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Daniel 1 - 2

Daniel
DanielSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg discusses the introduction of Daniel and his three friends and their commitment to remaining faithful to their Jewish beliefs while in captivity in Babylon. Despite being ordered to eat food that had been sacrificed to idols, Daniel refused, demonstrating his resolve to maintain his religious convictions. Later, when asked by King Nebuchadnezzar to interpret his dream, Daniel prayed to God for guidance and was able to provide an accurate interpretation. Gregg uses this historical account as an example of how individuals can remain faithful to their beliefs, even in difficult situations.

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Transcript

Let's look at the first chapter of the book of Daniel, where Daniel and his three friends are introduced. We learn of the names of his friends and that they are with him, but we mostly do not read further about them after chapter 1, except in chapter 3, when they become the featured heroes of the story. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
But we do learn in chapter 1 that these four men, together with others, were selected from among the captives that Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylon to be specially trained and honored with certain rank among the counselors and the wise men of Babylon. And we read of it, beginning at verse 1, In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Now we don't read of this siege really anywhere in the historical books of the Bible.
Although Daniel is a historical book, that is, it's a historically accurate book, and therefore it tells us of it. We know of two other sieges, the one in 597, where Jehoiakim was taken captive, and the one in 586, where Jerusalem was destroyed. The historical books of the Old Testament mention those two, but not this one.
Daniel mentions this one, but not the other two. But this is the only one that really affected Daniel directly, personally, in that he was taken captive in 605 B.C. by this early siege. Jehoiakim apparently was overwhelmed, but not overthrown, by Nebuchadnezzar.
And so Nebuchadnezzar was able to have his way and come into Jerusalem and make Jehoiakim a vassal, and was able to take what he wanted. It says, The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, that is, into Nebuchadnezzar's hand, with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his God. And he brought the articles into the treasure house of his God.
These articles that he took away later become the things that his successor, Belshazzar, misuses. And he takes these articles that were taken from the temple in Jerusalem and uses them to toast the gods of the heathen religions. And this is the thing that Belshazzar is found doing at the time when God writes on the wall the doom of Belshazzar and his kingdom.
And later, within hours, Belshazzar was dead and the kingdom had fallen to the Persians. These articles from the temple were being profaned by Belshazzar. Now, Nebuchadnezzar does not necessarily show great disrespect to them.
He just takes them with him and puts them into storage in the house of his God. And he brought the articles into the treasure house of his God. Then the king instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel and some of the king's descendants and some of the nobles, young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the language and the literature of the Chaldeans.
Now, Ashpenaz is said to be the master of the king's eunuchs. This word in the original language is the word rabseris, and we've actually encountered that term untranslated just as a proper noun, rabseris, in Jeremiah and in some of the historical books, one of the officers of Nebuchadnezzar. And he is here said to be in charge of the eunuchs.
Now, eunuchs were people who were given responsibility under the king, and in order to keep them devoted to one task and not be distracted, they were often castrated and made to be eunuchs. This was often, of course, was universally the case with those who were keeping the king's harem. You know, the men who were taking care of the wives had to be safe in the sense that they would not be taking advantage of those wives, so they were made into eunuchs.
But also people who had other responsibilities at court and under the king would often be castrated just because it has a tendency to focus you on your work more and many of you know how distracting the opposite sex can be even when you're trying to focus on anything. And so this man was in charge of the people who were made eunuchs, and that would suggest that Daniel, who was one of the ones chosen, probably became a eunuch. Daniel and his friends.
We do not read anywhere of Daniel having a wife. We read specifically of Ezekiel having a wife and Isaiah having a wife and Hosea having a wife. We read that Jeremiah did not have a wife, which is unusual, but it was mentioned as a special case.
But Daniel, the whole issue of a wife doesn't even come up for consideration. It doesn't say he didn't get married under the command of God. It doesn't say he did get married.
He never has children that are mentioned, and therefore he in all likelihood was a eunuch, and likewise his friends also. This man was the one instructed by the king to find suitable people to be brought into this kind of service. And so it says, from among those, verse 6, of the sons of Judah, were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
These are all Hebrew names. To them the chief of the eunuchs gave Babylonian names. He gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar.
To Hananiah he gave the name Shadrach. To Mishael the name Meshach. And Azariah, Abednego.
Now the names of these men in Hebrew incorporate the word El, which is God, or Yahweh, which is, of course, the name of the Hebrew God. The names that are given to them incorporate the names of Babylonian gods in some cases. Certainly the name given to Daniel, Belteshazzar, comes from the name Bel, a Babylonian deity.
And so also Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have allusions to deities of the Babylonians in their names. You might say this was done to humiliate them, but it was not necessarily so. And we don't read that these men had any objection to going by these names.
Although Daniel is usually referred to as Daniel after this, the other three men are referred to by their Babylonian names. This is not likely to be viewed as a compromise on their part, since Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are depicted in chapter 3 as men who are very much unwilling to compromise on any matter of conscience, even willing to be thrown into the fire furnace rather than to do so. So it must not have been considered to be a turning from Yahweh or a disloyalty to him to allow these names to be given to them.
The giving of names to people is mainly a way that someone would show their authority over them. Adam gave names to the animals, showing his authority over them. God gave a new name to Abram and to Jacob and to others, to Simon Peter.
This is simply an exercise of authority, and naming somebody is the privilege of someone in authority. Parents name their children, for example. So to give someone a new name just speaks to the fact that they have now come under your authority and you can give them a new name if you want to.
