His Kingdom Is Forever

I invite you to turn with me to the book of Daniel, in the Old Testament. If you have read ahead, then you will know that it has forty-nine verses. And so, in the interest of time, I’m not going to read the entire chapter. In fact, if I were to spend three minutes on each verse, in commenting, we’d be here for quite a long time.

Daniel 2:1:

“In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. And the king said to them, ‘I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.’ Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, ‘O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.’ The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, ‘The word from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation.’ They answered a second time and said, ‘Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation.’ The king answered and said, ‘I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is firm—if you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you. You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation.’ The Chaldeans answered the king and said, ‘There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.’”

As a result of that, the king becomes exceedingly angry, issues a decree to send for all of these enchanters and magicians so that they might be killed. As a result of that, Daniel and his friends are included in that edict. Daniel then prays to God and is given the dream and its interpretation. And he then in turn goes to Arioch, who’s responsible for the carrying out of the decree, and says, “I don’t think that you should just be too hasty in this.” And as a result of that, the encounter between the king and Daniel ensues. And we’ll just read a brief portion from 26:

“The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, ‘Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?’ Daniel answered the king and said, ‘No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery 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 of your head as you lay in bed are these.’”

And then he proceeds to give to him the dream and the interpretation of the dream. And in verse 46, the response of Nebuchadnezzar is to fall on his face and to pay homage to Daniel and to command that an offering be offered up to Daniel. Daniel in turn makes sure that his friends are looked after in the promotional scheme of things, and the chapter ends in that way.

So, we thank God for his Word, and we ask for his help as we study it together:

Father, we thank you that as we’re gathered here, that infant voices are proclaiming your name and blessing you. And we pray for them as they have the Bible opened to them now, that their tender hearts may be attuned to your truth and that they might in early days come to know and love and follow Christ. We ask that as we turn to the Bible now, that the Spirit of God will be our teacher. And we pray humbly in Christ’s name. Amen.

Well, I invite you, as I say, to turn to Daniel chapter 2. And we inevitably need to be somewhat selective in working our way through this material if we’re not to be here for a very long time. I’ve elected to do a chapter at a time rather than get bogged down on things, and I hope that you’ll thank me for that.

Nebuchadnezzar was powerful, and he was successful. Of that there is no doubt. He was the leader of the most magnificent and mighty nation on the face of the earth. He was the leader of the then-known world. If people in his day had seen him moving around, they would have only been struck by the fact of his splendor and of his power and of his significance. Therefore, it would be quite an undertaking for them to recognize that not only did he go through the routines of life the way everyone else had to, but he was also subjected to dreams—dreams that proved for him to be entirely unsettling.

And the record that we have here in chapter 2 is of what seems to be a recurring nightmare. We have to wait until about verse 31 for the dream to actually be recounted in the story. And since I can’t be certain that all of you have done your homework and you will have to wait to verse 31, let me begin by just giving a summary of the dream itself.

A huge statute of a man was forming in the mind of Nebuchadnezzar. It had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, its middle and its thighs were made of bronze, and its legs of iron, and its feet a combination of clay and iron. And in the dream, this vast statue is smashed to smithereens by a stone, and it is quite literally blown away. The stone then begins to grow and grow, becomes a vast mountain which eventually fills the entire earth. And this is a means of destabilizing Nebuchadnezzar in the watches of the night.

Verse 1 sets the scene. He has had these dreams. We’re told, “His spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him.” I think all of us recognize that there are notions which may appear problematic in the daylight, and they actually become paralyzing in the darkness of the night. There are certain things that you can handle when you’re vertical that you apparently can’t really handle when you’re horizontal. And, of course, we learned this from Phantom of the Opera, didn’t we? “Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation; darkness [wakes] and [stirs] imagination.”[1] And this king’s imagination had been stirred.

And so he does what kings do at that time: he calls for his helpers, in verse 2: “the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans” are “summoned to tell the king his dreams.” He has a very straightforward request: “[Tell] me the dream and its interpretation.” The response of the fellows is to say to him, “If you tell us the dream, we will show you the interpretation.” He said, “No, that’s not what I asked you to do. The word from me is actually very firm: if you don’t make known to me the dream and its interpretation, I will have you torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins.” What a nice person! I mean, I’ve woken up and said, “I don’t know what that was about,” but I never ever thought of doing anything close to this.

