Knowing the Unknown

Daniel 2:1-9

In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep.

King Nebuchadnezzar was having dreams which we will later see were divine instructions from the Lord. Some people get so hung up on the revelation that they cannot handle the instruction. Others get so caught up in the instruction, like Martha in the kitchen of Luke 10:41, that they cannot understand the revelation. Yes, the revelation may disturb you. If it disturbed the Lord, it would certainly bother you. You have to have the Spirit of God to teach you how to handle that thing. See, when you do not have anyone else, God will teach you. When you have been discounted or discredited by man, God will be your leader, your everything, your textbook, your guide, your source of wisdom, and the lifter of your head. When the king at the top had no one, he still had God. The ways of God are beyond finding out. No one can say what are you doing according to Romans 11:33 and Daniel 4:35. God visited the king because of his kindness to the young Hebrew men. If you remember, the king and those under him honored the Hebrew children's request for favor with God and man. Due to these actions, God revisited such on the king when no one was watching. How the king had blessed others, God blessed the king himself in return. The earthly king initiated the Hebrew children into his place in a strange land. Here we see God initiating this pagan king into his. Joel: 2:28 makes it clear we should not be surprised for there will be a visitation and a pouring out upon all flesh yet to come. Look at these marks and anointing of the Spirit upon this king's life.

Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

In this text, the king had dreams which troubled him. We just talked about how God was in his ear. How many of you know that when God is in your ear, sleep, food, and even the natural world takes second place. In the presence of his glory is fullness of joy according to Psalm 16:11. He fed the children of Israel with manna from Heaven as in John 6:49-51. He is the living water for a village prostitute at John 4:13-14. In his house at the end, there will be no hunger or thirst there for the Lamb himself provides as in Revelation 7:16. Is it any wonder that king Nebuchadnezzar's sleep was interrupted. He found that God was important enough to chase. Sleep could wait until the king found some other people to tell God about. The earthly king tests these men to see if they can handle what God is about to say. Some people cannot handle the message for reasons mentioned above. They get jealous, go tell everyone, or insult the message and Christ himself. Having received a word from God, now the king wishes to hear from man for himself. He asks the wise men to come before him so that he might know what was in their hearts. Notice all the different types of men, each skilled in their own area, that were called as in 1 Corinthians 2:26.

And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

Here, the text seems to indicate a certain level of personal familiarity with the dream. "Troubled to know" can mean several things. Such a knowledge can be very personal or merely indicate that something has been learned. When you have something so personal and you understand it, you just need someone to share God's glory with. I believe from this text that King Nebuchadnezzar knew the dream and what it meant. He was hoping that someone else would too. He was afraid that his wise men might even be in the dream.

Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.

Verse four indicates that the words, "may the king live forever" were not the wise men's place to give. See their slick words. If these wise men were the king's servants, they would already know his dream. Not only that but if they were truly servants of God, they would also know his message to the king—or at the very least be able to find out. This is why 1 John 4:1 says to test the spirits to see if they be of God. Not everyone has God's interests at heart. Some people like to do a lot of speaking for themselves and the devil. I would like to know how the king knew about these verses before they had ever been fully written. How else would he know "the end from the beginning" as Isaiah 46:10 states. May I suggest that God was in his ear and speaking to him. The king also knew that his dreams were of the future and thus could not be changed or otherwise altered.

Look at the language of the wise men closely. Here are Chaldeans speaking in Syriack. Just as the wise men cannot speak his language, the king pretends to neither remember or understand his dream. Daniel and his friends ate the diet of pulse to speak a testimony unto the eunuchs. These wise men display a certain lack of discernment which is concerning to the king. Doubtless the men had heard of the young men eating a nonsense diet and appearing healthy. They probably felt that if they also spoke nonsense to the king, they might appear wise. These councilors display some misapplied wisdom. Notice the sentence given here. Because of the shift in the wise men's tone, the king has become their judge, jury, and executioner. The text says that the wise men "shall be cut in pieces, and [their] houses shall be made a dunghill." You might be inclined to say that seems harsh. Oh, if you do not have Christ, you will not have anything in this life or the next.

But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it.

Remember in the last chapter the king had to teach the young men how to speak Chaldean. Well, in this text we see that not everyone who speaks Chaldean has the right motives, the right purposes, or the right sender. They may have the right message they are saying before the king. Look how he tests them after seeing what Daniel and his friends did to not only speak Chaldean but also the language of the eunuchs who served the king. If the wise men of the time do not have the Spirit of God, they will not learn anything new. These grown men are already acting like my six-year-old with ADHD when he wants to make fun of someone but still expects a treat. When you have the Spirit of God, you will be like the man who pulled from his house treasures old and new. His Spirit is always leading, always revelating. That sounds like the word revelation does it not. The Spirit will teach you how to handle all situations and all people. This is why there is always new insight, new revelation, new teaching, and new ways of doing things to be found with him.

At the same time, there is no other message provided other than that of his Son and the Spirit. This is why if any other angel came from Heaven with a different message then they ought to be damned as Galatians 1:8 suggests. That is like saying God got dementia or Alzheimer's and forget or was confused by what he said. Both notions are blasphemy. The wise men of that time and those of now had to be checked. King Nebuchadnezzar brought something old into the house. Now there is a danger of the house being contaminated with the people of Israel's disorder which took them from their homeland in the first place. This is why there must be new wineskins to receive him lest the old burst as in Matthew 9:14-17. The old wineskins cannot contain the glory, the holiness, and the fresh anointing of God. Similarly, on social media there is a video of village woman cooking fish stew from a plastic bag over an open flame; she is somewhere in the remote jungle but the bag neither bursts nor catch fire. Such a thing defies explanation and logic.

If you do not tell me the dream, there is only one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me."

With this, the king realized the pagan theologians' true purpose in his court. They indeed had been telling him lies and bad advice all along as the king accused them. May I suggest that he would not know this unless God had taught him. This is also how he know found himself with the wisdom to deal with such a situation. The devil is always a liar and has been one from the beginning as in John 8:44. I have found that he might tell a partial truth, but he always twists the situation. Therefore, a partial truth or a situational twist that was not there before is still a lie. As I have said before, if the wise men possessed the ear of God, they would already have known his dream. Such a dream came from the Lord, and thus only those who knew him would understand what it meant. Whether now or later, the king's words to the pagan theologians would indeed come true as we will soon see. Along with the dreaming and leadership Spirits from the Lord we see a prophetic Spirit manifesting over his life. He already understands what he hears and is now ready to apply it. Sometimes God will teach you how to handle a situation not so that you might have knowledge, but that you will work it out with his help.