In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: Open your Bibles to Daniel chapter two. How many of you have just been with bated breath waiting to get to the prophetic part as far as the Gentiles are concerned, chapters two through seven? And then of course chapter nine is a wonderful chapter as it lays out the whole plan as it concerns Israel. And then we move into chapters 10, 11, and 12 where wonderful things are there for us prophetically speaking.

Again, by way of reminder, Daniel, as far as the prophets of the Old Testament, falls in the category of a major prophet. Right after he finishes writing, we have the 12 minor prophets, which we've already studied. But Daniel, as a major prophet, has the most far-reaching prophecies and insights of any prophet of the Old Testament. As we told you last week as we did the introduction in chapter one, we got the background of it and we got the character of the man. By the way, just remind yourselves as we're going through this, he's a teenager. Can you imagine your teenagers having everything stripped from them, taken to a foreign country, and still standing for the Lord? That's amazing to me. We want our teenagers to be able to do that.

But in this condition, God will use him mightily. It's so important that we understand these things. Again, he was hauled away captive to Babylon, placed in the king's court as we saw last week. What we understand is that his prophecy begins as God uses Babylon to judge His people. His prophecies will end when He uses His people to judge Babylon as Christ returns and sets in order the things that need to be set in order and puts down the Antichrist. So as far as the prophecies are concerned, they are far-reaching.

Most people believe they were written in the second century, but we know that's not true because we understand that the Aramaic language that he uses here is ancient Aramaic, sixth-century Aramaic, not second-century. Not only that, Jesus said, "When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel." So Jesus gives credence to Daniel writing in the time he did with the prophetic insight that he had. The thing that blows the higher critics away is how accurate it is. In fact, when we get to chapter nine, he will give a mathematical formula, dates and times and things where the Israelites of the day would have known the very day that Jesus would have ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem.

Those of you that went to Israel with us a year and a half ago, we got to walk down that road where Jesus rode into the Eastern Gate on the very day that Daniel prophesied it would happen—not the day after, not the day before, but the very day. Interesting things lie ahead for us. Let's pray and we'll dive into chapter two. I'd like to finish chapter two tonight, and then we'll move through a chapter every night and we'll see how we can do.

Father, we thank You for Your Word. Daniel chapter two, as far as prophecy goes, is one of my favorites. It's the foundation. It's, as it were, the broad brush. So as we look at the broad brush tonight and then as Daniel comes back in later and fills in the details, Lord, give us great insight. Through that work of Your Spirit, Lord, take Your truth and Your words and plant them deep into our hearts. Give us ears to hear and hearts that are open. But more importantly, Lord, as You give to us understanding, give permanency to those things. We pray these things tonight in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now, what we're going to discover as we go through chapter two is the way that the Hebrews' mindset worked. There's a way that the Hebrew people wrote that is different than we would write today. It's interesting as you study through the Old Testament, especially when you come to areas of prophecy, they had a unique way of doing what we would call broad brush first. In other words, the prophets of old would describe the forest and then they would pick out the trees and begin to give greater detail to the trees. What we have in chapter two is the broadest brush of prophecy that you're ever going to read or see. Daniel's going to take it from the time he's in Babylon through the five major empires that will come and go. All the way down, as we're going to see tonight in our study, to when Christ returns. That stone cut without hands that will strike those 10 kings that are in existence in the last days that really have a very wicked plan toward Israel. He will destroy the governments of this world, and that stone will grow into a great mountain and fill the whole earth.

Now, just so you know as we're walking through this, we're living in the time of the 10 kings or the 10 toes. The next prophetic event is for Christ to remove His church and then return with His church. As it was the stone that the builders rejected that will strike the wickedness of this world and all that it represents in the human governments, they're going to turn into dust and be blown away just like the dust or the chaff of a threshing floor. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom.

Now, I know some of you and I hear the murmurings and complainings: "What's going to happen with this government?" This government is going away soon. Do you understand? The King of Glory is coming. Keep your eyes on that. When He shows up, everything else goes away. His kingdom, His reign, grows into a great mountain and His authority and His kingdom, His rule and His reign, will never have an end. We're just on the precipice of that. We're going to see that because as Daniel lays this thing out, we know that the Babylonians have come and gone. We know the Medo-Persians have come and gone. We know that the Greeks have come and gone. We know that the Romans have come and kind of gone. They weren't conquered, but they kind of dissipated or just went away through inner corruption and immorality about 476 AD. They just kind of dissipated.

What we have is the remnant of that. But then what comes out of that are the two legs he's going to talk about. We knew what would happen with the Roman government that it split. You had all roads at one time leading to Rome; that was one of the legs. Now you have all roads leading to, and I got to stand and had the privilege of standing in Istanbul—there Constantinople—standing at the other pillar where the capital was moved during the time of Constantine. It was moved and all roads now led to there. It's the two legs of Daniel's prophecy.

