King Nebuchadnezzar's Dream - Daniel 4:10-18

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Welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adult Sunday School. We're going to plunge back into Daniel this week and we'll have to do some review so we can all remember how to spell his name.

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Well, I was thinking of Belteshazzar. Yeah, she says bring it.

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Well, good morning, let's open in prayer. Father, we are grateful for your wonderful book and how you have opened the world of truth and righteousness to us through the eyes of your son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living word. And so this morning as we look into your word, we ask your

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Holy Spirit to enlighten us, to illuminate us, to give us resolve, to love you every day even more and to obey your instructions and to live out through our lives as the

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Holy Spirit empowers us the way of Christ so that people might see you through our lives, but more importantly, that they will be directed to your word.

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We thank you for this book, this book of Daniel, the import that it has, and we ask you for wisdom and instruction, correction, we seek correction in righteousness, and we ask you for those things this morning in Jesus' name, amen.

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So when we last were together in the book of Daniel, we were on chapter four, somewhere around verse,

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I'll look it up here. Nine. But I think it would bear a little bit of review this morning so we can bring ourselves back up to speed, especially for those who weren't, probably weren't with us when we were in Daniel last.

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So as we finished chapter three, chapter three was, the end of chapter three was the famous everyone remembers story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and their unwillingness to bend the knee to Nebuchadnezzar and their subsequent protection in the fiery furnace and all of the things that went along with that.

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And so at the end of that, when Nebuchadnezzar had seen these three men refuse to bow their knee, at first he was furious, of course, and he threw them into the furnace intending to kill them, and they should have died instantly, but they didn't, and they were protected by the

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Lord. So then in verse 28 of Daniel chapter three, Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, blessed be the

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God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who put their trust in him, violating the king's command.

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He acknowledged that they violated his command and that God protected them and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any

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God except their own God. And then he says this, he says, therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, tongue, that speaks, or tongue that speaks anything offensive against the

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God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to rubbish heap inasmuch as there is no other

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God who is able to deliver this way. Then the king caused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to prosper in the province of Babylon.

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And interestingly enough, for the purposes of this book, this is the last we hear about those three men, and it is about their deliverance and subsequent elevation in the province and the kingdom of Babylon.

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So then we moved into Daniel chapter four, and before we start, before I reintroduce it, if you will, let's go ahead and read chapter four,

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Daniel chapter four, page 1144 in my Bible. Daniel chapter four.

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Nebuchadnezzar, the king to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language that live in all the earth, may your peace abound.

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It has seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me. How great are his signs, and how mighty are his wonders.

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His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation. I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and flourishing in my palace.

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I saw a dream, and it made me fearful. And these fantasies, as I lay on my bed, and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.

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So I gave orders to bring into my presence all the wise men of Babylon, that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream.

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Then the magicians, the conjurers, the Chaldeans, and the diviners came in, and I related the dream to them, but they could not make its interpretation known to me.

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But finally, Daniel came in before me, whose name is Belteshazzar, according to the name of my

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God, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. And I related the dream to him, saying,

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O Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, since I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and no mystery baffles you, tell me the visions of my dream, which

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I have seen, along with its interpretation. Now these were the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed.

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I was looking, and behold, there was a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew large and became strong, and its height reached to the sky, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.

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Its foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant. And it was food, and in it was food for all.

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The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches, and all living creatures fed themselves from it.

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I was looking in the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed, and behold, an angelic watcher, a holy one, descended from heaven.

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He shouted out and spoke as follows. Chop down the tree and cut off its branches.

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Strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it, and the birds from its branches.

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Yet leave the stump with its roots in the ground, but with a band of iron and bronze around it, in the new grass of the field, and let him be drenched with the dew of the heavens, with the dew of heaven, and let him share with the beasts in the grass of the earth.

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Let his mind be changed from that of a man, and let a beast's mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him.

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This sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers, and the decision is a command of the holy ones in order that the living may know that the

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Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom he wishes, and sets over it the lowliest of men.

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This is the dream which I, King Nebuchadnezzar, have seen. Now, you, Belteshazzar, tell me its interpretation.

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Inasmuch as none of the wise men of my kingdom is able to make known to me the interpretation, but you are able, for a spirit of the holy gods is in you.

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I think we'll stop there. That gives us the context for the discussion we're gonna have this morning in chapter four.

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So, reminding ourselves, chapter four is one of the longest in the book of Daniel, and it tells the story of God humbling the most powerful ruler of the known earth, in the known earth at the time.

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And there are definitely prophetic overtones in this chapter, not as obvious or out front as in other parts of Daniel, but there are definitely overtones here.

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The idea of Daniel is God's sovereignty. The theme of the entire book is the sovereignty of God.

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And here we see that he demonstrates to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful monarch on the planet at the time, that God is sovereign over all of human history.

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Today, tomorrow, in the future, in the past, everything. He's sovereign over it all. And he will eventually subdue all powers to himself.

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Critics claim that this was a myth promulgated during the second century BC, but good scholarly investigation has revealed that this is clearly a true story written either by Nebuchadnezzar himself, or a scribe, one of his scribes, or by Daniel, under the direction of the king.

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The Qumran evidence alone, again, supports this as being a very special and very real chapter in Nebuchadnezzar's life.

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We've talked about chiasms before, how something is stated at the beginning, then there's information in the middle, then it's restated, and there can be a long chiasm, short chiasm, chiasms surrounded by a major one.

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And that is how Daniel is. The book of Daniel is a series of them. So chapters four and five are shown to be the center of the chiasm, which is the

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Aramaic section of Daniel. Remember, it is a literary device in which either immediate form or in book form, a sequence of ideas is presented and then repeated in reverse order.

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One of the commentators notes it this way. He says, structurally, chapter four is parallel to chapter five, and it sits at the center of the chiasm formed in the

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Aramaic section of the book. Chapters two and seven, which is the section that we're discussing right now, those two chapters highlight the certain coming of God's kingdom following the rise of four successive

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Gentile powers. Chapters three and six focus on the need for God's people to remain faithful despite opposition and persecution as they await his kingdom.

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And then chapters four and five, featuring kings God identifies as the starting, ending, and kings of the first Gentile empire.

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They serve as reminders that even Gentile rulers will eventually acknowledge that ultimate power and control over nations rests with the

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God of heaven. So the chapter four itself has a chiastic starting and ending with praise of Jehovah, and then it ends with that.

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This is also the chapter where some see Nebuchadnezzar turning to God, and we saw some telltale verses where he says that your

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God can reveal these mysteries, and in you is the spirit of the gods. It's some scholar's opinion that this is the chapter where you can begin to see either

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Nebuchadnezzar's conversion or beginnings of his conversion. I personally don't see him converted here.

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He's still got some pretty crummy theology. But didn't we all? No, I knew it all right from the very beginning.

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Yep, yeah, and you guys need to fire me now. This is Nebuchadnezzar's journey as the

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Holy Spirit regenerates him and changes his mind about what he has known all of his life.

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So we see Nebuchadnezzar's musings on his greatness and ending with his return to grace after falling in pride, which precedes the chapter which actually describes the fall of Babylon, and this is no coincidence, the way this entire book was structured.

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The Septuagint translators date this incident about 18 years into Nebuchadnezzar's reign, or about 587

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B .C. The event we're talking about is his fall from grace and where he begins to act like an animal for a period of seven years.

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But it is more likely that this occurred later in his reign because of the text references to the great building projects that had occurred, like in verse 30, many presume, including the great hanging gardens of Babylon.

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Nebuchadnezzar reigned 43 years from 605 B .C. to 562 B .C.

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Others think this was later in his reign, possibly about 570, and Daniel would have been about 50 years old at this time.

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So the chapter has been called by conservative scholars a literary gem that not only gives a tremendously interesting story about the life of the great king, but it also provides insight into the mind of God regarding his sovereignty and thus his control of human history.

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And it's good for us to always be reminded about that, that there is never a nanosecond of time in which

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God is not completely in control of everything that is happening. And I have heard it said that miracles are fantastic, wonderful things, but the providence of God, whereby he organizes what is happening with the quintillions of things that are happening every second is far more remarkable to me.

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That nothing escapes his purview, nothing escapes his sovereignty, nothing escapes his ability, his omniscience, his omnipotence, it's all the plan worked out according to his design.

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Every second, every particle of time, that is far more remarkable. And in the book of Daniel, everything that happened was presaged by the mind of God or was understood long ahead of time by the mind of God.

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So interestingly enough, that Septuagint translates this chapter, starts,

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I guess it's not translates, but starts this chapter differently. The first three verses of chapter four, nebuchadnezzar the king down to how great are his signs, the beginning praise of the beginning of the chiasm in four, those are actually the end of chapter three in the

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Septuagint. The first three verses are the end of chapter three and chapter four starts with verse four where it says,

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I nebuchadnezzar. So it starts out there and it's interestingly enough, we might here have a proclamation in the pages of scripture that was written by a

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Gentile king. Could God do that? Could he actually use a Gentile to write scripture?

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No, that's outside of his power, isn't it? Again, we need to be reminded that there is absolutely nothing outside the power of God.

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He could have used nebuchadnezzar and might very well have done that. Like I said earlier, there are a number of different opinions.

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For me, whichever opinion is true is unnecessary to inform my understanding that this is true scripture.

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This is the word of God. So nebuchadnezzar or his scribe or Daniel started out, nebuchadnezzar to the king of all peoples nations and men of every language that live in all the earth, may your peace abound.

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This is a common greeting of kings and that's how the chapter starts out. Nebuchadnezzar alludes to himself and we're gonna notice that a lot.

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Often people who are very narcissistic, very self -oriented, very me, me, me will speak that way and God records it the way they say it.

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One of the wonderful things about scripture is God never hides the warts of his people. I'm not saying that nebuchadnezzar is one of his children yet.

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Well, in one sense, whoever comes to Christ has always been one of his children but nevertheless, nebuchadnezzar focuses on I, on me here.

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I, nebuchadnezzar to the peoples and nations of every language. So then he starts out that way and then he says this and this is the beginning of the chiasm where he praises

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God. It has occurred to me, verse two, it has seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the most high

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God has done for me. Now, wouldn't you say that those signs, the good things that he did were actually for all the people that were in that kingdom at the time, not just for nebuchadnezzar?

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But again, this is a me thing for a king. So slowly but surely, it appears in this section of Daniel that slowly but surely, it is becoming more and more evident to nebuchadnezzar that Marduk ain't such hot stuff.

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This God of creation that Daniel talks about, that Belteshazzar talks about, he might really be the thing, be the real thing.

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And I believe it is a slow change as he's working his way through these things in his mind.

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So then he says in verse three, how great are his signs and how mighty are his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and his dominion is from generation to generation.

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Those are two statements coming from the lips of a pagan king. God is in control all the time.

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Verse four, I nebuchadnezzar was at ease in my house, I nebuchadnezzar again, and flourishing in my palace.

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I was minding my own business is basically what he's saying. And then verse five, I saw a dream and it made me fearful.

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And these fantasies as I lay on my bed and the visions in my mind kept alarming me. As we go through this, we'll see why he was made fearful, what bothered him, what frightened him.

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And some of it was because I believe he was, as he had the dream, he thought, I think

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I know what this means and I don't like it. So we'll find out. Verse six, so I gave orders to bring into my presence all the wise men of Babylon that they might make known to me the interpretation.

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So here he does what, the interpretation of the dream. So here he does what kings through all of the ancient days had done, they had their dream interpreters, which as we talked about earlier in this book, they actually had books, encyclopedias if you will, how to interpret a dream.

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So if the dream is about this, here's what you say, and you'll make money. And if the dream is about this, here's what you say, and he won't kill you.

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And if the dream is about this, here's what, I'm kind of exaggerating, but not really. I mean, you and I both know that absent

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God, nobody can really interpret the dreams. So here they had these books and they came before him and it says, then the magicians in verse seven, the conjurers, the

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Chaldeans and the diviners came in and I related the dream to them, but they could not make its interpretation known to me.

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And we'll talk about that more later on, why when you listen to Nebuchadnezzar's dream,

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I'm no dream interpreter, not interested, but you kind of see the broad ideas of what's going on in this dream.

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And I just wonder if these magicians, Chaldeans and sorcerers were afraid to say anything at all, because it looked like it wasn't going to end well with Nebuchadnezzar in this dream.

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And maybe if they told him that, they might lose their heads. So then the magicians couldn't make the dream known.

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So then he says in verse eight, but finally Daniel came in before me, whose name is Belteshazzar, according to the name of my

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God. Now here's one of the verses, one of the sections of Daniel that indicates at least to me that he hasn't turned the corner yet in his theology.

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He still worships Marduk. He's still a polytheist in my idea, as far as I can see.

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And he says, and in whom, Daniel, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods, and I related the dream to him saying.

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So then it's unknown why Daniel wasn't among the group when the dream was first related.

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He was in charge under Nebuchadnezzar of the kingdom of Babylon, if you will.

