Daniel 2:46,47 – “Heart Work”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴⁶Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and worshipped Daniel and he said an offering and incense to pour out to him. ⁴⁷Answering the king to Daniel and saying, “From truth your (pl.) God He [is] the God of gods and a lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries as you (sing.) were able to reveal this mystery.”

As usual, barrels of ink have been spilt debating this matter of Nebuchadnezzar “worshipping” Daniel and whether or not Daniel allowed it, etc., etc. etc. I guess I would reply to it all two observations: First, it isn’t surprising that the king would do this. To us, it is surprising. To us, there is God and there is man. To us, you worship God, not people. But in Nebuchadnezzar’s world, it was very different. Their “gods” were in a sense nothing but super-endowed people, with the same lusts and passions as mortal people. Also, the ancient peoples often attributed divinity to their kings and worshiped them (as when later, Daniel was forbidden to pray to anyone but the king). We need to realize that, in Nebuchadnezzar’s world, there was no real and clear distinction between gods and people, and so, when a person did something seemingly god-like, it was okay to actually worship them. His response may “surprise” us but we need to realize he lived in a very different world.

The second thing I want to say is that, in the real world, especially at work, sometimes things happen in such a swirl, you may or may not even get a chance to respond to or change something. In other words, here Daniel is, he reveals the dream and, immediately upon finishing, the greatest king on earth is suddenly on the floor worshiping Daniel and giving orders that His attendants make offerings to him. Daniel may or may not even have time to object as Paul and Silas did in Acts 14:15 when the people of Lystra tried to worship them, and they responded, “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you?” Daniel is not in charge, the king is. Even if Daniel can object, he would have to do it very meekly, as, in doing so, he would be defying the king’s orders. Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. But, my point is that, in the real world, we often don’t get the chance to control what other people do or don’t do. Sometimes we have to just let them do what they want, right or wrong, while we simply know better and move on with life. In our lives, such things can go one way or the other, and Daniel is no different.

Probably more important anyway is to consider this rather amazing confession coming from an idol-worshipping king: “From truth your (pl.) God He [is] the God of gods and a lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries as you (sing.) were able to reveal this mystery.” To simply read these words, we might conclude that Nebuchadnezzar was here converted to worship of the God of Israel. In fact, in the next chapter he builds a huge idol and demands its worship and in the next has to be turned into a cow before he’ll acknowledge “the Most High rules.” The words before us represent no “conversion” at all. But neither are they frivolous. This Babylonian king has, probably for the first time, come face to face with the living God.

I am trying to remember every day that this is God’s world, that in His world today He is doing a amazing things, that I am only here because He will allow me to be a part of His mighty work. Daniel is in Babylon specifically because the Lord is busy doing amazing things. The Lord wants to draw the hearts of these Babylonian people to Himself, and in particular He would draw this tyrannical, raging, murderous king. The Lord loves Nebuchadnezzar and would have him be His son. But someone once observed it’s almost always true that whatever the Lord does, He does slowly -- and that is particularly true when it comes to His wooing of people’s hearts. I would suggest that, what the Lord is doing here, is, in a sense, introducing Himself to Nebuchadnezzar. After today, there is no question Nebuchadnezzar has “met” the Lord. But much, much, much heart work is still necessary before he will come to that place in his heart of hearts when he not only knows the Lord is there and knows He is powerful, but wants Him to rule in his heart.

In a sense, Nebuchadnezzar today has only graduated to the faith of demons. The demons have met the Lord. There is no doubt they know He is there. And they know He is powerful. But they don’t want Him to rule over them. They still want to do it their way. As James said, “You believe that God is One? You do well. But the demons also believe and tremble!”

What is my point? Only that, as we read this text, what we are seeing is part of the process the Lord uses to draw people to Himself. It is short-sighted to think this event is all it would take to bring about the complete conversion of this idol-worshipping king. It rarely ever happens that fast. On the other hand, we shouldn’t be too surprised or disappointed that in the very next chapter he’s arrogantly building his golden statue and throwing three of the Lord’s servants into a fiery furnace. He is not converted. Like so many of us, there will be a long period between this day when Nebuchadnezzar “meets” the Lord and when His heart finally bows. During that period, we all, just like him, commit grievous sins. We choose laughably stupid paths. We spit in His face and do seemingly everything we can to frustrate His grace. Those of us who love Him today know that is what happened in our lives. We know His calling was a long process. During that time, He showed up in many, many places, sometimes very small and unnoticeable to anyone around us – but we knew it was Him. We just didn’t want to let Him in – yet.