We're living in the time of the 10 toes. I won't have time to deal with that tonight, but if you go to our prophecy update, I believe the 10 toes are those 10 radical Islamic nations that now surround Israel that started back in 2011—we called it the Arab Spring. They're calling for the destruction of Israel. Our country is empowering them to do that. They will rise up against Israel according to Psalm 83. They will attack. But when the smoke settles and the dust clears, God Himself will show up in such a way that at the end of Psalm 83—by the way, it's never been fulfilled, it is a prophetic psalm— when God shows up, it says the whole world will know that Jehovah alone has done this.

For the first time in the history of Israel, they will have possession of the entire Abrahamic Covenant that was promised to Abraham—all of the land and with it all of the oil. The second thing that happens is in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and we'll look at those things as we walk through Daniel. They will invade to come for the oil. The Bible says it's a spoil. And again, God will show up and there'll be a huge slaughter. In fact, they will be sixed, the Bible says. So six out of every seven soldiers will be wiped out. One-sixth left over will be wiped out. Then out of that comes the Antichrist. By the way, we'll never know who he is because he can't come on the scene until the church is gone. He'll calm everything down. They'll rebuild their temple that again the Antichrist will defile three and a half years into the tribulation period that we are studying about on Sunday mornings. So all of this fits together hand-in-glove.

Tonight we get the broadest brush of prophecy that you're ever going to read in the Bible, so let's just dive in and take a look at it. There's some humor involved in this that I'm going to make note of. When I study scripture, especially when it's a narrative more than it's doctrine, I like to put myself in the narrative. Some of the things that Nebuchadnezzar says, some of the motivations that he offers to his counsel, and then some of the things that Daniel has to say as he's bringing the revelation are just incredibly funny to me. If I laugh, I'm not laughing at the situation; they're just funny.

So let's just dive right in. "And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams." He had this particular dream multiple times; that's the idea. Make note of that. "Wherein his spirit was troubled." Have you ever had those kind of dreams where they're in living color and you feel emotion in those dreams and they trouble you? You wake up and you're trying to remember all of it. Well, listen, God is giving to this king, to old Nebby as it were, He is giving to him, as we're going to see as we go through chapter two, Daniel's going to tell him: "The God of heaven is giving him insight and wisdom concerning prophecy." He's giving it to Nebuchadnezzar in the form of a dream.

As he's having these dreams, these dreams are disturbing. They disturb his spirit. They trouble his spirit, and sleep breaks from him; he can't sleep. In fact, the idea here in the Hebrew is he doesn't want to go to sleep because he knows if he goes to sleep, he's going to have this dream again. You ever have those dreams where you're running and you just can't get away or your legs don't work or you're falling and you're about to hit the ground and you wake up? I used to have those all the time: Bigfoot, bears, lions, and tigers, oh my! As a kid, I had maybe an overactive imagination, but I've had a few of these dreams.

So Nebuchadnezzar is having these dreams. Verse two says, "Then the king commanded and called the magicians, and the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans for to show the king his dream, to tell him what the dream is. So they came and stood before the king." Now, I want to give you some definitions because I don't think the King James does it justice. You've got to understand who stands before the court of Nebuchadnezzar because this is a vile, wicked king. This is a vile, wicked nation. In fact, isn't that what Israel said? "God, they're worse than we are. Why would You use a vile and wicked nation to come and to discipline us?" Because they were.

But let me give you some definitions I think that are important for you to understand because the word for magician there is diviner or a medium, one who channels spirits. So we know that there was absolute demonic activity influencing the court of Nebuchadnezzar. Astrologers—now, we think of astrologers, you open up the newspaper and there you have it. By the way, listen, the stars don't determine your future. That's New Age. The Bible says that the steps of a righteous man are ordered of the Lord. The stars don't determine my future; the One I serve does. But the word for astrologer there actually means, as we interpret it from the Hebrew into English, a necromancer. It's when you consult the dead—necromancy—or a conjurer, one who conjures up dead spirits of ancestors. It's a lot like shamanism with the native Indians of our country that the shamanist would conjure up the ancestors. So they were necromancers, they were conjurers.

The word for sorcerers there means witchcraft, those who make potions and those who use drugs like the Indians and the shamanists to get into a mental state where you have these spirit guides. By the way, drugs—the Bible talks plainly about why we as Christians should have nothing to do with mind-altering, mood-altering drugs because they open up doors that should never be opened into the spirit world. I mean, I've opened up some doors back in my BC days, but sorcery is witchcraft.

Then the word for Chaldeans, it simply means the learned, the skilled, those that are skilled in interpretation. So these are the people that are in Nebuchadnezzar's court that he calls on to tell him what this dream is. As we're going to see, he knows what the dream is. He's going to feign that he doesn't, but it'll come out in the text that he does. But he's not going to tell them the dream because then they would just give him some interpretation, but he wants to prove that they understand the interpretation. If they understood the interpretation, they would know what the dream is. So that's how he's going to test them.