Daniel and these three men were very uncompromising men, as we shall see, although they did not apparently consider it a compromise to go by these names, although Daniel himself does not seem to go by the name Belteshazzar. He is later referred to by the Babylonians and Persians as Belteshazzar, but he doesn't call himself that in the book. But the other men, Daniel does refer to them by those names, so the names are apparently interchangeable.
After they receive a second name, they still could call themselves by their old name, and Daniel does that. The other men do not. Not on record, anyway.
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now, as it turns out, that Daniel's resolve extends to his friends as well.
But it doesn't sound like it's saying that all three of these men made this resolve. It sounds like Daniel is the spiritual leader among them. He resolved that he would not be defiled and apparently inspired his friends the same way.
It seems like since it's been mentioning all three of them, it would just say, they resolved that they would not. But it specifically singles out Daniel as the man who had made a decision, although a young man at the time, that though he was surrounded by paganism and though he would be under pressure to conform to pagan ways, there was a line that he would not cross. And it's hard to know exactly what that line was.
That may be why he didn't call himself Belteshazzar in the book. He wouldn't even cross that line, perhaps, whereas the others would. In this case, the line he would not cross is to defile himself with foods that he as a Jew should not eat.
Now, what it is about these foods, we're not told. That makes it wrong for him to eat them. It may be that they were this remnants of meat sacrificed to idols.
And to say that Daniel wouldn't eat meat sacrificed to idols is a possibility, although that's really – it's kind of anachronistic. That became an issue to the Jews at a later time. In the New Testament time, that was a big issue to Christians, whether they could eat meat sacrificed to idols or not.
But nothing in the law said you could not eat the meat sacrificed to idols, but it did say you couldn't participate in idolatry. So if an animal was sacrificed to an idol and its remnants were sold in the marketplace and you ate it, you weren't necessarily participating in idolatry, but some Jews might have felt like that's getting too close to it. They wanted to distance themselves more from idols, and they wouldn't eat meat that was the remnants of an animal sacrificed to idols, which was a common kind of meat to buy in the public market.
It's possible that the meat was simply the wrong sort. That is, it might have been pork. The Babylonians ate pork, but the Jews did not, and it may be that the Babylonians simply didn't keep a kosher kitchen.
It's also been suggested that what Daniel was rejecting was the portions that were sent from the king's table to him. And although all servants of a king would be expected to be fed, to have specific items, delicacies from the king's table sent to them would suggest the king is doing them a special favor, which if they receive it, they are in a sense beholden to the king. To receive such special favors would give them some kind of obligation to always do what the king wants.
Of course, people had an obligation to always do what the king wants anyway, but by receiving his special favors, it might be used against them if they ever stood against the king about anything. Well, why do you receive these favors from the king, but you're not loyal to him? There's no consensus as to what it was about the king's food or receiving it that made it a matter of conscience to Daniel that it would be defiling for him to eat it. The important thing is that it was viewed by him as a compromise, and it was a compromise he was not willing to make.
And it says, now God had brought Daniel into the favor and the goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear my lord the king who has appointed your food and drink, for why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are of your age? Then you would endanger my head before the king. That is, he's afraid that if they would only eat vegetables, which is what Daniel wished to do so that he would not eat any defiled meat, that he might not be as healthy as a result.
He might become more gaunt, more lean, and that would not be considered to be a good sign of health and thriving. And if the king checked in on these men and saw that some of them were not well fed or were not thriving in the king's sight, the man who was put in charge of them, this captain chief of the eunuchs, would be his head. He'd be accused of not really handling his responsibility properly, not feeding these people well.
And it wouldn't do much good to say, well, they requested this. I don't think the king of Babylon would say, well, oh, if they didn't want to eat what I sent them, then no wonder. Of course.
I mean, I think the king would say, well, who are you going to obey, me or them? These are prisoners. So the man really feared that the king would take his head or his life if it turned out that he seemed negligent in feeding these people. So Daniel said to the steward, whom the chief of the eunuchs had sent over, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for ten days and let them give vegetables to drink and water to drink and let our countenances be examined before you and the countenances of the young men who eat the portion of the king's delicacies.
And as you see fit, so deal with your servants. Now, they were supposed to be in a three-year training program, which would mean that the king would not probably see them for the next three years. So a ten-day trial wouldn't hurt anything.
Let's give it a try and see what happens. Ten days, if we don't look good, there's plenty of time to fatten us up before the king has to see us. So the man was favorable toward them and decided to agree with that.
And verse 14, so he consented with them in this matter and tested them ten days. At the end of ten days, their countenance appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies. Thus the steward took away their portion of the delicacies and the wine that they were to drink and gave them vegetables.
Now, a lot of people who are vegetarians bring this story up and say you see how much healthier it is just to eat vegetables and not to eat meat because after ten days they were much healthier, much fatter in flesh and all the signs of robust good health, much more so than those who were eating the meat. So that's proof that we shouldn't really eat meat. We should just eat vegetables.
Well, that wasn't Daniel's conviction. Daniel was not a vegetarian. He just didn't want to defile himself with food that was not proper for him to eat.
The Jews were allowed to eat meat. They were clean and unclean animals. They could eat the clean ones and they did.
In fact, part of their religious ceremonies involved roasting and eating lamb. They had to eat meat in order to fulfill the obligations of their religion. But Daniel, of course, wouldn't be keeping Passover in Babylon.
He didn't have family. He was not in the Holy Land. There would be no reason to be keeping the Passover, and therefore he wouldn't have to eat meat.