“However,” he says, “that’s the stick. The carrot is, if you show me the dream and its interpretation, then you will receive honor and reward and so on.” Verse 7: they answered him a second time, “If you tell us the dream, we’ll show you the interpretation.” And then the king said, “Oh, I see what your game is now. You’re trying to stall for time, because you don’t know what to say. And I want you to know that I have only one sentence for you now. I’ve put the carrot away; I’m coming at you with the stick. You’re full of corruption and lies. If you don’t show me this, then it’s all over for you.” To which they reply, “There’s not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has ever asked people to do such a thing.”

Well, he just is completely bewildered by this. And one of the questions that you may want to discuss over coffee, that doesn’t matter a great deal, is whether he actually knew the dream or didn’t know the dream. There’s nothing in the passage to suggest that he did or he didn’t—except it would seem to me that if these characters were as flaky as he imagined, then if they didn’t tell him what the dream was, their interpretation could be for just about anything. So, the only way that he could know that they were on the straight and narrow with him was if they actually came up with the dream itself, and then the interpretation.

Now, the significance of this is that you see the hatred and the atrocity of this man just because all of his king’s horses and men cannot put him together again. He has no explanation for what is going on, and so these men find themselves on “the eve of destruction,”[2] to quote Barry McGuire. (I can go way back, for many of you.) “Because of this,” verse 12, “the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed.” It’s a quite amazing response, isn’t it? The fact that you may know this story doesn’t diminish its impact. It may make you think of another king who, later on, was destabilized on his little throne when he found that there had been someone who was born, apparently, the King of the Jews. And being unable to handle the thought of a threat to his power, he called for the slaughter of all of the innocents—namely, Herod.[3] Now this man is doing the same all these years before.

This is not an unusual phenomenon. If you read history at all—if you read world history, if you think about contemporary history—if you think about a nation like North Korea this morning, and if even only a part of what comes out for us in the West is true, then you have to believe that that man, that young man, is somehow or another driven by deep, deep darkness to do the things that he does.

Reinhold Niebuhr, in his book The Nature and Destiny of Man, suggests this very thing. He suggests that modern political tyranny may be traced to “a darkly conscious realization”[4] of the insecurity of man’s existence, so that the great, overreaching overplay of people who are placed in authority may actually speak to the fact that in their heart of hearts, they know that they’re not really in control of anything at all. But that’s actually true for all of us, whatever our little empire is. How else do we explain our angry outbursts? How do we explain our irrational responses to things that unfold for us when perhaps they do not fall out the way we would like them to or demand for them?

Nietzsche, who was a huge influence on Hitler philosophically, is the one who said, “If there is a God, how can I bear not to be that God?”[5] In other words, “I am the master of my destiny. I am the captain of my ship. I am in charge.” Now, when a person actually believes that, it frames their entire view of the world. It shapes the way in which we will deal with one another and deal with ourselves. Therefore, we ought not to be surprised that this king, who believes himself to be so powerful, so significant, and yet his dreams in the night have completely unsettled him, is so furious that these enchanters, who have proved to be completely useless, should just be destroyed. There’s more where they came from, presumably.

Now, it’s at that point, at verse 13, when the decree goes out and the wise men are about to be killed, that Daniel and his companions find themselves in the story—the reason being that at the end of chapter 1, remember, they had been promoted. They had graduated magna cum laude in the realm of visions and so on, and chapter 1 ends with them included in this vast company of those who have direct access to the king.

But their promotion at the end of chapter 1 now becomes the occasion for their potential destruction here, partway through chapter 2. And we are not in any doubt about what’s going on: they sought out the wise men, “and they sought [out] Daniel and his companions, to kill them.” “To kill them.” Well, that’ll change your day, won’t it? The word is out on the street: “Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we’re looking for you. The king is looking for you.” “Oh,” perhaps they thought to themselves, “maybe another promotion? Maybe a little more cash in the bank?” or whatever it might be. “No, no, no, no, no, no! No, he’s planning on killing you! Yes, he’s issued a decree that all the bright boys should be killed. And unfortunately, you are the brightest of the best.”

