of the dream is the scope of human history. The focus of the dream is the governments of the world, the kingdoms of the world. Remember, we said Aramaic was the language of the nations.
Well, God is talking to the kingdoms of the world. And as we said earlier, his message is there is a God in heaven, and you need to make note of him. You need to submit to him. He's the one who set you up. We're going to find out at the end, Nebuchadnezzar is super impressed.
With Daniel's God at the end. He is like, wow, there really is a God in heaven by the time we get to the end. But so we have these history of the world. It's told in these four kingdoms. And then each kingdom is decreasing in value.
So that's a very important thing: gold, silver. uh brass and then iron so decreasing in value increasing in hardness the metals actually get harder. And so human history from Nebuchadnezzar's day to our day has not been on an upward trajectory. It's actually gotten worse. It's actually decreased in moral value.
It's actually gotten more difficult. It's actually gotten harder to live righteously in the sight of God. Think about in our own day, even in our own country, a country that some 250 years ago was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic. Think about what's happened in 250 short years in our own country. How far we have drifted, how difficult it is now, and where we are morally as a nation and culturally as a nation.
What used to be unthinkable 200 years ago is now something championed in our own culture. The moral values, all of it has degenerated, and it is harder and harder and harder to live like Daniel lived when we purpose in our heart not to defile ourselves by disobeying the Lord, even in a country like ours. Yeah. This dream is telling you the story of humanity. It's telling you the story of human government, and it's telling you its trajectory.
Its trajectory is downward. It's on a downward path morally. It's on a downward path spiritually. It's on a downward path in terms of its resistance and its hardness toward God and toward God's people. And in Daniel 8, 9, and 10, we're going to find out that's exactly what happens.
When God's people enter into the Persian Empire, it's going to get harder for them. When they go into the Greek Empire, it's going to get even harder. When they go into the Roman Empire, it's going to get unbelievably hard. And so, Daniel is getting a dream for Nebuchadnezzar, but it's going to have implications for his own people in chapter 7. And so, one of the things I would do if I were doing a Bible study is I would try to help people understand.
The big picture here, and not get caught up in, well, okay, I wonder what who the Antichrist is going to be, and is he living on earth now? And what is just this is a big picture idea of human government, and it is going to go downward. And that's exactly what we've seen in the thousands of years since Nebuchadnezzar's day.
So Nebuchadnezzar gets this dream, and then Daniel says, now I want to interpret it for you. I want to give you the interpretation.
Okay. And the interpretation starts in verse 36, and it goes all the way down to verse. 45 and at the heart of it, Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, I've given you the dream.
Now, here's what you need to know. You're the head of gold. And what you need to know about the head of gold is the God of heaven has given you the kingdom. the power The mite. and the glory.
In chapter 7, we're going to meet somebody who stands before the ancient of days, and he gets a kingdom, he gets might, he gets glory, he gets honor. And it's the Messiah.
So there are some interesting things that are happening in these two dreams. And it's like you get these little Easter eggs. Tucked away in the first dream that by the time you get to the second dream, Five chapters later, you're going, oh, I remember that. I remember reading those words before.
So, bottom line is, Nebuchadnezzar, everything you have, everything you own, everything you rule over, all of your authority, all of your glory, all of your might, all of your power that you thought you got because you were a brilliant military genius and your military tactics took the world by storm. You didn't get it because of that. You got it because the God of heaven gave it to you. And by the way, the God is the sovereign here. Yeah, the God of heaven is the one who put every one of us where he put us, right?
I mean, he's the one who put Daniel there. He's the one who put Nebuchadnezzar there. He's the ones who gave you the truth network. He's the one who put me where I am. And he's the one who puts every single believer in their place.
And he's the one who's raised up every pagan ruler in their place. I mean, think about the worst pagan rulers in the world today, and God has put them in their place. Wow. And they will all bow before him. Every knee will bow.
Dr. Sam Horn is with me. This is our Wednesday in the Word podcast, focusing on the latter half, part two of Daniel, chapter two. Go back and listen to the first part of this chapter. Really fascinating.
The dream that became a nightmare for all of Babylon. And it could have led to just rampant bloodshed among the top counselors in the land. God, in a mighty way, answers Daniel and his Hebrew friends. He went to them. They prayed.
They sought the Lord, the Lord. Answered, and then God gave him immense favor to interpret, to give the dream and interpret the dream what no man could do. God did through Daniel. Dr. Horn, I don't want to give away too much.
Or again, go too deep, and you did an excellent explanation of the different aspects of this massive image that Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about, which we see in history. We see it in the Medes and Persians. We see it in the great conqueror who never lost a battle, Alexander the Great, just in rapid the leopard, right? We'll see him later. We see it in the Roman Empire.
And then, before we get to this stone, not cut with hands, that becomes mountainous, that becomes so big that we know is the chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ Himself. But before we get there, Isn't it fascinating? I read a commentator, and I put this in my leader notes that I send to my leaders that are taking everyone through Wednesday in the Word at Dario. Isn't it fascinating? Larkin, one of the commentators that I've read.
