The journey continues: One of the Bibles most astounding prophecies.  

The only passage of the Bible written by a pagan King is Daniel chapter 4. Previously Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had been convinced of the true God in Chapters 2 and 3 of Daniel. Daniel 2 answers a question about how God chooses to reveal Himself in a context where those who worship claim contradictory things about Him. Are these contradictions just different paths to the same God as I once believed concerning eastern Religions. Is one claim right and all the others wrong? How can the issue of the true God be settled?  

The philosophy of postmodernism teaches that truth is subjective, culturally derived and not absolute. If there is an objective, absolute truth, then is it possible to know it? Some claim that since human beings wrote the Bible, its contents are simply the productions of the people who wrote it. However, the Bible claims that God is the Author, and the men who wrote it down were His “penmen.” If this is the case how can we know for sure that what is in the Bible came from a supernatural source? Is God a personal being who is deeply involved in the affairs of humanity or is He impersonal and disconnected. 

Remember, Nebuchadnezzar was Babylonian, not a Jew, yet against all probability, this pagan king acknowledged (in writing and verbally) the God of the Hebrews as the one true God. How did the king become convinced that Daniel’s God is the true God? His cultural, scientific and religious training would say the opposite. A study of Daniel Chapter 2 will show us how this was possible. 

This SMS space does not allow me room to paste the whole chapter (45 verses) so it would be good if you could read it. In Summary, the king has a dream and none of the court’s wise men could interpret it. They were expected to tell the king the dream first, because he had either forgotten it, or was testing them. This of course puts the story into the realm of the impossible. There was no human solution to this enigma. 

The most important thing for the king to know was the interpretation. The wise men could neither reveal the dream or its interpretation. They were therefore sentenced to death for fraud. Daniel who was not present at this session, upon hearing of the death decree (which involved him) declared to the king’s guard that His God could reveal and interpret the dream. Daniel prayed and God intervened. 

Daniel made it clear to the king that this dream and interpretation was not a matter of human devising. He explained that there was only one source from which he could obtain the information: “Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. So, Daniel blessed the God of heaven.” (vs17-19). Daniel did not attribute this knowledge to his own brilliance in order to gain some high position, he attributed the knowledge of the dream and its interpretation to God alone. 

Although Daniel was about to unroll 2600 years of history to King Nebuchadnezzar, we also need to notice that Daniel was also addressing our time. The focal point of the prophecy, as the verse says, will happen in the latter days. This dream is also significant for us because of how the Lord revealed Himself in an environment in which people believed false things about Him. Separated by millennia, the strategy still works. 

A Giant man made of 4 different metals – what does it all mean?