Now, the reaction of Daniel and the counteraction of Daniel should be instructive for us. I don’t want to delay on it, but verse 14 seems almost matter of fact, doesn’t it? “Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon.” “Hang on a minute!” That’s essentially what he says. There’s no fatalism on the response of Daniel. There’s no way in which he goes, “Well, I suppose we were supposed to die, so die we will. Let’s have a final cup of tea and get ready for the chopping block.” No, he doesn’t do that! There’s no panic. There’s no indication that he immediately sets off to run for the borders and take his friends with him. Nor is there any subjective indication that he is now attempting to discover what God’s will is, and then, once he’s discovered what God’s will is, then he’ll join him in that discovery. I’m growing old listening to people telling me that this is the way that you function in life—that this is the real proper way to function in life: that you find out what God is doing, and then you join him in what he’s doing. Sounds very pious, doesn’t it? Sounds very something. Well, I’m a simple soul. I figure that he wrote this book telling me what he’s doing and that I don’t need to sit cross-legged on the floor trying to figure out what it is.

And Daniel decides not to do that. Daniel is very straightforward. He decides that what God’s will for him is, is that he would continue living; that he would like to stay alive. And so, that’s exactly what he says. And in verse 17, he decides to call his friends together to pray—not to discover what God’s will is for him but to receive mercy so that he might know the mystery, so that they might not be destroyed. “We don’t want to die. Dear God, we would like not to die. Could we have mercy to understand this mystery so that we don’t die?” That’s very straightforward.

And then, verse 19, “the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night.” I don’t know if it was a Saturday night when the fever had hit the king. Saturday night… But here his friends, they “feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin,’” and they’re “stayin’ alive.”[6] They’re stayin’ alive, right? That’s their plan. (My mind is a complete mess, I confess.)

While earthly kingdoms will come and go, the kingdom of God will last forever.

Now, you see, in verse 28, Daniel is going to tell the king that “there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.” And he knows that because in verse 19, he has revealed the mystery to Daniel. What does that mean? Remember, in chapter 1, it says that God had given—verse 17— “learning and skill in … literature and wisdom, and Daniel,” distinct from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, “had understanding in all visions and dreams.” As we continue through the book of Daniel, we’ll see that this was a peculiar dimension that was granted to Daniel, giving rise to these apocalyptic visions whereby God is, if you like, pulling back a little bit of the curtain of the future; giving Daniel an insight into that that is not given to others in order that, this instance, he might give it to the king; showing Daniel that while earthly kingdoms will come and go, the kingdom of God will last forever—a message which these exiles were sorely in need of; a message which we this morning are sorely in need of too.

Now, verses 20–23 would be a wonderful sermon on their own, because they give to us this hymn of praise. And Daniel blesses God:

     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
 … knowledge to those who have understanding;
he reveals deep and hidden things;
 he knows what is in the darkness,
 and the light dwells with him.
To you, O God of my fathers, [he says,]
 I give thanks and praise,
for you have given me wisdom and might,
 and have now made known to me what we asked of you,
 for you have made known to us the king’s matter.

I want you to notice the distinction between what Daniel is saying here and what the enchanters had been saying in verse 11: “The thing that the king asks is difficult”—true—“and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” In other words, they are responding in terms of the polytheism that is represented in the Babylonian culture. There are all kinds of gods for all kinds of things, and “Clearly,” they say to the king, “this is beyond the realm of our training, beyond the realm of our ability. And therefore, we’re going to have to go somehow into the realm of divinity.” And so, into these multivarious gods, and to them they might appeal. Only somewhere up there is the answer. Daniel is not saying, “Yes, I agree.” He’s saying, “No, those gods have eyes, but they cannot see. They have ears, but they cannot hear. They have mouths, but they cannot speak.[7] There is only one God who knows what he has done, who knows the end from the beginning.”

Now, loved ones, you need to understand that the same is true and abounds in contemporary America. Our friends increasingly are filled with talk of the gods, whether they are the golf gods or the weather gods or whatever else it is. It sounds so unbelievable, given the nature of the nation and the founding of the nation. But men’s hearts and minds have become darkened. When people cease to believe in God as he has revealed himself in Scripture, they do not believe in nothing; they believe in just about everything. And the distinction of biblical orthodoxy is clearly stated here: “The God who made the heavens and the earth, the God who’s in charge of the seasons, the God who’s in control of history and so on, is not one of your polytheistic gods. No, he is God of God and Light of Light and King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

You see, that’s what our culture actually is not going to be prepared to put up with. They don’t mind if we want to include our little god somewhere in the pantheon of contemporary gods. But if we’re going to start to say that the name of God is forever and ever, and he is the one who knows what is in the darkness and so on, then, of course, we’re going to find ourselves in a different position altogether. That’s why we should prepare for it.

