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*Facing the Future without Fear*
*June 27, 1999 Daniel 2*
* *
*Introduction:*
Title: Terrified by the Unknown
An Arab chief tells a story of a spy who was captured and then sentenced to death by a general in the Persian army.
This general had the strange custom of giving condemned criminals a choice between the firing squad and the big, black door.
As the moment for execution drew near, the spy was brought to the Persian general, who asked the question, "What will it be: the firing squad or the big, black door?"
The spy hesitated for a long time.
It was a difficult decision.
He chose the firing squad.
Moments later shots rang out confirming his execution.
The general turned to his aide and said, "They always prefer the known way to the unknown.
It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined.
Yet, we gave him a choice."
The aide said, "What lies beyond the big door?"
"Freedom," replied the general.
"I've known only a few brave enough to take it."
-- Don McCullough, "Reasons to Fear Easter," Preaching Today, Tape No. 116.
How many of you would like to know the future?
We want to know what the future holds for us, our families, our church, our nation, the world.
Are you able to face it without fear?
If you have failing health, you want to know if and when it will improve.
If we have a wayward child, we want to know if and when they will obey.
If we have a separated spouse, we want to know if and when they will return.
If we have a difficult job, we want to know if and when we should leave.
We want to know if our nation is on the brink of economic and moral collapse and when this might occur.
Will our church endure in a pure and faithful condition until Jesus comes?
What is the danger from global environmental disaster?
Will World War III soon engulf us all?
It is natural for us to want to know the future.
Some people go to great lengths to know future events in ways that are outright sinful in God’s eyes (Deut.
18:14).
They go to diviners, soothsayers, card readers, star gazers and other false methods of underground darkness in search of light.
There is an increasing proliferation of these businesses all about us in the city that Satan puts there to draw people astray from God.
And God presently allows it to give people a choice of which master they desire.
We say “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.
Rarely do we want to trust God for those two birds in the bush even when he says they are there.
Many people would rather go for assurance to a fallible human source steeped in evil spiritism than to God.
Many people would rather choose a firing squad death at their own hands than to trust God’s big black door with their lives.
But why do we want to know the future?
Is it because we are afraid of it?
Should we be afraid of it?
As sinners, do we have a fatalistic desire to know what will happen to us as if we could escape it by our own means?
Has not God given us light through his Word and what prophecy it contains?
We seem to want more.
In a sense, we get greedy and covetous of future knowledge.
It is a human sin condition that we want to be in control of our lives and even in control of the lives of others.
You see, there is power, influence, and control in this kind of knowledge.
If we can convince others that we know what they don’t, it is marketable and can even be misused to try and sway present events in light of supposed future events.
There is a spiritual and mystical quality to future events.
Admittedly it is out of the realm of most human understanding.
The problem is that humans want to play God.
We want to be out from under God’s thumb.
We want to be in control of our own future.
Is it that we don’t want to obey God?
But God wants us to know mainly this: that it is enough to believe that he is in control of the future.
If we truly believe this and trust him for it, we need never be afraid of the future.
We will agree to let him have his way, which he is going to have anyway.
This is called living by faith.
The real question we might ask is whether we would really live our lives any differently if we did know the future.
First of all, we would have to believe it.
If not, what would really make a difference for us?
Daniel has the answer for us (it is in knowing God).
That is the important application that we will talk about in Daniel chapter two this morning.
All of us can come to better grips with the truth that he will reveal to us.
You see, Daniel didn’t take the firing squad of execution at the king’s order.
He took the big black door of trusting God.
God – the big black door – the unknown commodity except by faith.
And faith is a relationship.
Now, a word of caution.
Does this mean that we should not try to ever influence the future?
Should we be fatalistic about life, that whatever is going to happen is going to happen regardless of whatever we do?
That is a wrong view.
For those of us who believe in the power of prayer, we know that we can have a very real influence with God.
He chooses to place certain future events in partnership with us.
But even here, God knows the future about what we will pray and when.
When we pray in order to effect future events, we are actually carrying out future events.
Something will either happen or not happen depending upon our obedience in prayer at any given moment.
We see that Daniel sought God in prayer for the knowledge that God revealed to him.
But even beyond our involvement, God still has a plan.
I.
Daniel’s Peril (2:1-13)
We have come from “Veggie Tales” (Success without Compromise) in Dan. 1 to “Dream Tales” here in Dan. 2. Daniel has introduced a new standard of comparison into the king’s court.
The foreknowledge of the dream becomes the litmus test for its interpretation (v.
9).
Having been put on the spot three times by the king, the wise men answer wisely (v.
11) that God must be involved.
So these men who have made themselves out to be gods are to be eliminated for impersonation.
/When Nebuchadnezzar first came to Jerusalem to conquer, he was not yet king; he was acting for his father, Nabopolassar, back in Babylon.
This accounts for the seeming contradiction between the three years of training for Daniel in 1:5 and the “second year” of the king’s reign in 2:1.
Once again archaeology has proved the Bible true.
The king was concerned about his future (see v. 29) and whether or not his kingdom would last.
God gave him a dream describing the future, but he could not understand it.
In fact, he forgot it!
Christians have the Holy Spirit to teach and remind them (John 14:26).
The “fake” magicians and wise men were really on the spot, for the king wanted not only an interpretation of the dream, but also a description of it!
Any man could “invent” an interpretation, but it was impossible for them to describe a dream they had never seen.
They tried to “stall for time” (v.
8), hoping the king would “change his mind” (v.
9).
Instead, the king ordered all the wise men to be slain, and that included Daniel and his three friends./
/Satan is a murderer (John 8:44); he would certainly have been happy to see Daniel killed./
II.
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