It says here that then the king said unto them, "I have had a dream and my spirit was troubled and is troubled." The idea is to know the dream. "I want to know it. I want to know what it means. I want to know what it's trying to say." So here's where we switch in verse four, chapter two, to ancient Aramaic. It will continue from Hebrew. Chapter two, verse three, turns to Aramaic in verse four and will continue in Aramaic all the way through chapter seven, verse 28. Now you talk about the fingers of the Holy Spirit, the fingerprints of the Holy Spirit, because what happens in the rest of chapter two all the way through chapter seven has to do with the Gentile nations and prophecy that concerns us. When we end chapter seven, we go back to chapter eight and especially chapter nine. It switches back to prophecies that concern Israel.

Now, here's one of the big mistakes that most people who study prophecy or eschatology make: they don't seem to understand that that which God speaks to Israel is mutually exclusive from what God speaks to the church. You can't put them together. If you put them together, then you have the church going through the tribulation, and we're promised never to do that. We're not appointed unto wrath. But the saints are going through the tribulation when you study the Old Testament, especially when you come to the prophecy of Jeremiah, which was a contemporary with Daniel and with Ezekiel. Jeremiah calls it Jacob's trouble. He calls it Jacob's trouble for a reason, because God removes the church and He's now dealing with that last 70th-week vision that we're going to get in Daniel chapter nine. He's dealing with Israel again.

So it's very important if you're going to be a student of prophecy that you understand who the prophecy is being written to. It's really important to understand tonight as we look at this that the Holy Spirit didn't leave us to wonder. We're going to switch to the ancient language of the Gentiles through chapters two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Then it'll go back to Hebrew in chapter eight. That's just the way the Holy Spirit says, "Okay, now pay attention. Pay attention because this belongs to you." And we need to pay attention to what belongs to Israel because it is the timepiece of God.

So then the Chaldeans, these are the learned men that are interpreters, the Chaldeans to the king began to speak to the king in Syriac—that's ancient Aramaic. "O king, live forever." They're buttering him up. "Tell thy servants the dream and we shall show you the interpretation." Now, I wonder—I can't prove it, but I wonder—how many times Nebuchadnezzar has stood in the court of his father Nabopolassar and watched these guys pull the wool over his eyes. As you read through the text, you'll find out he ain't having it.

Watch what he says. So they said, "Just tell us the dream, we'll give you the interpretation." The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, listen carefully, "The thing is gone from me." I don't think it was. I think the text will prove that it wasn't. "If you will not make known unto me," here's his motivation plan—Nebuchadnezzar is a motivational speaker, did you know that? This is a great motivation. Listen. "If you don't make known unto me the dream with the interpretation thereof, you shall be cut into pieces and your house shall be made a dunghill. We're going to put you in the blender, then we're going to pour you out over your house and we're going to put cow dung on top of you." Is that motivation enough?

But then he goes on to say in verse six, "But if you show me the dream and the interpretation thereof, you shall receive of me gifts and rewards, great honor. Therefore show me the dream and the interpretation thereof." So there's the motivation. My dad was a great motivational speaker when he raised me. My dad was an engineer, very methodical. It took him a month to be spontaneous. So he wrote down for me what he required of me, the things I should do and the things I shouldn't do. Then there were the rewards and the punishment—great motivation. I think you ought to do that for your kids.

So Nebuchadnezzar lays out this great motivation to those in his court. He says, "Listen, here's the deal. You're not going to pull the wool over my eye like you did my father Nabopolassar. Here's the deal. If you don't tell me the dream and the interpretation, I'm going to grind you in little pieces. I'm going to make your house a dunghill. But if you do, great reward and great honor." So verse seven says they answered again and said, "Let the king tell his servants the dream and we will show you the interpretation of it."

The king answered and said, "I know of a certainty"—see, that's why I think that he might have stood in his father's court when he was the king when he was still alive and saw these guys pull the wool over his father's eyes. He says here, "I know for a certainty, I've had experience with this, that you would gain time. You're stalling as it were because you see the thing is gone out from me. You know what the decree is: little pieces, dung, or great reward and honor."

By the way, of all the kings that ever ruled over an empire, no one in human history had more authority than Nebuchadnezzar. He ruled as an absolute monarch. He truly was in all senses of the word a dictator. His word was law. So once he made a decree, that's it. There was no contesting it. So he says, "You know the decree."

Verse nine, "But if you will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you." It's already gone out. "If you don't do it, here's the decree. For you have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me till the time be changed." You think there's going to be another news cycle just like what we're seeing go on in our government, and we'll forget about it. He said, "I'm not forgetting about it. I'm having these dreams every night. They're terrifying. They take the sleep from me, and I'm telling you right now, I'm not going to change my mind. The decree has gone out and if you don't do what I've asked you to do, there's only one thing left for you: small pieces, dung." And then he says this thing: "Therefore tell me the dream and I shall know"—see, here's the indication we know he knows the dream. "You tell me the dream, and then I will know that you can show me the interpretation thereof."

