So Nebuchadnezzar has
this dream – about “an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in
appearance.” (NIV) “an enormous, extraordinarily shiny statue,
frightening in appearance.” And when Nebuchadnezzar had the
dream, he was disturbed. No wonder! His first instinct was to think
“That’s me! Who is more imposing, dazzling, and awesome than me?
Whom do people fear more than me?” Because this statue with its
head of gold, its chest of silver, waist and thighs of bronze, legs
of iron and feet of iron mixed with pottery, was knocked into the
dust by a rock, that then grew to fill the whole earth. This dream
doesn't look good for Nebuchadnezzar, so he – the guy everyone
feared – was afraid.
And
suddenly, he doesn't know who he can trust. He is asking these
questions:
- “How do I know that I am going to get the truth from these guys?”
- “How do I know that the crawlers and yes-men won't make up some interpretation to flatter me?”
- “How do I know that somebody won't take the opportunity and kill me off if the dream says I am to be toppled anyway.”
So
he decides that only someone who knew what the dream was, would be
trusted to say what it meant. If someone could tell him what he had
dreamed, he would know.
So he calls in the
magicians (engravers or writers) and enchanters (mediums) and
sorcerers and Chaldeans. All the most educated and plausible and
spiritually switched on guys in the empire, the chief advisors and
senior priests... and he says “I had a dream last night, and it is
doing my head in. Tell me what I dreamed and what it means.” I
imagine a long silence. Then one of them speaks up. I imagine,
smooth-talking sort of guy, like Sir
Humphrey Appleby in “Yes
Prime Minister.” “But your majesty, it can't be done like that.
If it please your majesty, tell us the dream and we’ll give
the interpretation”.
Don't let the sense
of comedy detract from the deadly seriousness of the situation.
Nebuchadnezzar isn't joking. “I know what you’re up to—you’re
just playing for time. You know that if you can’t tell me my
dream, you’re doomed.”
Sir
Humphrey tries again. “But your
majesty, how
do we know what you have dreamed? Nobody
anywhere can do what you ask. And no king, great or small, has ever
demanded anything like this. What you’re asking is impossible
unless some god should reveal it—and they don’t hang around with
people like us!” That is an admission. Although they – or some
of them – were priests and fortune tellers and mediums, men who
walked in and out of temples every day, performed rituals, burned
incense, studied the stars, maybe had a stab at predicting the future
– they had no contact, no relationship, with any of the gods. In
fact, despite their religious credentials, they didn't believe that
such a relationship was possible. “The gods don't hang with people
like us!”
So
the paranoid king orders a purge: execute all the “Wise men,”
the priests, shamans, intellectuals. And that will include Daniel,
Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah! It was not long before Arioch, the
captain of the king's guard, came for Daniel. Courageously,
courteously (These were becoming his hallmarks), Daniel engaged him
in conversation: “What is going on? Why is the King so angry?”
When he found out, he went to the king – no doubt ushered in by
someone like Arioch – and asked fro a bit of time and he would
interpret the dream ( and by implication find out what the king had
dreamed!) It is a remarkable comment on the kind of reputation
Daniel already had, that he got in to see the King and won a stay of
execution. The King obviously felt that at least there was some
possibility of this young Hebrew giving him the answers he needed.
This
Daniel guy, How did he know? How could he possibly be any different
from the rest of them? That step of faith was possibly the greatest
one.... And once they had their extra time, Daniel got his three
friends to pray. You kind of think, there must have been a sense of
urgency about those prayers. And in the night he knew: it came to
him in a vision. He saw what the King had seen. And he praised God
for it.
But
how did he know? God revealed it to him. The story is awesome in
its power; it was a miracle. And it was a miracle of faith and
courage, to be taken before the King, and to tell his vision. What
if he got it wrong? No amount of education, training or innate
wisdom and people skills could have pulled that off. It had to be
God.
“How
do I know?” is one of the big questions of our day. There is a
level of distrust, of suspicion and cynicism in the world we live in.
- How do I know who I can trust?
- How do I know that people are not making a fool of me?
- How do I know I am not just being exploited by other people?
- How do I know what I know about God?
- How do I know about the supernatural?
- How can we be expected to know the King's dream?
- But how do they know what is possible and what is impossible?
- How do
they know there isn’t a supernatural strand to life to be
explored?
Daniel
knows. He knows because he has prayed. He knows because he has
spent the night waiting on God, listening and tuning in to God's
voice. He knows because he is prepared to exercise faith. He knows
because God reveals it to him. “There is a God in heaven who
reveals mysteries. “
We
could stop there. But there's a wee bit more. We need to look at
the dream itself and the interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar was the head
of gold, not the whole statue. Each change of metal represented a
change of empire. We can see the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek
and Roman empires represented by the gold, silver, bronze and iron,
and even the division of the Roman empire into Eastern and western in
the feet of clay. (Although some clever people have different
ideas!) So striking is the prophetic force of this, that some people
suggest that Daniel must have been written about 150BC, when the
Alexander the Great's Greek Empire was declining and the Roman one
beginning to rise. But Daniel says “There is a God in heaven who
reveals mysteries.“ So it's not too much for him to predict the
coming empires. If there is a “God in heaven who reveals mysteries”
then predictive prophecies are a possibility. If there isn't such a
god, then we need to explain these prophecies away. It's a matter of
world-view. And the more we find out about the Dead Sea Scrolls the
more they confirm that Daniel was not written in 150BC, because it
is referred to in the Scrolls as part of Scripture and it wouldn’t
have been if it had only just been written.
Daniel
isn't interested in explaining where each of these empires would
arise or what they would be. All that matters is that, despite their
different characteristics, whether rich and malleable like gold, or
hard and practical like iron, all empires are the same... they may do
some good, but in the end they are all proud, oppressive, and none
lasts for ever. Not the Roman empire, the dynasties of imperial
China, the British empire, the Ottoman empire, the Third Reich the
Soviet bloc or Islamic State. Their thrones must fall. A rock
knocks the statue down as quickly and finally as David's smooth stone
from the river knocked down Goliath.
Babylon
was built on a sandy and muddy plain that was fertile because the
rivers Tigris and Euphrates carry tons of silt. There isn't a rock
in sight, the mountains are way to the north. You've seen the
pictures on TV. There wasn’t a rock in sight. It's because of the
lack of rock, that all the houses and temples were made of brick.
You can make bricks out of mud. So a rock was an unusual thing.
The superhuman hand that carves it out, does so from mountains many
miles away. It's the hand of God. The same hand of God that had
allowed Judah to be take in to exile. The same hand of God that had
set Nebuchadnezzar up to become King. God is sovereign, and his
Kingdom – not made with hands, brought from heaven by the Lord
Jesus Christ – will eventually knock down all the empires of this
world, and grow to fill the whole earth.
How
do we know? How do we know that the Kingdom of God will triumph?
How do we know that the Bible is reliable? How do we know that
miracles happened and happen? Like Daniel, we know by faith. We
know as we spend time with god. As we pray. As we listen. As we
step out on that faith. As God's Spirit surges through us in a power
that produces gifts and fruit – supernatural words and works, and
strengthened character.
©
Gilmour Lilly August 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment