How do you know what to study?, what career to pursue?, who to marry?, etc. Be sensible, think coolly? Or, “Go with your heart”. Or consult the supernatural, like astrology, palm readers, tarot cards, psychics, Ouija board, etc.?
Not only the big questions in our lives but the even bigger questions, what is our life all about?, what is humanity for?, what is the end (the purpose) of people?, what is the goal of history? To know how to know, listen:
Note: We attend to the public reading of scripture (1 Tim. 4:13.) The first 8 minutes of this video is reading of all of Daniel 2.
The Mystery (2:1-30)
Nebuchadnezzar wants to the “magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans” to tell him the dream and its interpretation. If a psychic can’t tell you the dream, he or she can’t tell you the true interpretation. To hear more about how astrology, tarot cards, psychics, etc, are ways to try to get control with knowing the Controller, click on the YouTube link above.
Nebuchadnezzar was going to kill them all if they couldn’t tell him his dream. Daniel and his three friends plead for “mercy” to the God of heaven (v. 18). After they had sought mercy and trusted God, Daniel went to sleep. Then, the mystery was revealed. The true God, unlike the astrologers and magicians gods, is not silent.
The glory belongs completely to God “who reveals deep and hidden things” (2:22).
“There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries” (2:28.)
Daniel shows him that the mystery has to do with the future coming of God’s Kingdom. To hear about the vision, click on the YouTube link above.
The History (2:31-45)
This passage is a favorite of dispensationalists who try to use it to predict when Jesus will return. They say to look for a future revived Roman Empire. But, there are our four Kingdoms, not give. (The feet of iron and clay are an extension of the legs.) The kingdoms are: Gold = Babylon, Silver = Persia, Bronze = Greece, Iron = Rome.
During the last empire (Rome), the Kingdom of God comes and breaks all the empires, grows. To learn more about how Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, interpreted by Daniel, foretells the four empires and the coming of the Kingdom of God, click on the YouTube link above.
“God will set up His Kingdom that will never be destroyed. . . . it shall stand forever.” (2:44.)
During the time of the Roman Empire, Jesus taught the Kingdom of God had come, “The Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (Luke 17:21)
We’re not waiting on a revived Roman Empire for the vision to be fulfilled. It has already been fulfilled in Jesus’ first coming when He brought the Kingdom of God into the kingdoms of man. Daniel here tells us the Kingdom of God will come (in his future and our past) into history and obliterate worldly empires. Jesus explains how the Kingdom of God comes. Daniel explains when: at the time of the Roman Empire. To learn more how the Kingdom of God has already come, is now coming, and will fully fill the earth, click on the YouTube link above.
What Daniel saw and revealed for Nebuchadnezzar was the gospel of the kingdom.
The Victory (2:46-49)
Daniel shows that a new, unstoppable dynamic power will come on earth, in his future. The Lord Jesus showed that it has already come, in our past, and is coming now. But how are you going to know God? Some think they have the ability.
“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
(1 Corinthians 2:14.)
How do we know? The answer is the same for us as it was for Daniel: God reveals. God has to reveal to us the mystery of the gospel.
We can’t attain knowledge of God by ourselves; it’s too high for us; we don’t have the ability; we’d be guilty of hubris if we think we can. You can hear the words of the gospel but the only way you can know they are true is if the God of heaven, in His mercy, reveals them to you.
To know how to know God, listen to the message on the YouTube video above.
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church is Caswell County’s and Danville’s Reformed Church.