Bible Text: Daniel 2:1-49 | Preacher: Pastor Joe Ricchuiti | Series: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Daniel

1.  God reveals to Daniel the King’s dream and its’ interpretation.  Daniel, throughout chapter two, credits the God of Heaven – not himself – with the revelation.  He uses this circumstance as an opportunity to glorify God and witness to His reality and power.

2.  “Humans are prone to swell with pride over their growing understanding of nature and its laws, when only by God’s gifts do they achieve anything.  Moreover even the cleverest minds will never understand certain areas of mystery and foreknowledge—namely, ‘the deep and hidden things’ and that which ‘lies in darkness.’  The bafflement of the pagan wise men in Nebuchadnezzar’s court illustrates this.  All their knowledge could not deliver them from imminent death.  So the great existential questions of life and death continue to be insoluble to the worldly wise.  Without divine revelation, there is only conjecture and subjective opinion.  Only in Yahweh, the God of Scripture, is ultimate truth to be found: light dwells with Him.’” (Willem A. VanGemeren) (cp. 1 Corinthians 1:18-31)

3.  The king’s dream centered around an image with a head of gold (Babylonian Empire); a chest and arms of silver (Medo-Persian Empire); belly and thighs of bronze (Grecian Empire); and legs of iron with feet of iron mixed with baked clay (the Roman Empire).

4.  The empires of the world would be crushed by a rock uncut by human hands, which fills the whole earth (the Messiah of Israel, Psalms 2:7-9; 118:22; Isaiah 8:14; 28:16).  This rock, the Messiah, would set up an eternal kingdom.