Here's the beauty of it. Amos, one of the minor prophets in chapter three verse seven, says this. Listen carefully: "That's why we should study biblical prophecy. That's why we should know biblical prophecy. That's why we should have an accurate understanding of eschatology because in Amos chapter three verse seven says, 'Surely the Lord God will do nothing but He revealeth His secrets unto His servants the prophets.'" Now it behooves us to dig those things out and to connect the dots.

Jesus said when He came the first time, as He weeps over Jerusalem, He said, "O how often have I gathered or tried to gather you together as a mother hen with her chicks and you would not. Had you known the day of your visitation, this day would not have overtaken you." And again, from Daniel's prophecy, they could have done a certain little mathematical formula and they would have known. They would have known the very day that Jesus would ride triumphantly into Israel. They should have known the day of their visitation. But you know what? We should know the day of our visitation too.

Now, Jesus said we're not to know the day or the very hour, but we'll know the times and the seasons. That's why we study Revelation. That's why we study some of the Old Testament prophets. That's why we're studying Daniel because we don't want that day to overtake us unaware. In fact, Jesus said it shouldn't because you're children of the day, you're children of the light. That day should not overtake you. You should be so well acquainted with the 27 percent of the Bible that is prophecy that you can say to people, "Listen, we're living in the last days. We're at the final moments of the church's existence. We are the generation that will turn out the lights and lock the doors as far as the church is concerned. We're going home soon."

It can't get much worse. Listen, God does not measure time in seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years. He measures time morally. And when the morals of this planet reached the place where they demand the judgment of God—and I think they're about there. I don't know about you. I don't know how much—I'm going to stop saying that because I say it can't get any worse and then I turn on the news and go, "Oh yeah, it can. It really can." But how much deeper can it go? We're not only at the bottom of the barrel, now we're digging under it. It's not the blood of the aborted crying out from the ground? It's not the slap in the face where He made them male and He made them female and now we're so confused on gender? Confused on sexuality? Confused on family? We're confused about everything. And I think it's crying out.

But God says, "I do nothing till first I reveal those secrets to My servants the prophets." In a few moments, we're going to see that God's going to reveal. It's going to be very interesting. There's three things, if you're a note-taker, write down because through Daniel, God's going to reveal the thoughts—listen carefully—the thoughts that Nebuchadnezzar had before he had the dream. What he was thinking before he dreamed the dream. He's going to reveal to him what the dream was and even the emotions that he experienced while he was dreaming the dream. It's interesting as we walk through this section.

So let's get into it. Verse 10. And again, the Chaldeans answered before the king and said, "There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter. Therefore there is no king or lord or ruler that would ask such a thing at any magician, astrologer, and Chaldean. It's a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can show it before the king except"—isn't this interesting? God's setting them up. "Except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh." That's the only thing these guys get right, but it's not "gods" little "g". It's the God, Creator of heaven and earth because He traffics in the affairs of men.

Verse 12 says, "For this cause the king was angry," no doubt, "and very furious," extremely so, "and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon." Okay, that's it. You're not dealing with Nabopolassar, this is Nebuchadnezzar. Now all you guys, listen, you talk about reducing bureaucracy, getting rid of dead weight, getting rid of unnecessary bogged-down bureaucracy? He's about to do it. He's going to get rid of all of these guys.

And verse 13 says, "So the decree went forth that all of the wise men should be slain and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain." So Daniel's just back home doing his thing and all of a sudden, we're going to see that one of the captains of the guard show up and said, "You know what? It's curtains for you guys. You just—the this particular king ain't messing around." Verse 14 says, "Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom." Look what—see, 17 years old. We go back to chapter one, incredible because he would not compromise because he stayed true to his walk in his relationship with the living God. The Bible says that not only did God give him favor, but He gave him wisdom and insight and knowledge. It just was that "oeda" that we talk about in the New Testament, that spiritual wisdom that is a gift that's imparted into somebody where you don't know why you know but you know.

Again, Paul tells us that the carnal person understands not the things of God, neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. But you have the mind of Christ. You're like Daniel. You've been given the Spirit of the living God so that you do understand and discern all things. This particular wisdom was given to Daniel. I can't tell you how many times I've sat alone and I'm looking at a verse and I don't understand and I read to ad nauseam the commentators, and I know they don't understand it either. They're just taking their best shot at it. And I say, "Lord, I know that there's something here. I know there's something deeper. I'm not satisfied with just what I know and what I've read, but I would really like to know."

One of those verses was found in Ephesians chapter five for me in verse 17 when it says, "Do not be drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be being filled with the Holy Spirit." Then that's what we call a commandment. It's an imperative. He's telling you that you should not be drunk with wine which is to excess, but be filled with the Spirit so that you might know—here's the second imperative that follows that in verse 18—that you might know what the will of God is. Then it's followed by three participles and six definite articles. You know the Greek structure as well as I do, and I look at that and go, "I have no clue what You're saying. How in the world does being drunk with wine have anything to do with being filled with the Spirit?"

