Sermon notes

A Christmas series on the book of Daniel - and this week we look at chapter 2 when king Nebuchadnezzar dreams.

By the way, I think its cool that when I started typing Nebuchadnezzar, my iPhone's automatic type came up with the right spelling. I am so blessed to live in a country where Christian names are still well-known.

As for dreams, they were interpreted a lot in the Bible. I don't know how often dreams really mean anything anymore. If dreams always meant something mine would mean that I am clinically insane, because I have some of the most random and weird dreams of anyone I've ever known. However, sometimes I'm sure God does still use dreams to give people messages.

So far in Daniel we've learned God is large and in charge, and our decisions, even in the small things, matter. In the next passage we are to learn God is in charge of my and world history.

Since God is in charge of Nebuchadnezzar's thought life, he is in charge of ours as well. He's sovereign over our very attitudes, because Nebby's crabbiness that day was an important tool for what God had to do. He told his magicians that if they couldn't interpret his dream that they would all die. However they couldn't interpret the dream God gave him because they were a part of the occult and couldn't read his mind as he was asking. Only God can know our minds.

Daniel and his friends were the only ones who believed in God and could interpret Nebby's dream. God was setting it up to win favor for Daniel.

Daniel said, starting in verse 27, "No wise men, enchanters, magicians or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in Hearn who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to king Nebuchadnezzar what will Benin the latter days."

Sometimes we think our lives are spinning out of control - like when Daniel was taken to Babylon - but God always has a plan. Even when we don't know it, he's working.