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And so more likely than not, as he got older and older and demonstrated more and more of the wisdom of God to Nebuchadnezzar, he would have been sent throughout the kingdom to do many things that the king would entrust him to do.

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So more than likely, Daniel was just off on a, he was deputized to do something, and he just wasn't with the others right then.

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So Nebuchadnezzar still, like I say, he still adheres to his false god. And the fact that he acknowledges that Belteshazzar is the name that was fashioned using the name of his

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God, in my mind, as I said, still indicates he was a polytheist. So Daniel was attending to the business of the nation, and there's debate as to whether or not the second noun gods, in this verse, is singular or plural.

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There is a great deal of evidence that indicates it is singular, and based upon this, many commentators have decided that this is a tribute to the fact that Nebuchadnezzar here was, was or was becoming a believer in Jehovah.

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In any event, he recognizes and realizes that Daniel is different from all of his other wise men, if you will.

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So it is possible, as some commentators have surmised, that since Nebuchadnezzar recognized this dream as having bad consequences for he and his kingdom, he went to the other soothsayers first.

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Don't we want people to tell us good things? When we're struggling with something, we should go to people that we know will tell us the hard, unvarnished truth.

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But often we go to people we think might put their stamp of approval on what we're doing, so we won't feel so bad about doing the wrong thing.

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And I wonder if some of that was what was going on here. Nebuchadnezzar was afraid to go to Daniel because every time he's gone to Daniel, he's gotten the unvarnished truth, and sometimes it was just uncomfortable.

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So imagine the relief of the magicians and conjurers when they realized he wasn't going to kill them, he was gonna go talk to Daniel.

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So if this dream had bad consequences,

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Nebuchadnezzar was now going to find out. Oh, Belteshazzar, he says in verse nine, chief of the magicians, now we know

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Daniel wasn't a magician. Again, this is the polytheism and the false theology coming through the lips of Nebuchadnezzar to the pages of scripture so we can understand what's going on here.

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He says, since I know that a spirit of the holy gods is in you and no mystery baffles you, tell me the visions of my dream, which

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I have seen, along with this interpretation. Some have concluded, by the way, that the word magicians here should be translated scholars.

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As I looked into it and tried to trace the etymology back in the ancient Chaldea, it does look like this word was often used in their text to describe scholars, academics, people who understood things, geologists, geographers, mathematicians, scholars.

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So some believe it should have been translated scholars to give the actual intent of Nebuchadnezzar's statement.

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Daniel's not a magician in the Babylonian sense, but he was rather a worker of miraculous actions that would have seemed magic to polytheists, to pagans.

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He understood things no one else understood and he was able to give their clear interpretation when needed that no one else could manage.

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Daniel was thoroughly familiar with Babylonian history, their astrology, and their religion, and therefore

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Nebuchadnezzar knew that even though the other diviners could not answer his question about the dream that he had had, he had confidence that Daniel could.

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That's where we left off January 3rd. Now, let's, moving down through the next section here.

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Verse 10, Daniel chapter four, verse 10. This is where Nebuchadnezzar begins to relate the dream.

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He says, now, these were the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed. I was looking and behold, there was a tree in the midst of the earth and its height was great.

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So trees were often used in symbolic ways. In extra -biblical literature,

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Astyges the Mede describes a vine that covered all of Asia. This was interpreted by Herodotus to refer to Cyrus the

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Great. Elsewhere, Xerxes was crowned with an olive tree branch that covered the whole world. There is a parenthetical description in Ezekiel chapter 31 where the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria are likened to great trees that expand over the whole world.

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The beginning of this dream indicates, and Daniel will see this, and I think

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Nebuchadnezzar understood it too, that he is the ruler of mankind. Now, the ruler of the

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Babylonian Empire, which was the largest kingdom on the earth at the time. So these were the visions in my mind, and he describes a great tree.

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Verse 11, the tree grew large and became strong, and its height reached to the sky, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.

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Under Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian Empire had become the most powerful kingdom in the known world at the time. So these are essentially

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Chaldean poetic allusions, and Nebuchadnezzar uses the language of the day to describe the happenings in his dream.

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Nebuchadnezzar most likely realized the tree is himself, and it would be some of the cause of the fear that he had first spoken of back in verse five.

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The tree grew large, and he sees what comes next, so this would have been some of the basis for his alarm, his fear.

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I haven't been asking, are there any questions or comments about what we've talked about so far? Verse 12, its foliage was beautiful, and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all.