I prayed for a long time over that one and finally one night my wife had gone to bed early, the kids were in bed—this was years ago—and I'm looking at that verse again and I said, "Lord, there's something there and I'm not sure what it is." And just as clear it came to my mind: Do not be intoxicated with the philosophy and ideology of this world because they have a completely different view of marriage than I do. But be filled with the Spirit of Truth who leads and guides you into all truth that you might know the will of God. Whoa! You just dropped that into my heart! Whoa! That's amazing! That's incredible! How come I didn't see that sooner? Well, of course that's what it means.

And I've had those moments many, many, many times. I've had those moments while I'm teaching. God will drop a truth in and I'll say it and people go, "Man, that was pretty profound." I say, "Yeah, it was. I took notes on that. That was really good. It just dropped into my head." There's other things that drop into my head I cannot give credit to the Holy Spirit, but there are some that do every once in a while get through my thick skull.

Where were we at? Verse what? 14. Good, I'm thinking somebody's watching. So Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch, the captain of the king's guard, which had gone forth to slay all of the wise men there of Babylon. He answered and said unto Arioch, the king's captain, "Why is the decree so hasty from the king?" Then Arioch made known unto him what had happened. He said, "Daniel, you should have been there. Those guys were trying to pull the wool over his eyes and he just had it. We've seen them try to do that many, many times before and he'd had it. He said, 'That's it. You guys are toast. Little pieces, dunghill.'"

Then Daniel, verse 16—now listen to this. This guy's 17, 18 years old. The king is furious. He in every right and every definition of the term, listen, his will is without contestation. You could walk in and he could cut you in pieces right there. And somehow Arioch agrees with Daniel to take him into the presence of a king that's already upset. This is a teenager. Daniel went in, listen, Daniel went in and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would show the king the interpretation.

Now the king agrees to this. Do you think God's not working in the heart of that king? Do you think God's not giving Daniel special favor and special wisdom and insight? Do you think that when the king looked at him he saw something different about Daniel? This wasn't a guy trying to pull the wool over my eyes. This was a guy that was really serious. This was a guy that I have some confidence in. There's something about him that's different. There's something trustworthy about him.

So he gives him what he pleads for, a little time. Listen to verse 17. So Daniel went to his house and made the thing known unto Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions. What he said: "Prayer meeting tonight. We got some things we need to understand, or it's pieces and dunghill, or reward and honor." Our lives are in the balance, and I think we pray the best. Amen?

Sometimes we can coast in our prayers when things are at ease. Amen? We pray those prayers, "Now I lay me down to sleep." We go to bed at night: "Pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take." We get up in the morning: "Lord, thank You for this breakfast. Thank You for this one whole day. Just bless me through the day. Amen. I'm gone." Don't think about the Lord the rest of the day.

You let cancer show up. You let your creditor show up and try to take away your car or your house. You lose your job. And pretty soon, man, you're just like, "God! Help!" And you get real serious. Well, I think these guys were real serious. Listen to verse 18: "That they would desire mercy of the God of heaven concerning this secret, that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men." I think Daniel's laughing when he says wise men, as they're recording this: the wise men of Babylon. They're not so wise. They're wise guys, but they're not wise men.

Verse 19 says, "Then was the secret—listen to this—then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision." Not in a dream. The idea is that he could have been wide awake just like Peter was up on the rooftop and have this vision. Did he see it in living color? I think so. I think he saw the very thing that God was communicating to Nebuchadnezzar and with the interpretation thereof.

I've had one dream like that in my lifetime. Now, in Joel it says your young men shall dream dreams, your old men will have visions. I was a young man. Now if I had it, I'd have to call it a vision. But here's the deal. I remember just—I just had graduated from Bible college and I was hired to be an intern over Christian education and the youth in a very large church. The next morning I was to report for my first time to this church. And that night I had a dream, and it was in living color.

How many of you ever saw the movie Dances with Wolves? You remember when they're walking through the field and it's like this prairie plains and the wind is kind of blowing over the straw and it's kind of moving and he's got his hands out? Well, that's what I—I was in this field and as far as I could see it was flat, and it was like one of those prairie fields where the wind is kind of moving along the grass. I remember looking up because it was a very well-lit sunny day, but I could see no sun in the sky. But it was just illuminated, this field I was in.

All of a sudden I saw something way off in the distance. Something moving caught my eye and immediately I was transported from where I was standing to this object. There stood a man in this field, he had a shovel in his hand, and there's this thing that I can only describe that looked like a bingo wheel. I'm not Catholic either, but there was this thing that looked like a bingo wheel. This man was shoveling out of this field this dirt with the rocks and the dirt and the straw and all of the stuff and he was putting it in this bingo wheel. Then he shut the lid and he began to turn it. As he turned it, water just came out of nowhere and washed over and it washed away the dirt, the straw, all of the impurities. The rocks began to knock up against each other and they polished each other.