But Daniel, you see, was not rude. He wasn’t bombastic. His response to Arioch, who had the responsibility of the execution squad, was “with prudence and discretion”—two very lovely individuals. In other words, he was tactful. And, as we’ve seen, he was prayerful. And, as we realize, he was purposeful: in verse 24, he “went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon,” and he went in, and he “said thus to him: ‘Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon.’” Pretty straightforward. Nobody was in any doubt. And so it is that “Arioch,” in verse 25, “brought in Daniel before the king in haste” and decides to put himself at the front of the parade: “I have found among the exiles from Judah a man.” No, actually, you haven’t. Daniel is the one who has volunteered. And “the king declared to Daniel, … ‘Are you able …?’” Daniel said, “No.”

No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show … the king the mystery … 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 of your head as you lay in [your] bed … : 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[’s] been revealed to me, not because [I’m brighter than any of the other people who are alive], but in order that the [mystery might] be … known [by] the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind[s].

Now, get this: the sovereign control of God extends to the dream patterns of pagan kings. That’s how much control God has in the universe. So when you turn your newspaper over, when you read something, when you look at the world as it unfolds in history, remember this! That’s what these exiles needed to know. The Babylonian forces had come in and decimated everything that they knew about true worship, security, freedom, and everything else—snatched up their brightest and their best, took them away. The vessels that represented the power and presence of God were also taken away into the citadel of the Babylonian gods. Now, as this book comes to them in their exile, they’re making the discovery that God is actually in control of the kingdoms of the world—that he sets them up and he brings them down, and that his kingdom, as established, will never come to an end. I think if they, as exiles, needed to know that, we, as aliens and strangers in our world, need to know it too.

And then, for the first time, as I say, in verse 31 and following, the dream is recounted. I’ve done that for you. We won’t do it again. You can read it there in 31–35. And then, in verse 36 and following: “I will now tell you its interpretation.”

Now, he starts off wonderfully, doesn’t he? “You, O king, … you are the head of gold.” Let’s go directly to that at the end of verse 38: “You are the head of gold.” Well, that would make him feel quite good, I think. Wouldn’t you? “I knew I shouldn’t have killed you, Daniel. You’re a good soul, aren’t you? Well, yes, I am the head of gold.” He would sit up a little higher in his throne. But before he gets to that conclusion, look at what he tells him in 37 and 38: he says, “Nebuchadnezzar, you need to know something: in the final analysis, all that you enjoy of position, all that you know of influence, all that you enjoy of prosperity has been given to you by the God of heaven.” That’s verse 37: “You, O king, the king of kings, the biggest king around, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, the glory, and all the population, wherever they live, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens—he’s made you the ruler over them all. You are the head of gold. But you need to know that the reason you are is because God decided that you should be.”

You see, that would matter to the exiles as well, wouldn’t it? ʼCause they’d be saying, “Presumably, the evil has triumphed over the good.” Now they need to understand that the God who has covenanted to love them to the end is the one who has been in charge of the fact that they have been dragged away into this position and that this evil fellow who is on the throne is actually there by the appointing of God. That’s why I said to you last week, you’ll never understand history unless you read your Bible. “You are the head of gold.”

But then he goes on to say, “That’s the good news. It’s not so good. I have to let you know that after you will arise another kingdom. It will be inferior to you, but it will take you over. After that there will be a third one, and after that there will be a fourth one. And eventually, there will be a kingdom that is set up in those days,” verse 44, “that will never be destroyed, and it won’t be, like these other four, left to another people.”

Now, these four kingdoms have traditionally been known, understood—and I think accurately so—as Babylon and Medo-Persia and Greece and Rome. That’s all I really want to say about that. For those of you who want to spend the rest of the afternoon and the evening speculating about all of that, I wish you a very happy afternoon.