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The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches, and all living creatures fed themselves from it.

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Continuing in his poetic description, Nebuchadnezzar describes this tree. It was productive, it was protective, and it seemed to be something of a servant to all who came in contact with it.

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Wouldn't you like government to be like that? Quit being realistic.

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I'm not coming to you for counsel. I'm having a vision. Yeah, God spoke to me last night.

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So, this is to go, Nebuchadnezzar at this point does not acknowledge that it was a direct work of Jehovah in his life.

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These are more of the things that he would take credit for, which would eventually contribute to his downfall.

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He was always I, me, my -ing it, and God had to bring him to the end of that, and that happens in this chapter.

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So, verse 13, I was looking in the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed, and behold, an angelic watcher, a holy one, descended from heaven.

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So now, there's been considerable debate. Remember we talked about, let me back up for a bit for those who weren't here or for the online stuff.

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There's been considerable debate about Daniel. Daniel has been really picked apart by liberal scholars because, and the main reason was is his prophecies were too accurate.

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Nobody could predict things like this, have them all come true. This has to be a history that was written after the fact, and that's their attack on the book of Daniel.

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No science, so -called. No proper theology, just it couldn't have been written before the things that happened because it's too accurate.

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Yeah, as though God can't be accurate. So, in this, here's another one of the concerns that some of these scholars have.

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Debate over the term watcher. The Babylonian recognized what they called council deities, and these very well may be what

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Nebuchadnezzar had in mind. Remember, when God allowed this to be pinned into Scripture, he gave

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Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and the facts of the dream are recorded faithfully in Scripture, even with their improper theologic overtones.

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Remember, we have lots of improper theology in the Bible. Remember, remember the advice the devil gave

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Jesus? That's bad theology, and it was recorded in Scripture. Now, Jesus corrected him.

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I wasn't saying that the Bible has bad theology. I was saying that God allows the wrong things that people think and say to be recorded in his word, and then the correction thereof.

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So, we'll see the correction. So, again, whether or not this may very well be what Nebuchadnezzar had in mind, these council deities, whether or not he penned this or Daniel penned it, it is important to remember that at this point, at least in my mind, this is

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Cornell's view, he's still a pagan. As such, he would have used terms from his background, and this is most certainly referring, but this in truth is most certainly referring to at least an angel from God.

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Any comments or questions about that? A watcher? Verse 14.

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Now, this watcher doesn't just say something. This is, I didn't know what to think about this. I never saw anything that anybody else brought to the fore, but I think sometimes we need people to get in our faces and shout at us to get our attention.

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Pay attention, you idiot. I've had people say that to me. They were being too nice.

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He shouted out and spoke as follows. Chop down the tree and cut off its branches.

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Strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches.

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Now, this would have been startling if Nebuchadnezzar had made the connection that the tree described was him, and the watcher says, chop it down.

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Break off its branches, scatter its fruit. The beasts that were formerly finding protection and food under it, scatter them.

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The birds that were finding protection and solace and care in the branches, scatter them.

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This would not have been something a king would have wanted to hear. So this command from the watcher would have brought more fear to Nebuchadnezzar if he was thinking the tree represented him.

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The tree is to be nearly completely destroyed. All of its usefulness gone.

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Now, I think, I don't know. I guess I don't know about all rulers, but most of them want to be,

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I think, in their own mind, they want to be good, beneficial protectors of the people that they are in responsibility over, even back then.

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And so this would have been a blow to Nebuchadnezzar. All of his usefulness, all of his greatness gone.

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Verse 15, yet, and this is enigmatic, leave the stump with its roots in the ground but with a band of iron and bronze around it in the new grass of the field and let him, notice the change in pronouns, from it to him, let him be drenched with the dew of heaven and let him share with the beasts in the grass of the earth.

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So the purpose for the bands of iron and bronze is unclear. Practically, they were probably put in place to keep the stump from splitting.

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In other words, to protect the remains of the tree from complete destruction. One commentator thinks that they were symbolic of the chains that would soon be put on Nebuchadnezzar in the seven years of insanity that are to come.

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The stump is to be left where it is, not to be taken out of Babylon, it's not to be removed to some other place, in the grass, new grass of the field, and then it is to be drenched with the dew of heaven, but here, as I mentioned, the pronoun changes to him, showing that this section is indeed talking about a man,

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Nebuchadnezzar. He will live out in the open and he will eat the food that the animals, that some of the animals eat.