He could go vegetables because that would mean he doesn't ever have to eat defiled meat. That's the same conviction that some Christians in Rome had, apparently Jewish Christians. In Romans 14, Paul says that one man will eat all things.
Another man who's got a weaker conscience will eat only vegetables. Now that doesn't mean that vegetarianism was a major viewpoint held in the early church, but rather probably that Jewish Christians living in Rome and not finding it always easy to make sure that the meat they bought was from a kosher butcher simply found it better to not eat any meat at all, to avoid the possibility of eating meat that the blood had not been properly drained from, as the Jews require, or meat that had been sacrificed to idols, which was commonly sold, just to make sure. They'd just avoid all meat, not because they were against eating meat, but they were taking no chances about eating the wrong kind of meat.
That's probably Daniel's position here, too. He was not against eating meat. The fact that they were healthier at the end of ten days may or may not be a result of their diet.
I think in this case there's a possibility that we should understand that their good health was the provision of God, which God arranged so that they would be allowed to continue to remain pure, just as there are many other supernatural provisions of God in the book of Daniel, including keeping them alive in a fiery furnace or in a lion's den. We're not told this was a miracle, but it may have been. Eating vegetables alone does not in itself make a person fatter and fuller in flesh than eating meat does, so it could well be that this is not even being presented to us as a superior diet for health and for flourishing health, but it's really something where God honored their desire to remain uncorrupted.
As for these four young men, God gave them knowledge and skill in all the literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. So all of them were fast learners. They became fluent in the language and conversant in the literature of the Babylonians, but Daniel apparently was the only one of them that really had this ability to interpret dreams and visions.
Now, at the end of days, when the king had said that they should be brought in, which presumably is after three years of training, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. Then the king interviewed them, and among them all, none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore, they served before the king.
Now, this is the last time those three men are called by those names. They'll be called by the Babylonian names in the future, I believe. I don't think there's any more times they're called Mishael, Azariah, and Hananiah.
And so they served before the king. It says, in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them, he found them to be ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in all his realm. Thus Daniel continued until the first year of King Cyrus, which is, of course, a very long time after this.
From 602 B.C.—that's three years of training—to 539 B.C. We're talking 64 years or something like that. So his career serving the kings was like over 60 years long. Now, this was because the main feature of Chapter 1 was to point out that Daniel and these men had a conscience that they would not violate.
And this becomes an issue a number of times in the later stories, of course, especially that of the fiery furnace and of the lion's den. That they are under pressure on pain of death to make compromises that they, in their conscience, cannot approve. And that they would remain pure, even facing death, when they're really being asked to do something that society wouldn't consider to be that strange or that compromising.
I mean, to bow down to an image, everybody did that, except good Jews. But the culture must have thought it was very strange for them to resist doing something like that, especially when their necks were on the line. But they were going to keep their distinctives.
They were part of a counterculture, a Jewish counterculture in Babylon, and they were going to continue to bear witness through their lives to the distinction between the Jewish way and the pagan way. And they managed to do this, as it says in verse 8, because Daniel purposed in his heart. And that phrase is something I don't want us to pass over too quickly without considering, because it speaks of a determination, a purposing that I think many Christians don't have.
I think most people don't have a purpose at all. I think most people just flow with what's going on. I don't know that many people enter their day daily with the idea that I have a purpose.
I've determined that this is what I'm going to do and this is what I'm not going to do. Most people have general values and ethics, and they sometimes find themselves coming up against situations where their ethics have to kick in, and they'll be faithful to them. Other times, not so much.
But a lot of people just play it by ear. Whereas Daniel had something that governed his life, and that was a purpose that he had set in his heart. I am going to live in Babylon probably the rest of my life, but I'm not going to be corrupted by it.
I'm going to maintain the same values, the same ethics, the same norms that I would do if I was at home worshipping at the temple among my Jewish family and so forth. Although he didn't have any of those people there keeping him accountable, his heart was accountable before God, and therefore he made a determination. A lot of times we don't realize that we can do that.
We can just make a determination. I'm not going to sin in this way. I'm not going to succumb to these practices that everyone's pressuring me to do.
To think that you are in fact in charge of these decisions is something that's foreign to many people's minds. Some people just think, well, what can I do? I'm not happy here. What can I do? I mean, I was under pressure.
That's what Aaron did when they said, hey, let's make a golden calf. So Aaron did, and when Moses confronted Aaron, he said, well, what can I do? They pressured me. I feared the people.
That's what Saul said when he didn't obey Samuel, and he didn't kill all the Amalekites. He said, the people. I was scared of the people.
They said we should keep these animals to sacrifice the Lord, which the Lord said we should kill on the field, but I just feared the people. In other words, there's people who seem to think that's an excuse. I could have done the right thing, but people didn't want me to.
I was under pressure. Well, that's how most religious people are. Saul was a religious man.
In fact, what he got in trouble with was making a sacrifice, saving animals to offer a sacrifice. That's a religious thing. Aaron did a religious thing.
He made an image and led people in the worship of Yahweh using an image. Neither of those things were the right thing to do, but they did them under pressure, and religious people often conform to wrong behavior that they should know better and maybe do know better than to do. But to them, being under pressure from other people, from society or whatever, it makes an excuse.
It's my excuse. I wouldn't have done it myself, but my friends made me do it. My friends were threatening me or were inducing me.
I was tempted by them. Well, so what? If you had been like Daniel, determined in your heart not to do what is wrong, it wouldn't matter how much pressure people put upon you. Daniel and his friends were put under a great deal of pressure, but they had a resolve.
