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What the Fork, Fork?
What the Fork, Fork?
What’s in a dream?
A few months ago KK is dreaming and suddenly, middle of the night, out of nowhere, loudly and angrily, she yells “What the fork, fork!”
I lay there chuckling. It wasn’t the first part that really got me, though that’s a funny thing to say. Possibly inappropriate for a sermon… but oh well.
It was the “, fork”… which implies that she was talking to a fork. Crazy.
Here’s the craziest part.
Two days later I get this in the mail. It’s an embossed fork. This is a true story. It has the Faithlife company logo on it.
I was wracking my brain trying to figure out… did I tell someone at work the story??? and they came up with the an amazing prank?
Apparently I had won an “Awesomeness Award” from work and the unexplained fork came separately from the plaque.
… and for some reason KK had a prophetic dream about it??? Maybe??? Delivered by a talking fork?
If any of you have the spiritual gift of interpretation please speak up!
Where were we? Dreams!!! Dreams are weird. Goats are weird.
Does God still speak in dreams?
And if so… why?
In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him.
So Daniel is still a young man. Probably still in his 3-year program, maybe possibly as old as 20.
Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king.
And the king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.”
Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.”
The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The word from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins.
But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation.”
I LOVE this.
We sometimes fall into the trap of what C.S. Lewis calls “chronological snobbery.” Because things happened a long time ago, they were dumb. But Nebuchadnezzar built Babylon, he build the Babylonian Empire, he was some level of genius… and he is no dummy here.
I’m sure if I told you my dream, you could come up with some plausible interpretations and I would have no way of knowing if it’s right, or who is right.
But if you can tell me the dream… clearly that’s magic… and then I trust your interpretation.
The “wisemen”, and that word can mean literally “sorcerer” or “astrologer”, they panic. Because they aren’t magic. And they don’t know. And their tricks won’t work. And they’re going to die.
The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean.
The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”
So the word goes out. And Daniel may still be in “wise-guy” school… but he is under this decree. They “sought Daniel and his companions to kill them.” And Daniel finds out about the thing. And being truly a wise young man, he asks his friends to seek God with him:
Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions,
and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
And what do you think happened.
Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.
Now the following order of events is GREAT. What does Daniel do? Rush off to tell the king and save all their lives? First and foremost, He gives God the glory in person, He praises, He worships:
Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;
he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.
To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king’s matter.”
Then he goes before the king, and before he speaks a word to the king, He gives God the glory before men:
The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?”
Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked,
but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these:
To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be.
But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.
God gave you this dream, king. And God gave me the interpretation… to give to you.
The king dreamed of this crazy statue!
“You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening.
The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze,
its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.
Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
and then (I wish every prophetic dream or vision was like this) he gives a very clear interpretation.
“This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation.
You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory,
and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are the head of gold.
Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.
And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these.
And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay.
And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.
As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
So we have these four kingdoms. It is clear that Babylon is the first, and Daniel addresses Nebuchadnezzar as the king, kingdom personified. That’s not an impressive prediction, that is current reality. The Babylonian empire spanned the “known” world at the time.
And really he is, his empire only lasts 23 years after his death.
But then the Med-Persian empire arises and takes over… and they rule for 208 years. The first king, Cyrus, is super important in the life of Israel because he allows the great return from Babylonian exile, back to Jerusalem.
Then a third kingdom rises with Alexander the Great, the Greek Empire, the empire of bronze.
And then the fourth, the Roman Empire.
And then the toes, more about the toes later.
But in the days of the 5th kingdom, something spectacular happens:
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,
just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
This is Messianic prophecy, Jesus is the stone, the cornerstone, that smashes all nations and every power and kingdom of man, He is the king of kings who establishes the eternal Kingdom of God.
Are there pieces that are still being fulfilled? Yes, absolutely.
People literally analyze the toes of the statue, and look for 10 loosely affiliated nations connected to the remnants of Rome, and that will lead to the coming anti-Christ and… maybe we’ll get to that.
But the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING thing is that Daniel predicts the geo-political future with accuracy leading to the coming of the Messiah.
Daniel doesn’t do it, God does it. And God gets the glory:
Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel, and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him.
The king answered and said to Daniel, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.”
Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon.
Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king’s court.
Now, as Daniel said, it is God who:
he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.
But it is also God who made those “deep and hidden things.” He hid them.
Hide and Seek
Hide and Seek
I could tell you some stories about hide and seek in this building. Some youth group folks (including counselors) have made some very questionable choices about where to hide.
What is the point of hide and seek? Everyone’s going to get found (except for that one kid).
The joy is in the seeking, and in the discovery. When they finally realize that Logan was in the shrubbery the whole time. Hilarious.
God creates the mystery of the dream… so that he can answer it through Daniel.
He hides… so that we may seek.
The only reason mysteries ever exist is for the discovery. The joy of it, the process of it, the shaping in the finding.
Acts 17:26–27 (ESV)
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Like a GREAT riddle, what a tragedy when someone spoils it by telling you the answer.
So we listen, open to God speaking however God wants to speak. He is the Creator of communication. He can get through to you. And even to me.
He speaks Jana… and Gene...
We don’t have to panic that we don’t know how to “do it right.” “If anyone lacks wisdom, ask, and God will give it.”
But we should not be surprised when the seeking takes time. Takes pursuit. Takes waiting on the Lord, maybe for years.
It takes growing in discipleship, in relationship with Him, in relationship with His people.
And so very often, God speaks to His people through His people.
Isn’t that what prophecy is all about? This is why we are studying this at all. Not so that we can predict the next four world spanning kingdoms (though that is SUPER cool).
Not so that we can discern what exactly the 10 toes are. I don’t know.
I want to be available as I can be to be a voice for God’s love, His mercy, His grace and His truth in your life.
I want to hear the voice of God speaking to me through you.
So let’s listen. And let’s seek. And let’s find God in the midst of us.