We have to accept in our own hearts that this is the normal path for anyone to come to Him. We all wish we could just pray and see people fall at His feet. But they don’t. It just doesn’t work that way. But we could take from Daniel today this encouragement, that even while people fight and rebel and sin (sometimes grievously – like we did), the Lord just goes on quietly working in their heart. Paul tells us He “determined the times of their lives and the exact places where they should live … that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him …” (Acts 17:26,27). In the meantime and while those people we pray for are fighting against Him, “the servant of the Lord must be kind to everyone … those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance …” (II Tim 2:24,25).

Our job, like Daniel is to be “present and accounted for” every day. This is God’s world and I’m here to be a part of whatever it is He’s up to. And my marching orders? “Love God and love people.” Everywhere I go, everything I do, I want to be humbly, patiently aware that God is doing great things in people’s hearts. I don’t have to understand it. I don’t even have to see it or know it’s happening. But I can, like Daniel, be assured He is at work.

I probably won’t be interpreting any dreams today or find myself in the palace of any great king, but I want to be “present and accounted for” in my world while the Lord is doing His slow quiet work.

Daniel 2:36-45 – “Literally”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³⁶This the dream and its meaning we will tell before the king:

³⁷You the king [are] the king of the kings that the God of the heavens has granted to you the kingdom, the possession, and the might and the honor, ³⁸and in all of which dwelling the sons of the mankind, the animal of the field, and the bird of the heavens He granted in the hand of you and He gave authority to you in all of them. You [are] he, the head which is of the gold.³⁹And in the place of you another kingdom will arise, earthward from you, and another kingdom, a third, which [is] the bronze will rule in the all of the earth, ⁴⁰and a fourth kingdom shall be mighty like the iron; forasmuch as iron crushes and subdues the all, and as the iron which smashes all of these, it shall crush and smash. ⁴¹And then you saw the feet and the toes from them clay like a potter and from them an iron, [the] kingdom shall be divided, but from the stability like iron, forasmuch as you saw the iron being mixed in the clay of the mud. ⁴²And the toes of the feet from them iron and from the clay, from the end the kingdom shall be mighty and from it shall be frail. ⁴³Then you saw the iron being mixed in the clay of the mud. They shall be mixed in the seed of the man and they shall not be ones clinging, this with this. Behold! Like the iron not being mixed with the clay.⁴⁴And in the days of them, these kings, the God of the heavens shall set up a kingdom which to ages. Not it shall be harmed and the kingdom shall not be left to another people. The kingdom shall crush and put an end to all of the these and it shall arise to the ages.⁴⁵Consequently, all of which you saw where from the mountain a stone severed itself not in hands and it crushed the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver and the gold. The great God makes known to the king what shall be after this and certain the dream and being faithful.

As has been observed before, barrels of ink have been spilt on these passages all down through the twenty-six or so centuries which have passed since these events occurred and Daniel recorded them.

This may seem a strange commentary on these verses, but the most encouraging thing I take from them is the assurance that my study methods are in fact correct. I determined long ago to study the Bible, to discover what it does (and does not) say, then simply let it be, whether I understand it or not. As John warned us, it is a dangerous thing to add to or take away from the Words of the living God.

What is remarkable to me is that, if in fact you simply let this passage say what it says, it has been and is a remarkably accurate account of human history. Babylon was followed by Medo-Persia, was followed by Greece, was followed by Rome. I don’t think anyone would challenge Daniel’s description of Rome as a kingdom of iron that crushed and smashed everything before it.

I also think it was amazingly accurate to say, when the stone cut without hands smashes the statue, it smashes all four of those kingdoms. Historically speaking, each of those kingdoms did not so much destroy those before it but rather absorbed them. To this day we measure time and directions by multiples of six, which was the Babylonian numbering system. The numerical system of land surveying is still based on multiples of six. Greek history and language has carried down through the centuries, along with their architecture, and even much of Greek ideas of government are incorporated into the government of our own United States. In a sense, the Roman Empire never really ended. It just sort of faded into the nations of Europe. We still use Roman numerals. Roman law is the model on which western culture’s laws are based. Latin continued to be the lingual-franca of the civilized world for centuries and of course the languages of Europe to this day are Romanic languages, all just linguistic evolutions of Latin itself. So, when the stone cut without hands strikes the image, it destroys all four kingdoms at once. Only God could have known 2600 years ago that the world would progress as it has, but His Word precisely and accurately predicted it.