That is what every person living in a pagan world needs to have, and that is that no matter how much the pagan world may think it's wrong, think it's strange, no matter how much my friends even are compromised and want me to compromise, I've determined in my heart I'm not going to go there. And so we are told in the first chapter why it is that we see the uncompromising behavior of these men, not only in this occasion but in chapters that follow too. Now, chapter 2 isn't one of those chapters where we read of their uncompromising behavior, but it's a chapter where we record an example of Daniel's proficiency that was mentioned earlier in interpreting dreams and visions, a special gift that Daniel had.
Chapter 1, verse 17 says, and it says, Now we're going to find before this story is over that Daniel is called in to Nebuchadnezzar, not first but last, but once he is there, he makes such an impression that he remains before Nebuchadnezzar. Yet in chapter 1, we read that they were brought before the king after three years of training, but this is the second year of King Nebuchadnezzar. How do we harmonize this? Chapter 1 indicates that in the first year of King Nebuchadnezzar, these men were set aside for a three-year training program.
And chapter 1 says that at the end of that time, at the end of three years, they were brought before Nebuchadnezzar, and the impression is that this is the first time they saw him, because he interviewed them and found them to be wiser, ten times wiser than all their fellows in the same training program that they'd been through. They were at the head of their class. But this is now the second year of Nebuchadnezzar, and at the end of this story, Daniel seems to be not only introduced to Nebuchadnezzar, but kind of continuing to serve in the presence of Nebuchadnezzar.
So there seems to be a conflict here. Some people think that this dream called Daniel out of his training prematurely, but again, that doesn't seem to agree with the wording of the end of chapter 1. What was suggested in one commentary, I believe it was Adam Clark's commentary, he said that Nebuchadnezzar reigned the first two years of his reign while his father lived as a sort of co-regent with his father. But his father's death then was the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar's reign as a singular ruler, and that this was the second year of that reign.
In other words, the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign was after Daniel had already been taken, and this would be actually like the year 600, like five years after Daniel was taken into captivity. This is what is suggested. This may be the answer.
When it says the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, it may mean his sole reign after his father's death, when he's no longer sharing the throne. We'll go with that, since I don't know a better solution. So this would be after the three years of training, and probably after another year or so of just serving among the other wise men, but not necessarily in the same privileged capacity that he would after this story.
So Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. It woke him up. He was so troubled, but he could not remember what the dream was, or at least he claimed that he could not.
Either he could not, or he was just testing the wise men to see if they knew anything. He claimed that he couldn't remember what it was. Then the king gave the command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams.
So they came and stood before the king, and the king said to them, I have had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic. O king, live forever.
By the way, this chapter is written in Aramaic. Chapters 2 through 7 are. O king, live forever.
Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation. The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, My decision is firm. If you do not make known the dream to me and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made in ash heap.
Now this declaration was not carried out because things changed, but this is an example of the fact that the kings of Babylon could make a decree like this and then withdraw it. The kings of Persia could not, which is why Darius had to throw Daniel into the lion's den. However, if you tell me the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts, rewards, and great honor.
Therefore, tell me the dream and its interpretation. And they answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will give its interpretation. The king answered and said, I know for certain that you would gain time, because you see that my decision is firm.
If you do not make known the dream to me, there is only one decree for you, for you have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the time has changed. Therefore, tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can give me its interpretation. Now this is a reasonably fair thing for him to ask.
He has wakened from a dream that he intuitively knows is important. The meaning of it is very important. He probably remembers the dream, but he's testing them to see if they can give it, because that would be truly supernatural if they could.
He wants an authoritative answer, not someone faking authority. Anyone can hear a dream and assign some kind of meaning to it, and if they're very clever, they can sound very profound. But how would you ever know if they really were divinely inspired? How would you know if they were really getting it right? Well, in this case, he wanted some proof that they really had the goods, that they really were more than just charlatans.
If they had supernatural insight into things, let them gain knowledge of what the dream was through that kind of insight, and if they could do that, it would be obvious he could trust their interpretation as well. It's interesting that when we think about dreams, the Bible does say that dreams are a means by which God reveals things to people. God said, if I raise up a prophet in Israel, I will reveal myself through a dream or a vision.
Even in Acts 2, when the spirit was poured out, Peter said, this is what Joel said, that God would pour out his spirit in the last days, and his sons and daughters would prophesy, and his old men should see dreams, and the young men should see visions. So dreams and visions are a part of God's way of revealing things, both in the Old Testament and the New. Peter and Paul both had dreams and visions by which God spoke to them, and so did, of course, Joseph and Daniel and others.
And yet, the Bible does not imply that every time you have a dream, it's God speaking. I say, well, how would I know the difference? That is a good question, because some dreams are just silly, and other dreams seem profound. And how do you know which ones really are, you know, maybe God's trying to tell you something? My view is that in the vast majority of cases, a dream is not related to any revelation from God at all.
I think there's many sources of dreams. I'm sure something you ate, something you were thinking about, something you're worried about can create the content of dreams. It's even possible that the devil can torment you in dreams, it seems to me.
I've known cases where that seemed to be the case. It's also the case that God can speak in dreams. Dreams may have any number of sources, but my impression is that only on fairly rare occasions are dreams really from God.
But how would you know? I will say that I can't really answer from the Bible about that, except for this case and the case of Pharaoh. These men had dreams that, as it turned out, were from God, and they sensed it when they woke up. When they woke up, they realized that was not just a bad dream, that was an important dream.
