Sermon Tone Analysis
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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?
So Daniel is still a young man.
Probably still in his 3-year program, maybe possibly as old as 20.
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.
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:
And what do you think happened.
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:
Then he goes before the king, and before he speaks a word to the king, He gives God the glory before men:
God gave you this dream, king.
And God gave me the interpretation… to give to you.
The king dreamed of this crazy statue!
and then (I wish every prophetic dream or vision was like this) he gives a very clear interpretation.
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:
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:
Now, as Daniel said, it is God who:
But it is also God who made those “deep and hidden things.”
He hid them.
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.
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