God Reigns While Kingdoms Crumble Series

"God Reigns while Kingdoms Crumble"

Book of Daniel Series

CCCAG 1-26-25

Scripture: Daniel 2:31-45

1. Introduction

I'm going to start off this morning with a quick question-

What is the kind of person that rubs you the wrong way.

All of us have a personality type that really rubs us the wrong way, and for me, it’s a person that is very prideful, arrogant, and is a bit of a bully toward others.

Before coming here, I was working as a paramedic, I had a female partner for a while and she had a boyfriend that had that macho, arrogant, in your face personality that rubbed everyone the wrong way.

We were driving back from a long transfer and she was looking through her phone and trying to shop for a birthday present for him. She asked me what my opinion was of what to get him for his birthday and before I could think otherwise and give a more political answer. I replied, a mirror so he can look at the best thing he has ever seen.

That got me an eye roll.

People who are prideful and arrogant can often be very difficult to deal with and even more difficult to show them that they are wrong about something they believe or think.

In mental health we have a term called “lack of insight”. This means that a person has a complete inability to recognize or understand how their own symptoms and behaviors are limiting and even destroying their life. A major symptoms of this the person in question will have very little empathy of how their choices affect others in a negative way.

The poster child for this- King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

The last time that we were in our series on Daniel, we saw that Nebuchadnezzar was being disturbed by a dream that he kept having. And it wasn't just the fact that he had this dream, it was that he couldn't remember the specifics of this dream.

Nebuchadnezzar gathers his royal advisors and tells them that they needed to tell him the exact specifics of his dream and the meaning behind the imagery he was seeing.

These advisors were a mix of people- some were learned and wise men who were probably good advisors to the king. However, there was also a group who were deeply Into the occult and dark arts. They used magic, witchcraft and sorcery to provide answers for the king.

Unfortunately, many of these occultic advisors were also mostly con men and their probing and obvious attempts at getting clues from Nebuchadnezzar made him very angry and he decided to put all of them to death.

Unfortunately, that also included his four newest advisors, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo even though they had just been placed in that position and were not included in the meeting.

Facing imminent execution., Daniel asked his friends to pray that God reveals Nebuchadnezzar's dream to them.

God answers that prayer and shows Daniel exactly what Nebuchadnezzar was dreaming and what it meant for the future.

Daniel goes to the king and tells him that the God of Israel has told him the dream, and its interpretation.

That’s what we will read about this morning, and in doing so, we will be looking both at ancient history, and into our future.

Let's read this morning what Daniel as Daniel responds to the king.

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Daniel 2:31-45

Dan 2:31-45 “Your Majesty, as you were watching, suddenly a colossal statue appeared. That statue, tall and dazzling, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was terrifying. (32) The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its stomach and thighs were bronze, (33) its legs were iron, and its feet were partly iron and partly fired clay. (34) As you were watching, a stone broke off without a hand touching it, struck the statue on its feet of iron and fired clay, and crushed them. (35) Then the iron, the fired clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were shattered and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. (36) “This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation. (37) Your Majesty, you are king of kings. The God of the heavens has given you sovereignty, power, strength, and glory. (38) Wherever people live?—?or wild animals, or birds of the sky?—?he has handed them over to you and made you ruler over them all. You are the head of gold. (39) “After you, there will arise another kingdom, inferior to yours, and then another, a third kingdom, of bronze, which will rule the whole earth. (40) A fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron; for iron crushes and shatters everything, and like iron that smashes, it will crush and smash all the others. (41) You saw the feet and toes, partly of a potter’s fired clay and partly of iron?—?it will be a divided kingdom, though some of the strength of iron will be in it. You saw the iron mixed with clay, (42) and that the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly fired clay?—?part of the kingdom will be strong, and part will be brittle. (43) You saw the iron mixed with clay?—?the peoples will mix with one another but will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with fired clay. (44) “In the days of those kings, the God of the heavens will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and this kingdom will not be left to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself endure forever. (45) You saw a stone break off from the mountain without a hand touching it, and it crushed the iron, bronze, fired clay, silver, and gold. The great God has told the king what will happen in the future. The dream is certain, and its interpretation reliable.”