I need to call for all my counselors to tell me what it means. Pharaoh did the same thing back in the days of Joseph, and Nebuchadnezzar did it here. These men woke up from dreams, and they didn't just say, Boy, that was a weird dream.
They woke up with this sense. I need to know what this means. This is something important.
I, myself, have had only a very few dreams that I would say were anything God was giving me. There's been about three in my lifetime, I think, possibly four. But I know each of them actually communicated to me something I didn't know about somebody that I needed to know that was very important.
It's life-changing information for me. It had to do with the direction of my ministry and my life. It had to do with revealing something about somebody else that I had no suspicions about.
In the dream, they were doing something that I would never, in my waking hours, have even suspected that they would do. When I confronted them, it turned out it was right. In these cases, I had to say, Well, I think God is the one who showed this to me.
In each of those cases, I kind of knew in advance, before I confirmed it, that it was from God. I woke up really disturbed. It's a very subjective thing.
But I wake up every night from having had dreams that don't— I sometimes think that was a weird dream, that was a bad dream, or I just don't even remember what the dream was, but I'm pretty sure I had some kind of dream, just not important. But on very, very few occasions, I woke up and just felt this, like waking up in a cold sweat, because it was so vivid and important and turned out to be true. I can relate then with Nebuchadnezzar in that respect.
Most of my dreams are not special. Most of my dreams are not from God. But the few that I believe have been, you know it when you wake up.
In fact, they wake you up. It's like you know it even in the dream. As soon as you wake up, God is telling you, This is not a regular dream.
This is something that God is communicating. Nebuchadnezzar, who didn't even know God, had that sense. And so he didn't want some—if he had a dream from the other side, some supernatural source revealing something, he didn't want any fakes or charlatans giving him phony interpretations.
So he wanted to make sure that they really had access to supernatural knowledge, in fact. And so tell me what the dream is. That will prove that I can trust what you say when you tell me what it means.
Verse 10 says, The Chaldeans answered the king and said, There is not a man on earth who can tell the king's matter. Therefore, no king, lord, or ruler has ever asked such things of any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean. Well, that may be true, but Nebuchadnezzar was not the kind of man to be rebuked by his servants.
They said, It's a difficult thing that the king requires, and there is no one who can tell it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. For this reason, the king was angry and very furious, and he gave a command to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. So the decree went out, and they began killing the wise men, and they sought Daniel and his companions to kill them.
Now, it sounds like some of the wise men actually were executed before Daniel was apprised of it. The king probably had perhaps hundreds or thousands of wise men on a list of people he could call. He decided to get rid of them all.
He was so disappointed, so disillusioned with them. On a matter so important, they couldn't really show that they had any authority to speak at all. But, of course, the messengers came to Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
They were apparently living together, and the soldiers came to the house to arrest them, to kill them. And it says, Then with counsel, verse 14, and wisdom, Daniel answered Ariok, the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. He answered and said to Ariok, the king's captain, Why is the decree of the king so urgent? Then Ariok made the decision known to Daniel.
So Daniel went in and asked the king to give him time that he might tell the king the interpretation. Now, it seemed like Daniel already had some kind of station, as he did at the end of chapter 1, where he's recognized as being among the wisest, ten times wiser than others in the kingdom and serving the king. Therefore, Ariok, of course, seems to, in a sense, defer to him.
He says, Give me a little time, and I'll go talk to the king about this. It sounds like Daniel was someone who had the king's ear, had an audience with the king when he wanted it. And here's a man sent to arrest him, to kill him, and he can talk the guy out of it for a bit.
Here, give me a break here for a little bit. You can kill me if I can't work this out with the king. I mean, to be able to negotiate with the soldier who's come to execute you suggests that you're a respected man in that society already, and I believe Daniel probably was.
He was able to go in to talk to the king and make a request. Not everyone could just do that. So Daniel went and asked the king to give him time that he might tell the king the interpretation.
Then Daniel went to his house and made the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions. I'm sorry, they are called that again. It's not until chapter 3 they're called by their Babylonian names.
My mistake. And that they might seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning this secret, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision.
So Daniel blessed God, the God of heaven, and Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.
I thank you and praise you, O God of my fathers. 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 demand.
So Daniel, of course, praises God for his sovereignty being over all things. He's the one who gives wisdom to people who have wisdom. He's the one who raises up kings and brings them down.
That neither Nebuchadnezzar nor the wise men have anything that God has not given them, and God has complete control, but God has, in fact, in this case, given Daniel and his friends through him the answer that would save their lives. So, therefore, Daniel went to Ariok, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. And he went and said thus to him, Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon.
Take me before the king, and I will tell the king of the interpretation. Then Ariok quickly brought Daniel before the king, knowing that he had found the goose that lays the golden egg and would probably get rewarded by the king for discovering somebody who could meet the king's demands when no one seemed able to do so. He quickly brought Daniel before the king and said thus to him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah who will make known to the king the interpretation.
The king entered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation? And Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, The secret which the king has demanded, the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king. But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head upon your bed were these.
Now notice he said these are things that would happen in the latter days. Because some Bible readers think the latter days means the end times, the end of the world, they have felt that this dream is supposed to extend to the end of the world and tell us things about the end times. But latter times or latter days just means times later than those in which the people are living.
A future time. In the latter days is just a phrase that means in the future. And these things were to take place in the future, but not necessarily at the end of the world.
He says, Here's your dream. Verse 29. As for you, O king, thoughts came to your mind while you were on your bed about what would come to pass after this.