I remember looking into this and thinking, "This is strange because there's no big rocks and there's no small rocks. All of these rocks are the same size. That can't be." And then at that moment I realized I was having a vision. I thought it was just a dream. And I remember having the emotion of panic and crying out to the Lord, "Lord, You need to show me what this is because if You don't, I will misinterpret it. I will never get it right before I wake up. I'm panicked. Tell me what this means."

He said, "The field you're standing in is the world. The light that's illuminating this field is My love because I love this world. The man standing before you is My Son Jesus Christ adding to the church daily—the bingo wheel—such as should be saved. The Holy Spirit is washing the impurities out of My people. Footnote: You're not the Holy Spirit," speaking to me. "The rocks rubbing against each other is the accountability and the body ministry of the church as they love one another and they speak truth into each other's lives and they rub one another. Notice: No one is greater and no one is smaller in My kingdom. All are equal to Me."

And I woke up and I must have scared my wife. We were newly married; she might have thought I had those kind of nightmare dreams. "Waah! Get a pen, get a paper, get a quick!" "What?" "I—you got to write this down because I don't want to forget it. Like I could forget it." And I thought it was for the church I went to, and it wasn't for that one. It wasn't until I came here 27 years ago that God told me it's for this church and it's for this time.

So I know what it means to have visions in living color, emotions and feelings and you see things, you hear things God is speaking to you. Luckily I didn't need to go seek out a Daniel; God gave me the interpretation while I was there in panic.

So where were we at? 19. Thank you, keep me on track because I'll back up, you know me. Then was the secret revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven and he begins to sing a song. He begins to sing—in fact, it's interesting, this little diddy of praise that he offers to the Lord for revealing these things to him have 15 different quotations from Old Testament passages. You think Daniel was someone who understood the Word? In this little praise that he offers to the Lord spontaneously, as it were, there are 15 different quotations from Old Testament passages. Here's what he said: "Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. He changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings, He sets up kings. He giveth wisdom unto the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness and light dwelleth with Him. I thank Thee, I praise Thee, O God of my fathers, who has given me wisdom and might and has made known unto me now what is desired of Thee, for Thou hast made known unto us the king's matter."

Listen, whenever God gives you revelation—and every one of you have one. You know what the great revelation is? That He saved a wretch like you. Amen? Then you ought to sing His praises. Amen? Whenever God reveals something deep to you, man, the response ought to be "Thank You!" Amen?

We're not going to get through this chapter if we don't keep moving. Verse 24, "Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch"—watch this, more humorous stuff—"whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said unto him, 'Destroy not the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king and I will show unto the king the interpretation.'" Then Arioch—get this—then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and he said unto him, listen to this: "'I have found a man.'" You think he doesn't want some of that reward that Nebuchadnezzar was offering? "'I found a man!'" No, no, no. God a long time ago found this man. And through a string of events in his life, even though some of them were very difficult, put this man in the court of this palace at this time to give to this king that God was speaking to the proper understanding. Nobody found him. God placed him.

Listen, could it be tonight that God is placing you in a position and amongst some people that for this moment, for this time, like we studied in Esther, for such a time as this you're there? Daniel was there at the right time. Arioch didn't find him. "I have found a man of the captivity of Judah that will make known unto the king the interpretation."

Verse 26, the king answered and said to Daniel, whose name is Belteshazzar, "Art thou able? Are you able? Are you able?" I think that's a setup from the wicked one. Because Daniel could have said, "As a matter of fact, I am. I'm the smartest guy in your realm. I'm head and shoulders, although I'm a teenager, above anything that you have. You just don't understand what a privilege it is for you to have me in your court." Daniel may even have taken opportunity to name some ministry after himself. Maybe built a prayer tower: "This is Daniel's Prayer Tower." Or drew attention to himself. That's not what Daniel does. Listen carefully. "Are thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen and the interpretation thereof?"

Here's some more humor on Daniel's part. Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, "The secret which the king hath demanded cannot your wise men—all those guys standing against the back wall, your soothsayers, your sorcerers, your magicians, your Chaldeans, all of these people—those necromancers, these witches practicing their witchcraft and these diviners and these people making potions and cutting themselves? Can't they—do they not have the ability to give to the king what he requires?" I think there's a pause there. And I think maybe Old Nebby is looking at the back row and going, "Yeah, who are these guys?"

And listen to what he says in verse 28: "But there is a God. There is a God in heaven. There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets and He made known—He made known to the King Nebuchadnezzar what shall be—listen carefully—in the latter days." 14 times in the Old Testament this phrase is used and every time it refers to the time when the Messiah returns to set up His millennial reign. "God has shown you what shall come to pass in the latter days. Thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these: As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed."

He's not only going to tell him what the dream and the interpretation is, he's going to tell him what he was thinking before he went to sleep. Because we're going to see as we go through the rest of the text, what he was thinking was, "What's after this? I rule the world. What's going to happen when I'm gone?" You ever thought about that? Isn't it amazing that the older you get, the more you think about that? When I was 20, I thought I was going to live forever. How many would say Amen? When you're 30, you still thought you've got a long ways ahead of you. 40, 50, your 60s roll around and you realize I'll be 65 in November, and I realize God only promised me 70. Man, the sands of the hourglass are getting pretty lean on the top and they're getting pretty thick on the bottom for me. And that's just okay with me because I know when this life ends, real life begins.