What is the main thing and the plain thing being conveyed by Daniel here? Because it is given without interpretation. So, without interpretation as to all these kingdoms, all that we can do is engage in speculation—which, of course, would not be particularly helpful. The fact that it is not particularly helpful has not prevented people from doing it continually throughout the years. And in all of my sixty-three years, I have heard many a sermon that has been disproved with the passage of time, explaining to me that “one toe equals this, and two toes equal that; take away the first toe you thought of, and before you know it, there you have the whole world in front of you.” I never got that as a young man. I listened to it carefully. It got me very excited and often agitated. But it seemed to leave me, till I stood back from the painting far enough. I’d step back from the painting, I’d look at all the painting, I’d say, “Now, what is the big story on this painting? I mean, if I stand up too close to it, I may miss the fact. What is he saying?” He’s saying that God sets up and brings down kingdoms. These kingdoms will come and go. He will establish a kingdom that will never come to an end. It will not be passed on to somebody else. “That,” he says, “is what you need to know.” And that, loved ones, is what you and I need to know this morning.

Human history is under the control of God, and it has a purpose which will be achieved.

Verse 44: It is God’s kingdom. It is indestructible. It will never be supplanted or replaced. And it will be universal. Back in verse—where is it?—35: “But the stone … struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” Main thought is this: human history is under the control of God, and it has a purpose which will be achieved. Human history is under the control of God.

What was being conveyed here by Daniel to these exiles was simply this fact: that God would eventually replace all these kingdoms with an everlasting kingdom. And so it is that in the fullness of time, the Babylonian kingdom was overruled by the Medo-Persian. The Medo-Persian kingdom was taken over by Greece, Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great eventually crumbles to a halt, and the Roman Empire takes over. And the Roman Empire rules the world—at least most of the world. It never managed to conquer Scotland, as it turns out. Actually, they just looked at it and said, “We’re not interested,” and that was the end of it. They said, “There’s nothing up there.” But they did a good job in England.

But while the Romans ruled, in a backwater province of the Middle East, a slip of a girl, maybe a teenager, had an angelic visitation. And out of nowhere came this angelic visitor who announced to her that she would have a son and that his name would be Jesus. That in itself was totally out of any expectation. “How will this be,” she said, “since I am [only] a virgin?”[8] “I mean, this doesn’t work.” The angel said, “Don’t you worry. The power of God will overshadow you,” and so on. “God knows what he’s doing in history. He’ll take care of it. And furthermore, you need to know that this Jesus will be great, and he will sit on the throne of his father David, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”[9] Jesus is the stone that is fashioned out of nowhere that collapses this great statue. The statue is pulverized by Christ, who, in the unfolding poetic picture, then becomes the mountain which fills the entire earth.

What is being said? Well, just what Jesus went on to say. Jesus is introduced to us in the New Testament as “the stone that the builders rejected,” but he is “the cornerstone.”[10] Jesus says, “The one who falls on this stone,” speaking of himself, “will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”[11] You have to believe this! No matter what ISIS does, no matter the encroaching influence of Islam, this is what you need to know, exile. This is what you need to know, alien. You need to know this. You need to believe this. This is our ultimate security—not in political machinations, not actually in warfare, but in the fact of the promise that is conveyed via Daniel six hundred years before the birth of Jesus.

And when Jesus stands on the stage of human history, what does he declare? He says, “The time is fulfilled”—in other words, all the stuff that has been leading up here is now fulfilled—“and the kingdom of God [has come].”[12] What does he mean? “I’m the King, and I’m here!” The people said to him, “What are you doing at these miraculous things? How is it that you deal with the demonic activity?” Jesus says, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come [among] you.”[13] “Well,” they must have said, “well, that’ll be it.” And that’s what many of them said: “We’ll overthrow the Romans. We’ll reestablish our citadel in Jerusalem. We will deal with it geographically, territorially, nationally, and it will all be fine!”

And then it comes to a crashing halt, because this one who has declared himself the King of Kings is now nailed up on a Roman cross, and the Romans are apparently in control, and the answer of the world is “This is what we will do to you.” But death couldn’t keep its hold. “The pangs of death” could not hold on to him, said Peter when he preached in Jerusalem. “It was[n’t] possible for him to be held by it.”[14] What a remarkable thing, that Peter preached such a great sermon when he had been so out of it for much of the time!