And he who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be. So he's not only going to be able to tell him his dream, he was able to tell him what he was thinking about before he went to sleep. When you're on your bed, ready to go to sleep, you were wondering what's going to happen in the future.
And that's what the dream is about. But as for me, the secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living. But for our sakes, who make known the interpretation of the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart.
So he says, I'm not really that smart. I mean, he was. He was the smartest probably man in Babylon.
But he says, It's not because I'm smart. It's because God cared to save our lives. Because God is on our side.
He gave me this information so we wouldn't be executed. You, O king, were watching, and behold, a great image, or a statue. This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you, and its form was awesome.
This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on the feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found.
And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king.
You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power and strength and glory. And wherever the children of men dwell or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, he has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all.
You are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, which will be the chest of silver, then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. Now, over all the earth is, of course, not over the planet earth, but over the whole civilized world known to them at the time.
It's a hyperbole, but it's still the case that virtually every land that was within reach had been conquered by Babylon, and the next kingdoms would rule over the same domains, would inherit them from Babylon. There would be another kingdom that's inferior to his, and then a third one that's of bronze. And the fourth kingdom, which is the legs of iron, shall be as strong as iron inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters all things.
And like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. Whereas you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with the ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
As you saw, iron mixed with the ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seat of men, and they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. Now, we'll talk about the meaning of the dream, but let's finish the chapter out first.
Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face prostrate before Daniel and commanded that they should present an offering of incense to him. We do not read that Daniel accepted this. We know that Cornelius acted similarly toward Peter, and Peter said, Get up, you know, I'm a man like you.
We don't hear of Daniel rebuking the king here, but that doesn't mean that Daniel approved of what the king did. The king answered Daniel and said, Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, the revealer of secrets, since you could reveal this secret. So obviously Nebuchadnezzar recognized the dream as the one that he had had, and that's what was most astonishing to him.
And then he could trust the interpretation. You know, I've always been suspicious of people who say they have a word from the Lord, for me or not. I mean, I'm not saying people don't ever have the word of the Lord.
I'm just saying I'm always suspicious about it. People often, I've lived long enough to hear people say God told me this or God told me that or someone says I have a word from the Lord for you, and they're just speaking their own opinion. And yet I believe there is such a thing as the genuine prophetic gift, and I just wish there would be fewer people who claim to be speaking from God when they're not so we could be more aware of who to trust.
God knows my suspicions about that, and there was a time when a man did have a true word for me. It was in Santa Cruz when I was at Calvary Chapel, and I was in an elders' meeting at one of the elders' houses, and the phone rang, and there was a guy in the church who called. And he was a guy that I knew by name, but I didn't know very well.
I didn't know him personally. I had never spent time with him. But I knew that he gave prophecies in the church occasionally.
Now I've been in charismatic churches for years and heard prophecies probably maybe hundreds of times over the years, and many of them I never knew what to think of. An awful lot of prophecies, my first impression is this is just a guy blowing smoke. He doesn't really have a word from the Lord.
I can't always tell, of course, but the Bible says prophecies need to be judged. But every time I heard this particular guy, his name was Gary, every time he spoke a prophecy, I remember though I didn't know him, I thought that word, that makes sense that the Lord would say that. I mean it sounded like a genuine prophecy as near as I could tell.
I wasn't going to stake my life on it. But I never heard him hit a blank or hit a dud. He always seemed to have some credibility when he prophesied.
And by the way, people prophesying in a Calvary Chapel is not that common. Calvary Chapels usually don't encourage a lot of manifestation of gifts in their service. But our church didn't forbid it, and he spoke from time to time.
And this is the man who called me at an elders meeting. And again, I don't know if I'd ever had a conversation with him. He knew me because I was an elder and the worship leader at the church, but I didn't really know him.
And he called, he asked for me, and he said, Steve, I have a word from the Lord for you and a scripture for you. And as soon as he said, I have a scripture for you, the actual text that he was going to give me came to my head. And it took him a while to come up with it.
It didn't take me a while. Immediately, Joshua 1.9 came to my head, that number, Joshua 1.9. He said, I have a scripture for you. It could have been any scripture in the whole Bible, but very clearly in my head I heard Joshua 1.9. And it took him a while to find it.
He started looking it up, and I was just wondering, is it by any chance the verse that came to my head? Turned out it was. And then I was ready to listen to what he had to say, because he had this scripture for me, he said, and then he had a prophetic word for me. Well, the prophetic word he gave turned out to be good, too.
But I was much more willing to accept his prophetic word because I had been given some kind of a, seemed to me a supernatural confirmation this guy did have something for me. Because when he said, I have a scripture, it's like God told me what the scripture was, and then he confirmed it. And so that made me all ears.
There's already some kind of a sign I was given that this was going to be a word for me. And that's how it was with Nebuchadnezzar when Daniel could give the actual dream. I mean, Nebuchadnezzar was all ears then.
He knew, okay, whatever the interpretation this guy gives has got to be the right one because he's operating through supernatural inspiration here. And so the king promoted Daniel, verse 48, and gave him many great gifts, and he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon. Not king, really, but the chief administrator over all the wise men of Babylon.
Also, Daniel petitioned the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the provinces of Babylon, but Daniel sat in the gate of the king. So Daniel had a powerful position of making judgments and so forth in the gate, which is where the judges sat and things were decided. He was given a lot of authority, sort of like Joseph was by Pharaoh.