But you think about things. As you get older, you think about things. Lord, have I done enough for You? Was I obedient? How many people did I affect? Will my children continue to serve You, Lord, when I'm gone? How about my grandchildren? The other night—last Sunday night—my oldest grandson here in town spent the night with us. He was going to stack some wood for us, so we stayed up late Sunday night just talking about the things of the Lord, just sharing with him my life, just like I did with my son before him. Because when you get to a certain age and you understand that you only have so much time left, you want to redeem that time. You want to use it wisely. Amen?

So I think that's what's going to happen. So listen, here Daniel's telling Nebuchadnezzar, "When you were sitting in your bed, you were thinking what should come to pass hereafter. I'm going to tell you not only your dream and interpretation, but I'm going to tell you what you were thinking before you had the dream. And He revealed the secrets, made known unto thee that shall come to pass. But as for me—here's what you need to know, Nebuchadnezzar—as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any other, more than any living. It's not because I'm wiser because I'm not."

I remember a story that Chuck Smith tells that there was this lady in his church who had a husband who was a neurosurgeon. And he wasn't saved. So she kind of manipulated with Kay to have them over to dinner one night and Kay was just convinced if she could get her husband over to Chuck's house and have dinner with Chuck that Chuck would lead him to the Lord. She was just convinced of it. So of course they had dinner and had wonderful conversation because Chuck was studying to be a neurosurgeon before he left college to go to into the ministry. So after dinner, the ladies disappear into the kitchen to do the dishes and bring out the dessert, and they leave Chuck—Chuck knows it's a setup—leaves him and that guy there alone.

Chuck just as the Holy Spirit led just began to speak to the man. When the ladies came in, they saw them both on bended knee before the couch and this man was accepting Christ as his Savior. The next day she comes running into his office, "I knew Chuck! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That if I could just get my husband alone with you for five minutes, you'd lead him to the Lord! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

And Chuck said, "Is it true that your husband's a neurosurgeon, right?" "Yeah." "What would it look like if you were in the office there after he'd done a surgery where he repaired some broken blood vessel in somebody's brain and that person came running in the next day—or his wife come running in the next day and grabbed the scalpel up off of his operating tray and began to praise the scalpel? Wouldn't you think that's kind of foolish? Do you not understand that all we are, all we ever hope to be, is the scalpel in the Master's hand? It's not the violin that makes the sweet music, it's the one who's strumming the strings." Amen?

Daniel knows it. Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, listen, it's not because I'm smarter—where did we leave off? 30. Oh man, we got verses to go and time is out. Let's move on. And so, "But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me because I'm wiser than anybody else, because I'm not. But for their sakes that shall be made known the interpretation to the king, and thou mightest know the thoughts of your heart."

"Thou, O king, sawest and behold a great image. This is what you saw. This great image whose brightness was excellent and it stood before thee and the form thereof was terrible." He's not only going to tell him what it is: "I'm telling you what the emotion you had when you saw it. You were terrified." And the king's probably going, "Yeah, that's exactly what was going on. Yeah, I was terrified. I saw that thing."

"This image's head was of fine gold, its breasts and arms were of silver, its belly and thighs were of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that stone, that stone—it's in the definite article, a particular stone—was cut without hands, a supernatural stone as it were, which smote the image upon its feet at the last part, the bottom part, the end of this image on its feet that were made of iron and clay, and it brake them to pieces. Then was the iron and the clay, the brass, the silver, the gold broken into pieces together and became like the chaff of a summer threshing floor, and the wind carried them away and no place was found for them. And that stone, the stone that smote that image, became a great mountain and filled the whole earth."

Now we're going to have to stop there. But let me talk to you just a little bit with a few verses about that mountain. First of all, what you need to know is that God knows you so well, just like he knew Nebuchadnezzar, that He knows your thoughts before you have them. Do you know that? You haven't thought a thought that He doesn't know. Psalm 139 verse 23: "Search me, O God, know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts." See, nothing's hidden from Him. He had chosen Nebuchadnezzar, put him in that position, gave him those visions, gave him those dreams, told him what his thoughts were before he had them, showed him what it was. He's going to show him the interpretation thereof. Told him of the emotion he was having even when he was having these visions. He's going to give it to him because it's for the last days. So that pen could be put to paper under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and we would know these things.

But he's talking here about this stone growing into a great mountain. I want to leave you tonight with this encouragement, we'll pick it up next week, we'll finish up chapter two and get into chapter three. But we have to stop freaking out about what's going on. I don't like it any more than you do. But we read recently that God puts up kings, He brings down kings, and sometimes He puts even the baser, as it were, in places of leadership because He is punishing or He's disciplining or He's doing something.