He made a great observation. I'm not going to get the quote right, but he said this. He said, Notice each kingdom. was in a simulation.
Okay. Each kingdom, the world system. The New Age movement is not a new movement, right? You know, you think of Hinduism, they have over a billion deities. They just eclect, they just add to those deities.
You think of all the world religions, which, by the way, Dr. Dr. King Nebuchadnezzar has this dream of all this gold and silver and bronze and these fine metals.
Well, he had just come back from a massive campaign, from a huge conquest of all these empires of Egypt, of Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, those whole areas. And so he had precious metals being, you know, mounted all over camels and chariots coming back into Babylon. You know, so precious metals were on his mind.
So it's, it's no wonder. You know, it's, you know, we, it's no wonder that was kind of fresh. And then God used it, of course, to give him this specific image and to craft this picture of what would be the kingdoms that would come and go, come and go.
So, but Larkin observed this. He said, and I'm going to paraphrase: he said, from the Babylonians who just adopted and just took all the effective false gods of the cultures to the Medes and Persians, which were, they were a unit, by the way, they were a kind of. A federation themselves of two, to the Greek Empire, which, by the way, at some point had split up after Alexander the Great and gone in several different directions, to the Romans. The Romans, they all assimilated. The Romans just adopted the Greek gods.
Sometimes they renamed them. Exactly. Yeah, so to the point where you have this massive. You have this massive assimilation. of all of these these kingdoms and It's everything goes.
And it doesn't get better. It gets worse to the point we have clay and iron together, and those two never mix, and to the point then, it's all obliterated. By the one true The one stone. That comes from a mountain that's not cut by hands, that lasts eternal, that is immortal.
So, speak to that real quick. We got to get out of here, but speak to that, and then we'll talk real quickly about the reaction of the king bowing before Daniel. Yeah, so Stu, you're exactly right. Those four kingdoms assimilate because there is one diabolical God behind them all. There's the God of this world, and he never changes.
He's been there from the beginning, the archenemy of God, and he's the one that energized Egypt and Assyria and Babylon and Persia. And so he doesn't show up overtly in the text, but he's there for sure. And he's going to show up in Daniel 7. And we'll pick that up when we get there. But this stone that comes is a stone that we're going to be reading about the rest of the Bible.
I mean, Peter's going to tell us about a stone the builders rejected. This is the stone.
So the stone represents two things. It represents an eternal kingdom. Verse 44, in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will that kingdom be left to another people.
So the stone represents an eternal. Kingdom that will remove and replace all earthly kingdoms. Because in that same text, it will break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it will stand forever. And what we find out is that that stone that represents a kingdom is actually representing the person who's going to establish the kingdom for God. And we're going to meet him in seven, right, in chapter seven.
Right now, it just looks like there's a stone that is majestic. It is miraculous. It is supernatural. It wasn't forged humanly. Like when you think about the Babylonian Empire, how did it come to power?
Well, there were human beings that. That came into military positions like Nebuchadnezzar. This kingdom has no earthly origin. That's what Jesus meant when he told Pilate: You don't have to be afraid. My kingdom doesn't come the way your kingdoms come.
My kingdom is not of this world, it is of heaven. And he kept talking about the kingdom of heaven.
So that's what's going on here. And then in verse 45, Daniel says to the king: now, here's what I want you to know about everything I've told you, about you, the head of gold. About the kingdom of silver, the Persians, and the Greeks, the bronze and the Romans, and about this majestic stone that's going to come and pulverize all of the kingdoms of the world. Here's what I want you to know: the dream is certain. and its interpretation is sure.
It's accurate. This is verse 45. Oh, and so I mean, Daniel is not. I mean, you remember James said: if you lack wisdom, ask God and He will give it.
Well, that's what Daniel did earlier in the chapter. That's what Daniel did back up in verse 17. He lacked wisdom, he didn't know what the dream was. He asked God, just like James would say, Hundreds of years later, God gave Daniel this wisdom. And Daniel was willing to put his life and he was willing to put the kingdom on the line for this.
He's looking at the most powerful man who is just ready to execute everybody. And he says, Now I want you to know something. I've given you a dream. And the dream is not good news in the end because it's gonna, it means the destruction of all earthly kingdoms, including yours. And I want you, it's like he puts his finger in the king's face, not metaphorically, he does, but not physically.
And he says, this dream is sure. And it's certain it's going to happen, and its interpretation is sure. That's an amazing statement to make to King Nebuchadnezzar, but Daniel does. That's how sure and how confident he is in the word of God. Yeah, I love it.
I love the verse. It reminds me of Proverbs 30, verse 5: Every word of God is pure, he is a shield to those who put their trust in him. God is a shield to Daniel, his three friends. And then, you know, this, this, there's a stark contrast between how this chapter opens. Where everyone is prostrate before Nebuchadnezzar, everyone is scared to death for their life because this horrible dream and their this impossible dream.