When Pharaoh recognized that God could speak to Joseph, he made him second in command. And I don't know that Daniel is here made second in command, but he certainly has made a high-ranking official in Babylon at this point, which, of course, he remained to be a high-ranking official in Babylon for presumably the rest of his life, although it was later in Persia when the Persians conquered Babylon. It's interesting that he was the kind of man who could make the transition.
Usually when one kingdom falls to another, the important people in the kingdom that fell are killed and replaced by the new king's choices. But Daniel actually made the transition safely. He apparently was an impressive man.
The Persians didn't want to get rid of him, even though he had served the previous kingdom. Now, what about this vision of this dream? There's this image. There's not much action initially.
It's just a description of the image, but then there's some action at the end. The image is a metal image, apparently a human image. It has a human head of gold.
The chest is of silver. The belly is of bronze. The legs are of iron.
The feet are of a mixture of iron and clay. Then the only action in the vision is a stone, which is said to be cut without hands. That's not of a human origin.
Unlike gold, silver, bronze, and iron, they have to be smelted. They have to be shaped by man. This stone had no human workmen upon it.
It was of divine origin, not human origin. It struck the image in the feet, collapsed the image, grew into a great mountain to fill the earth, thus crushing all the metals of that image into dust, which was then blown away by the wind like chaff from the threshing floor. That is the vision.
Now, when Daniel gives the interpretation, he makes it very clear. This is a vision of future history. Because he says, in Epic of Nebuchadnezzar, you're the head of gold.
After you, there's going to be another nation, inferior to you, that's the chest of silver, and the third one after that, the bronze. Obviously, what he's saying is, as you look at this image from top to toe, you're moving forward in history. That the head is the most current.
The toes are the most distant in the future. So you've got sort of a timeline registered on this image. As you move from head to toe, you're moving forward into the future.
The Babylonian Empire is the head of gold, but another empire, inferior, would conquer them and rule after them. That was the Persian Empire under Cyrus. That was the chest of silver.
Then the belly of bronze would be the kingdom that would conquer the Persians. That would be Alexander the Great and the Grecians. Then the legs of iron would be the Roman Empire.
We know this, not because Daniel says so, but because that's how history played out. Babylon was conquered by Media Persia, Media Persia conquered by the Greeks, and the Greeks conquered by the Romans. There are some who say it's not that.
They say, no, the chest of silver is the Medes, and the belly of bronze is the Persians, and the legs of iron are the Greeks. In other words, they divide up the Medes and the Persians into two successive empires, and then they leave out the Roman Empire. Now, why do they do that? Because then one could suggest that this was written after the time of Alexander the Great, but before the Roman Empire arose.
Someone writing it knowing about the Grecian Empire, but not about the Roman Empire. You see, no one could argue that it was written after the rise of the Roman Empire. I mean, Palestine was conquered by the Romans, what, 63 B.C. or 70 B.C., somewhere like that.
I mean, that's so near the time of Christ. If someone wanted to argue that Daniel wrote after that time, then that's ridiculous. No one would argue that Daniel was written that late.
It was already a book in the Bible before that. So the idea that Daniel could have written this during the Greek Empire, that is, after Alexander the Great, would still be possible if it was in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, which was later than that. But Daniel could never, no one living at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes could know the Roman Empire was going to rise.
So the argument is that this dream doesn't really anticipate the Roman Empire, it anticipates the Greek Empire as the latest, and therefore the two in the middle, the silver and the bronze, are Media and Persia. The only problem here is that the Media and Persian empires never had separate kingdoms. Media and Persia joined into one empire under Cyrus before Babylon fell.
So it can't be said that the Medes conquered Babylon and then the Persians later conquered the Medes, as this suggestion would make it. Rather, the Medes and the Persians were one empire. They were the chest of silver.
The belly of bronze then would be Alexander's kingdom and the legs of iron, the Roman Empire. And that makes sense because it says in verse 44, in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. So the kingdom of God would be set up while these kings were still reigning, while this image was still standing, in other words.
The last named kingdom would be that of the legs of iron, which is the Roman Empire. Now, as you go down the legs to the feet, there's a mixture of iron and clay, but the legs of iron are still there. It's just getting more brittle.
It's just intermingling with weakness, and so it is subject to collapse. But the setting up of the kingdom of God, we know from the New Testament, occurred when Jesus arrived. Jesus came during the time that the Roman Empire was in power and therefore fulfilled this vision.
He established his kingdom, and his kingdom was like a stone that has ever since been growing into a great mountain to fill the whole earth. Through the preaching of the gospel, the kingdom of God has expanded from its humble beginnings in the time of the Roman Empire, when Jesus established it, to the present time where it has become a great government or mountain, a great kingdom that fills the whole world. Jesus is worshipped and followed by people of every nation and kindred and tongue.
So this stone has grown into a great mountain in fulfillment of this prophecy. That's the simple interpretation, and we need look for no other. However, you may be aware that the more popular interpretation is not the simple one.
The dispensational view, which has held sway in American evangelicalism for over a century now, sees this differently. They agree that we're looking at the Babylonian, Media Persian, Grecian, and Roman Empires. But they believe that the feet are not the ancient Roman Empire.
The feet are a revived Roman Empire in the last days. Why? Because the stone, which is the kingdom of God, is established when the stone hits the feet. Now, dispensationalists believe that the kingdom of God has been postponed.
They don't believe Jesus established the kingdom when he was here. They believe he intended to, but because the Jews rejected him, it got postponed, and he will establish the kingdom at his second coming, and that will be the millennial kingdom. So the stone, in dispensational reckoning, is the second coming of Christ, and since it strikes the image in the feet, the feet must be some kind of kingdom existing in the end of the world when Jesus returns.