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And then verse 16, continuing on with the new pronoun, let his mind be changed from that of a man and let a beast's mind be given to him and let seven periods of time pass over him.

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So this is the prophecy of insanity. His mind would change from the mind of a man to the mind of a beast.

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He would only be concerned with his own survival, not the survival or protection of his kingdom. No longer would he have the mind of the king of the largest kingdom on earth.

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There would be no doubt, there's pretty much no doubt that the period of time referred to is seven years. Later in this chapter, he is described as having hair grown like eagle's feathers and his nails like bird's claws.

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So I thought, I'll look this up. That's kind of interesting. Hair grows at approximately a rate of six inches per year.

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Some people's hair grows faster, some people's hair grows slower. Some people's hair, Peter, some people's hair doesn't grow at all.

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Some people's heads grow out through the hair, I think is what happens. That's because they're getting brainier.

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So hair grows at a rate of approximately six inches per year. Some people's hair grows faster and some slower. Assuming an average, this would mean that at the end of seven years, his hair would have been approximately four feet long.

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What a hippie. And interestingly enough, fingernails grow at a rate of half an inch to four inches per year, depending on age and diet.

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The thumbnail grows the fastest. Toenails grow slower. All these important facts that you needed to know.

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So you gotta trim your fingernails more often than your toenails. I didn't really think about that, but yeah, I really do.

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That's really gross, Razor, shut up. Even assuming the half inch rate, at the end of seven years,

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Nebuchadnezzar's fingernails could have been up to three and a half inches long. Now I don't know about yours, but mine don't, if mine get long, they start to break off.

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But for those who are interested, as I said, toenails grow slower.

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The common consensus is then, by scholars, that the periods means years. Now some have suggested it could have meant seven months for the hair, but not really.

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I mean, there's so many intricate and specious debates about Daniel, because so many are trying to pull the book down, because it is the

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Word of God. And if we can cast doubt on this part of the Word of God, then maybe people will stop believing other parts of the

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Word of God. That's what it is, it's pure and simple, it's a satanic attack on the Word of God. It says what it says.

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His hair was four feet long or so, and his fingernails were really gross, really long. And we'll talk about that when we get back to it in the later section of the chapter.

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So this sentence, Nebuchadnezzar says, the watcher said, the watcher is saying this, this sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers, and the decision is a command of the holy ones in order that the living may know, now here's why, here's what

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Nebuchadnezzar needs to pay attention to, that the Most High is the ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom he wishes, and sets over it the lowliest of men.

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Very interesting choice of words. So here then is the intended and described purpose of all of the things that will happen to Nebuchadnezzar.

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Jehovah will make certain that this king knows that God sets up kingdoms, God pulls down kingdoms,

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God confers power, and God removes power, no matter how powerful you are, no matter what your army looks like, no matter who your ancestors were.

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This, in fact, is the theme of the book of Daniel, God's sovereignty. Nebuchadnezzar had to be reminded of this in the most forceful way possible, that his kingdom was by decree of God, by the decree of God of heaven, and not because of his own abilities.

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How much we all need to remember that, that the things that happen in our lives are by the decree of God.

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The good things, not by our own abilities, often by the investment that others made into us so that we were able to develop some sort of talent and do some things by God's grace.

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His father, interestingly enough, the word lolius may very well have been a reminder to Nebuchadnezzar of his ancestral beginnings.

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Nabopolassar, his father, referred to himself as the humblest person. He said, here's some of the quotes from Nabopolassar's writings.

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He said, I in my littleness, the son of a nobody, and of me the insignificant, who among men was not visible.

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And then he also said, I the feeble. These are things that his father said about himself. And Nebuchadnezzar would have known this because it was recorded in history.

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The implication is that Nabopolassar was of common birth and was probably a nobody until he became king.

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This lesson, which was understood by his father, by Nebuchadnezzar's father, is the lesson

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Jehovah is going to be teaching this proud king. It is I who puts you in the position that you're in for a purpose, and it is

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I who can pull you down at any given time. And Nebuchadnezzar's going to find out just how true that is.

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So verse 18 is where the vision, the dream, I guess you would call it, the dream ends. It is the dream.

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He says, this is the dream which I, King Nebuchadnezzar, I have seen.

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Now you, Beltesh Zahar, you tell me its interpretation inasmuch as none of the wise men of my kingdom is able to make known to me the interpretation, but you are able, for a spirit of the holy gods is in you.