This matter of literal translation is also seen in the whole matter of the fourth kingdom (Rome) and the stone cut without hands (Christ). This vision predicted that the Roman kingdom would be strong as iron, that it would crush and devour everything, and yet it would be divided (two legs) and that it would somehow end up including these feet and toes of clay and iron mixed and there being the ten toes. In fact, the Roman Empire broke up into the Western and Eastern kingdoms (probably depicted by the two legs). Then those of us who believe in literal interpretation said for years that someday there would be a European Union, that somehow the nations of Europe would unite to actually reform the Roman Empire. That, of course, is exactly what has happened. But we also said that, when it did, it would be, as Daniel said, a “divided kingdom … the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.” Once again, even though the European Union did come about, yet England has chosen its “Brexit,” and the Union itself is fragile at best – just as God said. We’ve taken His words literally and watched them come about – just as He said.

At this point, we don’t know exactly what He means by the ten toes. Later, in Daniel 7:7 and 24, when Daniel sees the fourth kingdom as a ravenous beast, we’re told of the ten horns and that they will be ten kings. Taking things literally, we can predict that somehow, by the time Jesus comes, the European Union will have developed into a ten-kingdom unity. That is not true today. But, believing in literal interpretation, we are certain that is exactly what will come to pass.

Now about the stone cut without hands, I would suggest this is where we really see the value of literal interpretation. Down through the ages, people have maintained that the stone is Jesus at His first coming and that His kingdom is the Church. People have said that it was Christianity that took down the Roman Empire and that since then Christianity has been progressing to conquer the whole world. This interpretation was particularly attractive in the 18^th and 19^th centuries when the British Empire was expanding, taking Christianity to the four corners of the earth, and when world missions were progressing with amazing results. During that time, it really did look like Christianity could become the dominant world religion.

And so, interpreters said that was the meaning of the stone cut without hands and the kingdom He would establish.

Today, things don’t look so rosy.

Had those interpreters been more careful with their exegesis, they wouldn’t have made such ill-fated and embarrassing predictions.

What do I mean? First of all, when the stone cut without hands strikes the image, it is clearly an event. It happens at a very specific point in time, not gradually over centuries. When Jesus returns in Rev 19, riding His white horse, a sharp sword goes forth from His mouth, wherewith to slay the nations. His Second Coming is an event. Also, what He establishes is a kingdom. A kingdom is a civil institution with a real physical king, ruling over real people, in a real world. The previous four parts of the great image were kingdoms. No one would question they were real physical kingdoms. It does not make logical sense to then make the final kingdom into something totally different. The Church is not a civil institution. It is not a kingdom. (Probably a lot of people will read this and be saying, “But, but, but … we are the kingdom of God!” – to which I would reply, “No, we are not.” That association is, once again, the result of sloppy exegesis, and is the very error which led to the ridiculous and ill-fated predictions of the 19^th century). If we take the word “kingdom” literally, then the stone cut without hands has not yet struck the image and its kingdom has not yet begun.

And that is in fact what we are seeing. The fourth kingdom has not yet formed into ten kingdoms, and we are yet waiting for Jesus to come, to destroy the kingdoms of this world, and in fact rule over this world as our King over an earthly kingdom. The reason why we, as Christians, easily identify with the kingdom of God is because our Savior is the King. As a believer, I accept His kingship, I want Him to be king, I want Him to rule in my heart as King, and I long for a world where He actually physically rules. In a sense, in our world, He is an exiled King. Although He is “exiled,” we ourselves acknowledge Him as the true King, try to live under His rule, as if He was the king, and we long for the day when He returns and does rule. So, it is easy for us to see ourselves as His “kingdom.”

But … His kingdom, as a kingdom, is yet to come.

As Paul said in II Timothy, “In the last days, perilous times will come …” The very clear image the Bible presents is not that the world will get “better and better” until finally Jesus comes to rule over us. Like Daniel’s image, it gets worse and worse, until Jesus comes to smash it all and set up His kingdom.

I believe that, all along, down through the last twenty-six centuries, if people would have simply let the words say what they say, even if they didn’t make sense at the time, they would have saved all the ridiculous interpretations which were eventually proven false. As with the rest of the Bible, we have to resist the temptation to embrace attractive positions which are “close” to the wording of the Scriptures, yet require a little “fudging” here and there. No. No fudging. It says what it says. It says exactly what it says and that is exactly what it means.

I hold great respect for the Reformed theologians of history. When it comes to Bible exegesis, the glory of God, and real Christian living, I’d rather read them than anyone else. But, for whatever reason, when it comes to prophecy, they like to conclude, “We just don’t know. We don’t know what it means. It’s all just allegories.” They just don’t know what to do with things like the “thousand years” of Rev 20. We do. It means “one thousand years” – literally.

