We left our previous article [#9] questioning if Daniel might have doubted if God would answer his prayer and give him insight as to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Note…he didn’t quote the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew gives specific instructions about our prayer life but that book wouldn’t be written for another 550 plus years. He did however go into his prayer closet and pray from the heart; not from a quote or tradition.

Daniel 2:20-23

20 Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God and ever: for wisdom and might are his:

21 And he changed the times and the seasons: he removed kings, and sett up kings: he gives wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:

22 He reveals the deep and secret things: he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.

23 I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter.

Oswald Chambers once said: “If God is the God we know Him to be when we are closest to Him, what an impertinence worry is”. The God that Daniel is thanking here is our God; He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. That means that the next time one is in a difficult situation, the God of Daniel is ready to take our call!

Philippians 4:6 states  ^“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.” This is a New Testament quote but Daniel practiced it hundreds of years before the New Testament was even written.

Daniel 2:24

Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will show unto the king the interpretation.

Daniel could have used this as an opportunity to get rid of all these other ‘wise men’, yet he says ‘destroy not’. Daniel no doubt saw this as an occasion to witness to them also, showing that, despite their fancy Babylonian names, there is just one God who reigns. The sad side to this in modern times is, there are many sitting in the pews today who build their hope and salvation upon a Daniel prayer of being saved due to someone else’s life in Christ. Perhaps these church attenders without Christ feel they will be caught up in the rapture by credit given for church attendance. This is a fatal and flawed thought.

Daniel 2:25

Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation.

Arioch is typical of your bureaucratic professional type. Notice how he seems to take credit for solving the king’s problems! It is Arioch who claims to find the solution in another man’s abilities. Arioch didn’t find Daniel. Daniel found him.

Daniel 2:26-27

26 The king answered and said to Daniel, [whose name was Belteshazzar,] Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?

27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, ‘The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;’

After Arioch’s confident assertions, the king asks Daniel ‘Can you show me the dream and the interpretation?’ In effect Daniel says no way, nor can anyone else on earth! – Arioch’s heart must have skipped a beat! Fortunately, Daniel continued…

Daniel 2:28

But there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets, and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these;

Here Daniel gives the king a 7-word summary of the subject of the dream. Note that Arioch wished credit for discovering Daniel but Daniel only offers his God as the answer. This is the beginning of God training Nebuchadnezzar to be “His Servant” [Jeremiah 27:6].

“Now I will give all your countries into the hands of my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him.”

Daniel 2:29

As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets makes known to thee what shall come to pass. Now this is impressive. Daniel actually tells the king what he was thinking about before he went to sleep – it was this that gave rise to the dream. And notice again the scope of the dream: what is going to happen hereafter. Essentially Daniel did more than interpret the dream; he pointed out what was on the king’s mind prior to him even going to bed to have the unknown dream.

Daniel 2:30

But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

Daniel again makes it clear that it is not because he is more intelligent or better than anyone else that God has revealed the dream to him; but for 1) ‘their sakes that shall make known the interpretation’ i.e. Daniel and his three friends and 2) for the king himself that he would understand.

Here as in verse 49, Daniel includes his three friends in the ‘who deserves credit’ list. Just because Daniel was the one that received the vision does not negate the part that his friends played through their prayers. This should serve to remind us that those who support a ministry are as important as those who head up and are the public face of that ministry – ‘every part doing its share’ (Eph 4:16).

The Dream – Daniel 2:31-35

31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

32 This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,

33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.

35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

Daniel 2:36

This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

Notice that Daniel says WE will tell once again including his three friends. This verse even suggests that they came with Daniel to tell the king of his dream.