SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
4/5/2013 9:36 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
God Disgraces the “Wise Men”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Daniel
2:2-13
Message of the
verses: “2 Then the king gave orders
to call in the magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans to
tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. 3 The king
said to them, "I had a dream and my spirit is anxious to understand the
dream." 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 replied 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 replied, "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.”
Now can you imagine having someone knock on your door and
reveal to you that the king has given orders to have you killed right now? Well that is what is going to happen to
Daniel, but that will be in the next SD.
Remember that from verse four in chapter two of Daniel
until the 28th verse of chapter seven that Daniel is written
Aramaic.
In yesterday’s SD we found out from verse one of chapter
two that the king had dreamed dreams and was very upset about what the dream
meant. So what was the king suppose to
do? He did what most kings of that time
would do and that is call into his presence those who were suppose to advise
him about such matters. There is a list
of people that he called into his presence to help him with this matter. As I read over this section and I have read
over it a few times in my lifetime I don’t believe that the king had any trust
in these men. Why do I say this? Let’s go back to chapter one and look at what
the king said about Daniel and his four friends: “As for every matter of wisdom and
understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times
better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm (Daniel
1:20).” There are also two views that
come up here as to whether or not the king really forgot this dream or whether
he was just testing the so-called experts.
These men of that era had dream books and they would chart different
people who had different dreams and see what happened to them and therefore
they thought they could tell what others who had similar dreams meant. While listening to a sermon from John
MacArthur on this section he said that these books have been found in digs that
went on in this area.
We see in this section the anger of the king and we also
see that he was going to get his way with this and would not be persuaded by
these men. He told them if they did not
tell him what his dream was and what it meant they would be hacked into pieces
and their homes would be made into public latrines or dumps. They tried to buy some time, but the king saw
through it. They told the king that no
king had ever asked such a thing, and he did not care about that.
What can we learn from this part of the story? I think that we can learn that God was in
control of all of this and that he put all of this into motion. Why did he do that? I think that one of the reasons that He did
this was to get Daniel into position that He wanted him to be in. Daniel was given a gift to understand dreams and
visions as we saw in the last chapter, and once Daniel would give the
interpretation to the king, the king would promote Daniel and his friends to
higher positions. God has His people in
positions today around the world to work out His plans that He has, and that
can be seen right from this portion of Scripture.
Dr. Wiersbe gives, as always, great insight from this
section of Scripture. He writes
“Throughout Bible history, you find occasions when God exposed the foolishness
of the world and the deceptiveness of Satan.
Moses and Aaron defeated the magicians of Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt
(Ex. 7-12), and Elijah on Mount Carmel exposed the deception of Baal worship (1
Kings 18). Jeremiah confronted the false
prophet Hananiah and revealed his wickedness (Jer. 28), and Paul exposed the
deception of Bar Jesus the sorcerer (Acts 13:1-12). But it was Jesus who by His life, teaching,
and sacrificial death declared the wisdom of this world ‘foolishness’ with God,
and that includes all its myths and false religions (1 Cor. 1:18ff). The statement of the advisers in Daniel 2:10
wipes out astrology and other forms of human prophecy! Out of their own mouths they condemned their
own practices!” I think that this
statement by Dr. Wiersbe puts things into proper perspective, not only in the section
of Daniel we are looking at, but also in situations found in the world
today. Paul says that the foolishness of
God has more wisdom than what man has.
He was speaking of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in order
to save people from their sins and this truly is foolishness to many people
today. However it is true and all one
has to do is to personally believe that Jesus Christ took their place on the
cross and the result of what He did for them give them His righteousness while
taking their sin. “2Co 5:21 He made Him
who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As I see the
awful thing that are happening to our nation today I must trust the God is in
control and will work out these things for His glory and for His children’s
good.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to know God better and believe He will
reveal Himself more and more to me as I study His Word. I desire to have Him direct my paths each
day.
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 32:7-9
7 You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah. 8 I will instruct you and
teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon
you. 9 Do not be as the horse or as the
mule which has no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold
them in check, otherwise they will not come near you.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Those who hear the Word of
God and do it.” (Luke 8:21)
Today’s Bible
Question: “Who said “Therefore now, O
LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”
The answer in tomorrow’s
SD.
4/5/2013 11:05 AM
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