Even after the resurrection, they didn’t get it, did they? “[Are] you at this time [going to] restore the kingdom to Israel?”[15] And many of you are all caught up on that yourselves. You don’t really know what to do with the nation of Israel. You don’t know what to do—America, Israel, Britain, who, what, whatever. Listen to what Jesus said! The issue is not Israel. It is not territorial. It is not national; it is international. It is a people, a language, a tribe, a tongue that comprehensively, universally, covers the entire globe. “This,” he says to his disciples, “should be your preoccupation: that you would know the power of the Holy Spirit to come upon you so that you would go out into all the world and be my witnesses to the ends of the earth”[16]—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Why? Because this is how the kingdom comes: first in the person and work of Jesus; secondly, in the growth of the gospel as it is proclaimed in the world; and then and only then, finally, visibly, and universally, when Jesus Christ returns—so that we live between the reality of the now and the not yet, and that for the encouragement of ourselves.

When you think today of reading your newspaper, when you think about the unfolding drama of history, even in the lifetime that I have lived—you know, born, what, seven years after the end of the Second World War, with air raid shelters in my backyard as a boy. I used to play in there and ask my parents, “What were these things for? Why do we have these in our backyard? What are these masks?” Well, that was the War. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” The drama of history as it is unfolded for us. The very volatile, insecure nature of our contemporary world. How is the Christian—whether he is Arab or Jew in conversion, whether he is living in Kuala Lumpur or whether he is living in Cairo or whether he is living in Cleveland—how are the Christians to navigate this world? In light of the unfolding truth of God that this kingdom will never come to an end.

But I must come to an end, because my time is gone. Tonight, when we come to chapter 3, we will be immediately confronted by the big change between the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3. The story ends in chapter 2 with Nebuchadnezzar falling on his face and paying homage to Daniel. Chapter 3 begins with him building a huge, big image so that other people would bow down to it.

What do we learn? Well, we learn at least this: that it is possible to have an encounter as Nebuchadnezzar had, to make an impressive response to the revelation of God’s majesty, and yet never to be changed. Like Herod: he loved to listen to John the Baptist, and he did many things, but he wasn’t changed.[17]

Only God can soften hard hearts, only God can open blind eyes, and only God can change us from the inside out.

Have you been changed by the gospel? Can I just ask you? It’s possible to be charmed but not changed. There are people who come here because they’re charmed by the sound of the preacher’s voice, who are charmed by whatever it might be, but not changed. Nebuchadnezzar fell down and worshipped the preacher and got up on his feet and built a monument to himself. That’s why when we pray before we open the Bible, we remind ourselves that only God can soften hard hearts, only God can open blind eyes, and only God can change us from the inside out. And the reason that we study the Bible together is not so that we might have just a better grasp of Daniel chapter 2 but in order that we might have a life-changing encounter with the God who wrote the Bible. That’s the whole point. And I call you today as Jesus called on his day: “The time is fulfilled, … the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe [the good news].”[18] That’s what to do.

Father, thank you that your Word rewards our study and investigation, that you haven’t brought us into some mindless encounter with yourself. Our very praise is rational; it engages our minds. We sing because of what is true; we don’t sing to make it true. Lord, save us from being charmed by anything, especially if it prevents us from being changed by the power of your truth. Accomplish your purposes today in our lives, we pray, and in us as a church, that we might affirm these truths and live in the light of them. For we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

[1] Andrew Lloyd Webber, “The Music of the Night” (1986).

[2] P. F. Sloan, “Eve of Destruction” (1965).

[3] See Matthew 2:16.

[4] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, vol. 1, Human Nature (London: Nisbet, 1941), 201.

[5] Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, pt. 2, chap. 24. Paraphrased.

[6] Maurice Gibb, Robin Gibb, and Barry Gibb, “Stayin’ Alive” (1977).

[7] See Psalm 115:4–8; Psalm 135:16–18.

[8] Luke 1:34 (ESV).

[9] Luke 1:32–33 (paraphrased).

[10] Matthew 21:42 (ESV). See also Psalm 118:22.

[11] Matthew 21:44; Luke 20:18 (paraphrased).

[12] Mark 1:15 (ESV).

[13] Matthew 12:28 (ESV).

[14] Acts 2:24 (ESV).

[15] Acts 1:6 (ESV).

[16] Acts 1:8 (paraphrased).

[17] See Mark 6:20.

[18] Mark 1:15 (ESV).