Sermon – Daniel 2 – Faith in a Faithless Land: God's Wisdom

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – Daniel 2 – Faith in a Faithless Land: God's Wisdom

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

September 18, 2011

I am continuing today with the second of a series of sermons entitled “Faith in a Faithless Land.” Our text for this series is the Book of Daniel. This book is set during the period after the kingdom of Judah had become a vassal state to the Empire of Babylon. The best and brightest of the Judean youth, the graduates of Harvard and Yale, the football players, the rock stars, the ones most likely to succeed were all carried off to Babylon to serve the growing needs of the expanding empire's bureaucracy. They have been entered into a three year crash course to become Babylonians by learning the language and customs of their captors. The Babylonians wanted to squeeze the Jewishness out of them by replacing their Jewish names with Babylonians names and forcing them to eat meat and drink wine that had been offered to Babylonian gods.

We saw last week that Daniel and his friends wanted to continue to believe in the God of their ancestors, Yahweh. So, privately they kept using their Jewish names and with God's help persuaded their guard to allow them to eat only vegetables. In this way they were able to remain faithful in a faithless land. Today we will see another challenge to their faith with a contest between human wisdom and God's wisdom in a faithless land. But first lets pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

In the second chapter of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar has assemble his royal cabinet, the secretaries of magic and sorcery, and undersecretaries of the departments of astrology and enchantments. This king had called this important meeting because he had had a bad dream. There were many threats facing the empire and the king had to watch out for all dangers both within and outside the empire. A disturbing dream could be a warning from the Babylonian gods that something bad was about to happen. The cabinet has been called together to deal with the possible threat.

The wise men that met with the king that day were the best in all the empire. They had studied the ancients scrolls and were experts on interpreting dreams. But the king had a twist. He wanted them to interpret his dream without first telling them what it was. Maybe the king had forgotten the dream. Maybe this was a test of his most trusted advisers. Either way these men, steeped in human wisdom, made a startling admission. Remember what they said in Daniel 2:10, "There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks!” The wisest men in the Babylonian empire admitted that there are limits on human wisdom.

Today most people believe there are no limits on human wisdom. This is a product of our scientific age. If we just have enough resources and time and use the scientific method we can figure out anything. This is the axiom that the social and physical sciences are based on. Human wisdom is ultimately capable of understanding everything, we just haven't got it all worked out yet. Our President has assembled the best minds in the county to figure out how to get more people working. They say we need more time and must spend more money. No one ever questions whether or not human wisdom itself is up to the task of restarting job growth. We just assume that human wisdom must be able to do anything. If human wisdom can get us to the moon and back then certainly it can solve all the problems we have today. But the Book of Daniel makes it very clear that there are limits to human wisdom. And with that in mind here is today's second lesson.

Daniel 2:24-49 ²⁴ Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, "Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him." ²⁵ Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, "I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means."

²⁶ The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?"

²⁷ Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, ²⁸ but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come.

Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these: ²⁹ "As you were lying there, O king, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. ³⁰ As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.

³¹ "You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue-- an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.

³² The head of the statue was made of pure gold,

its chest and arms of silver,

its belly and thighs of bronze,

³³ its legs of iron,

its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.

³⁴ While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

³⁵ Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. ³⁶ "This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.

³⁷ You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; ³⁸ in your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

³⁹ "After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. ⁴⁰ Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-- for iron breaks and smashes everything-- and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. ⁴¹ Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. ⁴² As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³ And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

⁴⁴ "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. ⁴⁵ This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands-- a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces. "The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy."

⁴⁶ Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. ⁴⁷ The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery." ⁴⁸ Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. ⁴⁹ Moreover, at Daniel's request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.

Daniel was able to both know the king's dream and interpret it because he was not using human wisdom. Human wisdom was not able to do this. But by using God's wisdom, which is available only to the faithful, Daniel was able to do what the wise men of Babylon could not.

Daniel told the king that he had dreamed of a giant statue. King Nebuchadnezzar was very happy to hear that he was on top, the golden head. Below the king was a body of decreasing value. King Nebuchadnezzar might want to erect this statue in Babylon to show everyone how the empire fit together with the wealthiest at the top supported by the poor at the bottom. But this would be interpreting the dream with human wisdom. Daniel had a different interpretation using God's wisdom.

Daniel said that the statue represented three kingdoms that were to follow Babylon. There has much debate concerning which kingdoms the author was talking about. But the important thing is that all earthly kingdoms are temporary. They will all, one day, come to an end because anything that this built on human reason is finite and limited. The only thing that is permanent is that which is built on God's wisdom.

In Nebuchadnezzar's dream the foundation of the statue was built on a combination of clay and iron. This represents human wisdom which is strong, but will one day crumble to pieces. Human wisdom, clay and iron, is destroyed by rock which of course represents God's wisdom.

So anything we build with human wisdom will one day fall apart, but whatever is build on the rock of God's wisdom will last forever. According to the Book of Daniel the rock in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, God's wisdom, will destroy all the kingdoms of the earth and will establish a permanent kingdom, not made by human hands, but the Kingdom of God.

So Kingdom of God is coming and will be established on the solid foundation of God's wisdom. It will replace the human kingdoms built on crumbling foundations of human reason. The Kingdom of God will be permanent. And a first century AD prophet named John told us to repent for this Kingdom of God is at hand.

Don't rely on human wisdom. The experts might be smart, well trained and highly educated. What they build will be as strong as iron, silver and gold. But the foundation of human wisdom is very weak. So it much better to rely on God's wisdom which is permanent, solid as a rock. Amen.