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So Nebuchadnezzar finishes detailing his dream to Daniel, and he now requires interpretation.

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He doesn't ask Daniel, he tells him to give him the interpretation. So I don't know if you agree with me or not, but at first glance, as you've read this dream, you can kind of see the broad overtones of it, that the tree represents

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Nebuchadnezzar and the blessings that have come from God and that he's able to protect and provide for his kingdom, et cetera, et cetera.

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And then he, being a proud king, is pulled down and sent into exile to learn some lessons.

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So if we can see that, of course we have the benefit of the interpretation from Daniel later on, but I think even if you read the first part and you had read through Daniel up to this point, seeing this proud king, there'd be an indication of what was going on.

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So this is my view, just my view, don't build any doctrines on this, but it's evident that even to those of us who are non -dream interpreters, and we need to stay that way, that there's some interesting information here that we can kind of see what's going on.

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This is probably why the wise men wouldn't even venture a guess. And though it's something of a mystery, at least in my view, maybe they saw enough of it to realize that this dream did not have a positive outcome for Nebuchadnezzar and they feared his wrath and so kept their mouth shut.

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Remember what happened to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they just said, we will not bow? He threw him in a furnace.

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He killed several men, getting the furnace hot enough to do the death to them that he wanted to have done.

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And this was, he was a volatile, capricious, and random king in many respects.

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And so I'm thinking his wise men just went, we ain't going there, I'm not going, no, not me. So they kept their mouth shut.

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And indeed, we're not gonna get there today because there's too much there, but Daniel's initial response, which we will soon see, may very well have been theirs, the wise men.

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Nebuchadnezzar understood that Daniel had, in his mind, a close connection with Jehovah, but he still got that connection wrong.

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It was not a spirit of the holy gods, it was the Holy Spirit. And Nebuchadnezzar still hasn't figured that out.

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Now, the next time we're together, we will be looking at chapter four, verses 19 and on, and I wanna just look really quickly at chapter four, verse 19.

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So then Daniel, whose name is Belteshazzar, was appalled for a while as his thoughts alarmed him.

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Why do you think his thoughts alarmed him? He wants me to tell him what this means.

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He's gonna turn into a donkey with big fingernails and he's not gonna know who he is and he's gonna wander around in the wilderness and I gotta tell him.

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And he kills people that say things bad to him. Daniel's no dummy, not at all.

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And so Belteshazzar, the king responded and said, Belteshazzar, Belteshazzar, do not let the dreamer's interpretation alarm you.

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And Daniel's probably going, yeah, right. I wonder if that's what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thought.

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Belteshazzar answered and said, my lord, if only the dream applied to those who hate you and its interpretation to your adversaries.

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And so that's how Daniel is gonna initiate his interpretation of this dream. And unfortunately, I've unpacked enough of it for us that those of you who haven't read the rest of Daniel chapter four, you kinda know what's coming.

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Just pretend I didn't say all that, okay? But go ahead and read it before we get together the next time. And we're gonna close there because this next section is just remarkable, as if all of the word of God isn't remarkable.

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And it's interesting how Daniel tactfully and carefully and yet truthfully and responsibly handles the interpretation of this dream because he knows that it is

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Jehovah that gave this dream to Nebuchadnezzar. And he knows the purpose of this dream.

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So as we close, are there any comments or questions, remarks? So, I don't know, does

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Sunday school have an application? We should make sure that we recognize that the sovereignty of God extends to everything in our lives.

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It's a simple truth and one I believe this body knows well, but it always bears reminding that there is nothing outside the purview of God in our lives, nothing.

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Are you going through a difficult time? He will use it to teach you. He will use it to bless you.

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I don't know how, and it's not cliche, but I do know that he calls us together as a body to bear one another's burdens as well.

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And so that too is a part of this. So next time we're gonna see Daniel explain to the king what an idiot he is.

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That's basically what he's going to be saying. If you weren't such a proud man, this wouldn't have happened to you.

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And we all need counselors like that, people who are willing to look us in the eye and say, here's what's going on.

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Let's pray. Father, we are grateful to you that your word is true in every respect and that you gave us everything we needed to know in it to be godly in Christ Jesus.

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Thank you that you provided for us throughout the pages of scripture, doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction, for it is sorely needed in our lives and in the world today.

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Might we be your ambassadors to the world and never, never fear to say just exactly what the word of God says in any given situation.