And I feel encouraged, studying the prophecy of Daniel 2, and seeing how, in fact, literal interpretation is the only interpretation which has tracked accurately through twenty-six centuries. I am very encouraged to just keep studying the Bible, trying to understand exactly what God says – and doesn’t say – and letting it simply say what it says. I’m very aware that I occasionally say things that probably make other people’s theological hair stand on end, but I don’t care. If that is what the Bible says, that is what it says. Maybe I need to understand it better and maybe I need to understand what to do with it, but it still says what it says – whether anyone likes it or not.

Let us all remember that, in the end, the stone cut without hands smashes the kingdoms of this world – and that same Jesus and His truth will always, in the end smash all our foolish notions. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. May He be our Truth we live by -- literally.

Daniel 2:31-36 – “What Does it Mean?”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³¹You, O king, were seeing and behold, a certain image great. That image great and brightness extraordinary, standing before you, and its appearance fearful. ³²That image head of fine gold, its chest and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze ³³its legs  of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. ³⁴You were seeing until a stone was cut out of not hands and it struck the image upon its feet of the iron and the clay and it crushed them. ³⁵Then were crushed together the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold and they became like chaff of threshing floors of summer and the wind took them away and all of a trace not was found of them and the stone which struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. ³⁶This the dream and its meaning we will tell before the king.

As I have been studying these verses, I’ve been trying to see them as Nebuchadnezzar would have at this point. It’s easy for us to read them and know – of course, it’s the four kingdoms of the world and kingdom of Christ. But at this point, Nebuchadnezzar has no idea. It’s just this strange statue that gets destroyed and the mountain that grows. What could that possibly mean?

Nebuchadnezzar is clueless. And so would you and I be if we were standing there at that moment. The king at this second would be dumb-struck by the fact that Daniel has just done the impossible – he has told him what he dreamed and he knows what he’s told him was correct, and he knows that is utterly impossible. You and I would certainly be amazed too as we stood there listening, but this murderous, raging king is suddenly sitting there cowed before this young man with obviously supernatural insight.

But he still doesn’t know. Nebuchadnezzar still hasn’t the slightest clue what the dream means. If he had forgotten it, he now remembers it clearly, as Daniel has recalled it. If he did remember it but wanted someone to tell it to him first – just to be sure they were legit – then certainly Daniel has removed all doubt as to his ability to interpret it. But still no one but Daniel knows what it means.

The king needs to know. He wants to know. He wants very badly to know. Everyone else he thought could help him has let him down. And here is Daniel, standing before him, and at this point, the king knows he can explain the dream. Finally there is someone who can help him.

I want to just pause and note how that is the same world we all live in. There is so much that happens I don’t understand. So much that doesn’t make sense. I am constantly barraged with situations where we may know a bunch of facts, but we are clueless what to do with them. It is such a joy to suddenly have someone who does seem to understand, someone who can explain it to me, someone who can make sense of it all. Daniel is that guy right at this moment for Nebuchadnezzar.

I wonder how often we as believers are that person for someone else? Maybe we don’t even realize we’re doing it? Maybe we hold within us the “light” and don’t even realize when it’s shining into someone else’s heart? As an engineer, I certainly want to be that person for others. They often look to me to “figure out” what to do about this or that, or to explain to them why this or that is happening – and what to do about it. It’s always nice when I can confidently give them good direction that helps them. But sometimes I have to scratch my head and say, “That’s a good question.” Sometimes the Lord very clearly helps me to find answers for them, which is always cool – and sometimes I just don’t know. In my own heart, I have the Lord to fall back on – I can trust Him to make it clear, if I really need to know. But others don’t have that underlying confidence to lean on. Even then, I wonder if the light of our hope shines out? And of course, life is bigger than water mains with too much pressure and pumps that won’t run. People are living in a world where too many things don’t make sense.

 But it all makes perfect sense to our God.

He knows exactly what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream means. And because Daniel knows this God who knows, he knows too. And Nebuchadnezzar knows he is about to explain it to him.

What a wonderful thing for the king to have a real believer in his presence, to have someone whom he is confident really can answer his questions, explain things that don’t make sense. Once again, I wonder how often we are that person in someone else’s life? If we are, like Daniel, it will only be because God has enabled us. It certainly is never anything in us. “To Him belong wisdom and power.” But the Lord may choose to do it through us. When He does, I hope I’m humble enough to be used. Once again, I suspect most of the time we don’t even know we’re doing it, but that is all the more reason to just stay humble and try to love, try to listen, try to say kind things to people – and hope through all of that, maybe the Lord is shining light and hope into someone else’s heart.

Daniel could do it – and so can we.

So what does it mean anyway?

We’ll just have to keep studying!