Therefore, they argue that the Roman Empire, represented by the legs, collapsed, of course, in the 6th century, and it will rise again, a revived Roman Empire, in the last days, so that it can be the feet, that the second coming of Christ will strike in the feet and grow. So, in other words, their assumption is that Jesus did not establish the kingdom at his first coming. He's going to establish it at his second coming.
This requires that the image must extend to the end times, to the second coming of Christ, but it doesn't. There's only four kingdoms mentioned, and the last of them is Rome. So how can it be that it extends to the end times? They say, well, there's a gap here that's not mentioned, at the ankles, approximately.
You know, the legs above the ankles are the Roman Empire in ancient times. Yeah, they admit that fell, but it's not done yet. The Roman Empire is going to continue or revive in the end times as a ten-nation confederacy.
They say the ten toes on the feet represent ten nations. I would point out that there's no mention of there being ten toes in the vision. It does mention the toes.
Presumably, there are ten. It's a human image, but no mention is made of the number of toes, so their number does not seem significant. And after all, there were some giants who had six toes on each foot, too, in the Bible, and we don't know that this was not one of those.
All we know is that the toes' number is not made an issue of. But the problem with the dispensational view, one problem with it, there's more than one, but the one that strikes us immediately is that this image isn't really accurate, because if the dispensational view is correct, the image should have ended at the ankles, and there should have been a large gap, and then the feet should appear, because the feet are a revived Roman Empire in the end times. But there's no suggestion of discontinuity in the vision, and there's no need for it, because Jesus did come and establish his kingdom.
The Bible teaches that very profoundly and very clearly, so there's no need to suggest a postponed kingdom of the Messiah or a postponed Roman Empire represented by the feet that we struck by this stone. Rather, the vision is continuous from Babylon to the kingdom of God. We have, therefore, four secular world empires and then one divine world empire.
So the vision is telling Nebuchadnezzar that he was the first of five remaining world empires that history would know. Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, Roman, then the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God would be the final world empire.
It would conquer all the others, and it would last forever, so it would never be replaced. It's not like the kingdom comes, and then later there's going to be something else. No, the kingdom is the last one.
It lasts forever, and in its career, it consumes all the others. It grinds them to power. It eliminates them.
This, no doubt, is the same thing that Revelation 11, 15 is talking about when it says, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever. No doubt that's a reference to this prediction. So this very early chapter of Daniel presents us with the fact that the Messiah will come, that God will set up a kingdom, and he will reign over the whole world.
We're fortunate enough to live at the end of this period of time, or near the end of it, at least at a very advanced stage, so we have seen who replaced Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar didn't live to see that. Daniel did, but we have seen who replaced Mediapersia.
Daniel didn't live to see that, but we have seen it. The Greeks. Daniel did not live to see Alexander the Great's time, but he predicted it.
Some very specific predictions about it were later in the book of Daniel. Enough, in fact, to impress Alexander and cause him to spare Jerusalem when he came to destroy it. The high priest, Jadua, came out and met him with the book of Daniel and showed him that Daniel had predicted his conquest, though Daniel had lived hundreds of years earlier.
And Alexander was impressed, just like Nebuchadnezzar was impressed here. But Daniel predicts not only the Grecian Empire, which was long after his own time, but also the Roman Empire, which was even much more after his time, and then the coming of Christ, which is the establishment in the first century of the last of the great kingdoms. And the kingdom of God grows at the expense of other kingdoms because when you become a follower of Christ, you have a new king.
And that means your loyalty changes from whatever your loyalty was before to Jesus now. And so the kingdom grows as people defect to Christ from whatever loyalty they had previously. And that is what is described, this growing of this kingdom into a great mountain until it fills the whole earth.
That process has been going on for 2,000 years and is destined, as we read, to be successful. Revelation tells us the same thing. All right, so that's enough for that chapter.
After now, we need to stop, and we'll come back next time to chapter 3.

Series by Steve Gregg

Joel
Joel
Steve Gregg provides a thought-provoking analysis of the book of Joel, exploring themes of judgment, restoration, and the role of the Holy Spirit.
Church History
Church History
Steve Gregg gives a comprehensive overview of church history from the time of the Apostles to the modern day, covering important figures, events, move
When Shall These Things Be?
When Shall These Things Be?
In this 14-part series, Steve Gregg challenges commonly held beliefs within Evangelical Church on eschatology topics like the rapture, millennium, and
2 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
A thought-provoking biblical analysis by Steve Gregg on 2 Thessalonians, exploring topics such as the concept of rapture, martyrdom in church history,
Genesis
Genesis
Steve Gregg provides a detailed analysis of the book of Genesis in this 40-part series, exploring concepts of Christian discipleship, faith, obedience
Ezra
Ezra
Steve Gregg teaches verse by verse through the book of Ezra, providing historical context, insights, and commentary on the challenges faced by the Jew
2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
This series by Steve Gregg is a verse-by-verse study through 2 Corinthians, covering various themes such as new creation, justification, comfort durin
Exodus
Exodus
Steve Gregg's "Exodus" is a 25-part teaching series that delves into the book of Exodus verse by verse, covering topics such as the Ten Commandments,
Amos
Amos
In this two-part series, Steve Gregg provides verse-by-verse teachings on the book of Amos, discussing themes such as impending punishment for Israel'
James
James
A five-part series on the book of James by Steve Gregg focuses on practical instructions for godly living, emphasizing the importance of using words f
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