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| Dan. 2:4-13 |
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Lesson # Dan. 2:4-13 Study Material - Dan. 2:4-13 You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth. Dan. 2:4-13 4 Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic: 'O king, live forever! Tell the dream to your servants, and we will declare the interpretation.' 5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, 'The command from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses will be made a rubbish heap. 6 'But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a reward and great honor; therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation.' 7 They answered a second time and said, 'Let the king tell the dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.' 8 The king answered and said, 'I know for certain that you are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that the command from me is firm, 9 that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may know that you can declare to me its interpretation. ' 10 The Chaldeans answered the king and said, 'There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer or Chaldean. 11 'Moreover, the thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh.' 12 Because of this the king became indignant and very furious, and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. 13 So the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they looked for Daniel and his friends to kill them. Here contrasts are set in place. The Israelites are slaves as it were, in Babylon, just as they were in Egypt. Yet despite the great power that these two empires possessed, they were still open to their own dumb foundedness by a simple thing as a dream. The request is placed by the king. The offer made for anyone who could state the dream as well as its interpretation. To do so meant great riches. To fail meant death not only for the counselors but their families and homes as well. All of their property would be destroyed completely. So they had a task that was impossible. Their backs to the wall. And the dialog continued as the counselors tried to not only buy time, but to come up with some sort of plan for 'creating' a dream and them some sort of interpretation. After all the king had forgotten the dream. Couldn't they simply make something up? But Nebuchadnezzar was sharp and hip to their gimmicks. He saw their delaying tactics, and even their plots. After all there was a huge reward at stake, and a huge violent loss as well. But finally the dialog gets through to the subject of God. Only God can fulfill such a request. And this is where God wanted the conversation to go, not only for the kings sake, but for the spiritual opportunity of all concerned. Some will recognize the problem and its solution - Daniel. Some will sit back and see what happens - Nebuchadnezzar. And some will reject the answer no matter what the outcome. Even a miracle will be rejected - the jealous counselors. This is where people in life find themselves. They are either sitting on the fence, undecided, or on one side of the fence - apathetic, jealous, rejection, or on the other side of the fence - open minded, positive, responsive to Gods word. Nebuchadnezzar sent out the decree to kill all of the wise men. He was angry that no one could fulfill his command and such is the world. The world is unyielding, a jungle. You are either lucky enough to escape one problem, but only to find yourself facing another problem. The jungle is ruthless and cares no for your social status, income status, or what have you. The jungle is made up of millions of sin natures with sins that run the entire sin list even to extremes. Bible doctrine is the only force that can contain all these sin natures and prevent the world from self destructing. The jungle says do or die without much leeway in between. Nebuchadnezzar was selfish and cared nothing for people in this matter. God on the other hand is extremely tolerant, and needs to be, because we all fail in life. If God were not tolerant we would even exist. The human race would have been annihilated long ago. The sin nature is unforgiving. The spiritual life is very forgiving. The sin nature is rigid in the things that are unimportant like interpreting a dream, like whether the toast is burned or not. The sin nature is very flexible in the important things in life, like finding excuses for not reading ones study lessons each day in Bible study, like getting a divorce instead of swallowing ones selfishness and preserving the marriage. The sin nature screws up all the priorities in life and flips them upside down. The spiritual life preserves the important things in life and gets all priorities in their proper perspective. Do we execute people just because they cannot interpret a dream? Why can't Nebuchadnezzar figure it out himself? After all he is the king and should have some smarts in his little head. So shouldn't he die as well for his own failure? Well the sin nature finds exceptions for preserving ones self while making others expendable. The sin nature finds exceptions for changing the law to meet ones own personal desire regardless of how the law was used before. Nebuchadnezzar was going to murder in the name of his 'law'. No trial, no charges, no due process. Politicians often are guilty of this loose interpretation of laws in order to gain their selfish ends. But then this is not something exclusive to politicians, everyone who follows life from their sin nature is guilty of this liberal attitude or interpretation of life's rules. And the order went out to kill Daniel as well. What God preserves, nothing can take away. Even the power of the king as great as he perceives himself, cannot contradict Gods will. 
Now is the time to post a prayer. End Of Lesson Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth. |
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