And no one has any answers. And what do the Hebrews do? They get prostate before Almighty God and they bow before the king of kings, and God pours out wisdom. And here at the end of the chapter, you have Nebuchadnezzar after this revelation from Daniel, after this interpretation of the dream and these words pointing to the true God, Nebuchadnezzar. The greatest monarch on the planet at the time, he falls prostrate before Daniel.
Yeah. Okay, so let me make a comment about that, because that is so important in this text. Nebuchadnezzar Is living in a world where if you conquer a city, you conquer its gods. And he just went down to Jerusalem and conquered Jerusalem and brought Daniel back and he brought the temple vessels. And here he is, and he's realizing I need to give the God of Daniel another thought.
Because he obviously can do things my gods can't do. And so he gets off his throne. I mean, can you imagine this? He gets off his throne and he gets down on his knees in front of this young Hebrew slave. And he commands that incense be brought and prayers be offered.
That's the whole idea of incense.
Now, why would he do that?
Well, there wasn't a statue of Daniel's God anywhere. He would have bowed down to it like he bowed down to his own gods.
So, Daniel, the image-bearer of God, is the one to whom he bows. He's not worshiping Daniel, he's actually giving obese to Daniel's God. And here's the point I want to make. At this point in the story, without giving too much away, Nebuchadnezzar is pretty impressed with Yahweh. And so impressed the fact that he's willing to get off his throne.
and get on his knees in front of the entire kingdom. I mean, this news would have gone everywhere. Do you believe what happened at the palace today? Nebuchadnezzar got off the throne. I've never seen anything like it.
And he got on his knees before that Hebrew kid who told him the dream and he commanded incense. Nebuchadnezzar was deeply impressed with Daniel's God. Here's the point. He's not yet converted. And that's a little preview of what we're going to find in verse 3, in chapter 3.
He's not a converted king, but he's just super impressed with Daniel's God. Here's the point I would make to all of us: it's not enough to be impressed with God. God can do things that will impress us. I mean, we could be, you know, in a scenario where we were in a horrible accident where we should have lost our life and God spared us and we can be impressed with the power of God. We can have something happen around us and we can be impressed by the wisdom and the might of God.
But being impressed with God is not the same as being converted to God. And we're going to see that in chapter four. Yeah, and we'll see the impressive image that went from Nebuchadnezzar's dream to a golden image. You know, Babylon is the city of gold. Babylon, you know, his from the throne to the front gate, right?
And then he wrecks this massive image of gold, you know, just not too far removed from this incident. Here he is putting a gold idol up. And so we'll see that next week. We don't want to, that's kind of a preview a little farther out. But Dr.
Horn, take us out of here with a prayer. But first, you know, it's fascinating how. God, you know, James 6:10, humble yourself, James 4:10, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. He Will lift you up. 1 Peter 5:7, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.
He will exalt you in due time. At the very end, you have Daniel is a hero. He's lauded with gifts. He's given all kinds of incense. He's given all kinds of favor.
He's given power. He's raised up. He says at the end, he's sitting at the gate, which is a high place of honor that only the king can bestow. And then it says that he spoke to the king and had his three friends also promoted. It's just a great picture of God doing the impossible.
These men were humble. They trusted Almighty God. And they had no fear of any man, not even the king, but they feared the king of kings. Take us out of here with a closing thought. And a prayer as we wrap up this conversation on Daniel part two of Daniel chapter two.
Well, I walk away from this chapter, Stu, and I'm reminded again that God, when God humbles us, he never humbles us to hurt us. He humbles us to bless us. And here, as you said, are four men who were humble. They bowed their knee before God, and God raises them up to the very top of the Babylonian Empire. Here's Nebuchadnezzar, and he's not humble yet.
He's on his knees, but he's not humble yet. And by the time we get to chapter four, he's going to have to fall a pretty long way down into grace. But he's going to come up from that fall a very humbled and blessed man. God never humbles us to hurt us. He always humbles us to bless us.
And so let's pray that as we read the story of Nebuchadnezzar in this incredible chapter, God will bring that humbling about in our life. Lord, thank you that we could do this together. Thank you that your word is as powerful and as real and as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago in Daniel's day. Lord, the landscape has changed. The buildings look different.
The people dress differently, but the core issues are the same. You are the God of heaven, and we live our little lives in our little kingdoms. And we're happy for you to be the God of heaven as long as you don't mess in the little kingdoms that we live in, especially in the kingdom of me. And so, Lord, we pray that you would do for us what you did for Daniel, that you would bring about a redemptive. Humbling so that we would be channels of grace to people like Nebuchadnezzar all around us.
We're reminded, Lord, to pray for our leaders, people that, Lord, we would never imagine could ever be saved. We think of people in High positions of government authority, our president, our leaders in Congress. Lord, we think of the kings and the leaders of the nations. Lord, there is nobody on earth that is beyond your ability to humble to salvation. If you could humble Nebuchadnezzar, you could humble the leader of Russia, you could humble the leader of Iraq or Iran, and you could bring them to salvation like you did to Nebuchadnezzar.
And so we pray in faith, asking that you would use these things. In Jesus' name, amen. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I'm Stu Eberson. 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.
