Daniel 2:25-29 “Revealer of Dreams”
A man comes to his pastor saying that he wants help in interpreting a nightmare that he has been having as a recurring dream. The pastor said that he would try to help of course, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. The pastor asks to hear about the nightmare.
“Well,” says the man, “I dreamt of a big box of doughnuts. There were probably two dozen or more of various kinds of doughnuts in the box. There were chocolate ones and sprinkled ones. Old fashioned glazed and maple bars were also there.”
The pastor interrupted the man, “That does not sound like a nightmare at all! Are you sure you need my help?”
“Well, Pastor,” the man continued, “I was the Bavarian cream filled. . . .”
As you will recall from last week, Daniel and his friends are stuck in Babylon in exile from Judah. They are relatively well treated and even somewhat respected. The king, Nebuchadnezzer, has found that Daniel is beyond compare in his kingdom among all of his noble court.
Now, King Nebuchadnezzer is having some bad dreams. This is affecting him and his ability to rule his kingdom. He does not know what the dreams mean. He wants his noble court to tell him. One gets the sense that he does not really trust his nobles because not only does he want them to interpret the dream. He wants them to tell him what the dream is first. That is quite a test. But, when we think about this, it certainly is a sure way to make sure the nobles know their stuff!
They cannot do it. The nobles cannot interpret a dream if they do not know what it is. So, the king in a tirade orders that all of the nobles are to be put to death. Of course, this includes Daniel and his friends that are not even aware of what is going on in the royal court. The executioner comes for Daniel and his friends, but Daniel convinces the executioner that he might be able to help the king with his dream. Rather than immediate death for Daniel, the executioner takes him to Nebuchadnezzer.
Daniel tells the king that he himself cannot know the dream or interpret it, but the one true God can do a miracle and tell him the dream and the meaning of it. Desperate as he is, Nebuchadnezzer allows Daniel to tell and interpret the dream. Daniel starts by saying the “revealer of mysteries has chosen to give the king a view of the future.” That future is not a very good one. We will get to that by and by.
I want to first focus on the very fact that God uses dreams. I know that this seems mysterious or even mystical to us today. We have a hard time thinking about the fact that God is doing something in our dreams while we are asleep; however, the Bible is filled with examples of God giving dreams to prophets and apostles. Here is a quick overview to make my point:
Jacob had a dream about a ladder
going up to heaven in the Book of
Geneis 28:11–19: Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the
place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the
stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to
sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top
of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and
descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it [or "beside
him"] and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and
the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your
descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you
shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the
south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth
bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and
will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done
that of which I have spoken to you." Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and
said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it." And
he was afraid, and said, "This is none other than the house of God, and
this is the gate of heaven." Wow, did you catch the significance? The
entire covenant between God and Israel came to Jacob in a dream!
Joseph (in the Hebrew Scriptures)
had a dream that the rest of his family would one day bow down to him (Genesis
37:1-11). This came true at the end of his life when he was the Pharoah’s right
hand man. He became so powerful because he could interpret the Pharoah’s dream.
In Acts 10:1-48 Peter has a dream
given to him by God in which a picnic table cloth is lowered down from heaven with
all kinds of food on it. Peter is told that he can eat of anything. That is my
kind of dream!
What I find most interesting in the biblical references to dreams, is the very idea that God is at work in my sleep! I like that. That is to say, I like to sleep. I could sleep everyday and never get tired of it! I like getting up in the morning, too. It beats the idea of never waking up again! Yes, sleep is an important verb in the Bible. Check out Psalm 4:8, “In peace will I both lay me down and sleep; for you, O Lord, alone make me dwell in safety.” God wants us to sleep and will be with us when we do!
Of course, in the New Testament the term “sleep” is used as an analogy to our waiting for the Lord to come to resurrect us. Paul especially likes to use the word “sleep” to describe how we are until Christ comes again. When Christ comes, we will be awakened. “Awake, you who are sleeping, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine on you” (Eph. 5:14).
Okay, so let us accept the fact that God is working while we sleep. God is giving us dreams that will help us in our lives in some way. God may even give animals dreams as well. I know this because I once watched our dog having a dream. His eyes were moving. His legs were twitching as if he were running somewhere. One could just tell that he was having a great doggie dream—probably chasing bunny rabbits or what.
God just does not only give us the dream. God will also reveal the meaning of the dream for us as well. Again, throughout the Bible we see that the interpretation of the dream is provided for by a prophetic voice--and even Jesus slept, if you remember his birth and that time he was on the boat asleep in the bow in the middle of the storm. Since Jesus was wholly human, he must have slept. What would Jesus have dreamt about?
Getting back to our text from Daniel this morning, Daniel is able to tell the king his dream and to interpret it as well. There is a great statue in the dream (refer to verses in Daniel 2:31-45). The head is made of gold, and the chest was silver. The legs were bronze. The feet were iron and clay. A stone is formed that is flung against the stone and it breaks into a million pieces that are blown away as the stone itself becomes a great mountain. For us today, we see that the interpretation is quite easy. The stone is Jesus, and the statue represents all the kingdoms of the world. Nebuchadnezzer could not have known this, however, without some help from Daniel. The dream is saying that the kingdom of Babylon is going to come crushing down. This is not the best news for the king.
We know today, that Babylon was destroyed. Nebuchadnezzer’s dream of the future is now our present. Wow, we are living out this dream today. The stone has come. Jesus has already started that process of breaking down the nations. The Kingdom of God is on its way in with the coming of the Lord already. It is perhaps no longer time to dream as we are living that dream!
Jesus tells us over and over again in parable and otherwise, if you recall the Garden of Gethsemane, to stay awake! I believe that for Jesus and us, the time of being asleep is over. The time of just dreaming is over. Now, we are in the fulfillment phase of God’s Revelation.
Think of it like this. For as long as humankind can remember, we have dreamed of being able to fly. The Wright Brothers, with their invention of the powered airplane, have helped us through technology to attain that dream of soaring through the air. It has now become part of who we are, especially here on the islands where we fly all the time. So, it is no longer a time to dream about flying. It is time to stay awake while flying!
We are now in the proverbial pilot’s seat. We are approaching Hilo on the Big Island. Yet, we have fallen asleep when we should not have and hence are about to crash rather than reaching our goal! (This is a purely fictional representation, and any resemblance to actual events is merely coincidental!)
Moreover, when we look at the dreams that are represented in the New Testament, that is after Christ’s resurrection, we see that they are dreams that take place while the people seem to be wide awake. That which we call “Peter’s Dream” that I had mentioned before actually happens while Peter is awake. John’s “dream” happens while he is awake. Their eyes are open when they see these visions offered to them by angels. At best these might be called waking dreams.
The other thing that humankind has dreamed about since the Fall of Creation is getting back into the Garden of Eden, of being in paradise with God once more. Is that a dream anymore? Jesus is the Way! We don’t have to dream about it anymore. God has already revealed this dream to be a reality in our time! All we have to do is stay awake now in order to land this plane where it is supposed to land.
Today when you accept Christ, you have the opportunity to live the dream. Amen