We need to understand a couple of things here tonight. Number one: all things—not some things or most things—all things are working together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes. As this world is going down, we're in preparation to go up. Do you understand? Things are not falling apart, they're falling into place. Every day they get worse and worse, it gets better and better for us because we're one day closer to hearing that voice from heaven that says "Come up hither," and in a moment and in a twinkling of an eye, this corruption's going to put on incorruption, this mortal immortality and we're going to be caught up—"harpazo" is our Greek word that the Latin Vulgate gets the word "rapture" from, it means to be caught away with great force—and we're going to meet the Lord in the air and we're told to comfort one another with these words. Because our citizenship is not here. You're not a Republican and you're not a Democrat and you're not even an independent. Get over the politics. Your citizenship is in heaven from whence we look for our Savior, because when He comes, we're going there.

I don't even know what to call us, but we're citizens of a very unique place that has a very unique government. And that government is about to come and get things right here. Listen to what Isaiah says. I've read this before and I'm going to read it again. I've read it recently but I want to remind you. Isaiah, the great prophet of the Old Testament, tells us in chapter two—and by the way, he's writing a hundred years before Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel, about a hundred years before—and he's kind of the forerunner of their prophecies as he's warning them and then up in your face, as it were, comes Jeremiah and Ezekiel and gives greater warnings and the nation of Israel doesn't listen and they find themselves in Babylon and there Daniel is being used by God.

"And it shall come to pass," chapter two verse two, "it shall come to pass in the last days, in those moments when the Messiah is coming—not for the church, but returning with the church—to establish His eternal reign. To establish that throne of David where He rules with a rod of iron, where there's no end to His government. This is what he's talking about." So Isaiah is seeing this. He says, "It's going to come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow to it." That rock turns into what? A mountain. What mountain? Mount Zion. Beautiful for situation, the mountain of the great King. It's the resting place for Jerusalem. It's the place where David's throne will be re-established in the purified temple because the Messiah will rebuild it when He comes back after the Antichrist defiles it.

And then he says this: "And many people shall go and say, 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, the God of the dirty rotten thief—that's us. And He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.'"

We're moments away from that. We're moments away from having a government that we can all get under and submit to and be glad to do it. Amen? Moments away. The next thing is dinner with Dad, and then we return with our Father, to return with our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, and to set up this kingdom. Watch carefully. Babylon has gone, Medo-Persia has gone, Greece has gone, Rome has gone. Rome is gone in the sense that it disintegrated. The two legs under Constantine have been established. We're at the time of the 10 toes.

What happens at the time of the 10 toes? This stone cut without hands strikes the governments as it were of this world and destroys them and they dissipate into chaff. And God's kingdom, His everlasting kingdom, the final kingdom, will rise up like a stone growing into a great mountain and righteousness will be the order of the day. How many long for that government?

Let me ask you this: how many are longing even more for it because you see the government we have? Do you think it might get you a little more prepared and a little more desirous? You know, some of you guys were coasting pretty good under the last administration because things were happening pretty decently. Gas was down around two bucks a gallon, your taxes were low, prosperity was high. All these good things were going on. The threat of a world annihilation was kind of going away. We saw him deal with China, we saw him deal with North Korea, we saw—but now all of that's gone. Amen? You think you might be praying a little harder? You think you might be looking up instead of looking out? I think so. All things work together for good.

I just want out of here. I don't know about you. The sooner the better. Amen? Keep your eyes looking up because the day of your redemption is drawing near. Amen. Do not be discouraged, do not be dismayed. Let not your heart be troubled. Jesus made a promise to you and He made a promise to me: "Don't let your heart be troubled. I'm going away. Believe in God, believe also in Me because in My Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it weren't so, I would have told you. I go away to prepare a place for you. And when it's done, I'm coming back—I think it's almost done—to receive you unto Myself, that where I am, you might be also." Amen?

And then the swamp gets turned into a muddy puddle. You know what you do with muddy puddles? When I went to New Zealand, my youngest granddaughter over there got into this thing where she loved—and she called them muddy puddles. I mean, Uganda has a—it's a British colony, so there's a lot of British influence there. Same with New Zealand. Instead of saying a mud puddle like we say in the United States, it wasn't a mud puddle, it was a muddy puddle. And so we're at the beach and when the ocean wave had come out and come back there'd be these little puddles and she'd go stomping them, "Come on, Grandpa, let's get the muddy puddles! Let's stomp out the muddy puddles! Let's stomp out the muddy puddles!" And you probably saw videos and pictures of me out there with my little granddaughter holding her hand and we're stomping in muddy puddles. And we stomped them out. And one of these days the King of Glory is going to come and stomp out these muddy puddles. And we're going to rule and reign with Him forever and ever and ever. Let not your heart be troubled. Amen.

Father, thank You for Your Word tonight. Again, for this great prophet Daniel. Man, a teenager, blows my mind. But thank You, Father, for his message to us oh so many years later—2,600 years later. We're reading these prophecies and we're seeing the end of it, the fulfillment thereof. So speak to our hearts.