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.
Now 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 he 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
an 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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