Cannons from Canon

The book of Daniel tells the story of a young man who knew a lot about not getting a break from trials. He was taken from his home in Israel to a foreign land, under a pagan ruler, and into a lot of unknown. Daniel was taken to be trained for King Nebuchadnezzar’s court as a wise man. Right away, Daniel resolved not to engage in anything that would defile him as a Jewish man. And he received favor from the Lord because of this, and quickly rose to the top and gained prominence among his peers. 

Daniel possibly came to terms with being taken from home and forced to work in the King’s Court. After all, He wasn’t forced to break his conscience, and he succeeded in what he was doing. But early on in Daniel’s time in Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that troubled him. In Daniel chapter 2 verses 1-2. The king demanded that someone interpret his dream, and in verses 9-10 of chapter 2, the response is given. The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” 

In verse 13, Nebuchadnezzar commanded that all the wisemen be killed, including Daniel and his friends. In verse 16, we see Daniel’s radical faith. He goes to the King and asks for time to interpret the dream. Daniel has no clue what the dream means, so he goes home and, in verses 17 and 18, tells his friends to start praying. Right when Daniel might have finally felt some relief from trials and suffering, his life is on the line and the clock is ticking. He is right back amid a storm.

In verse 19, the mystery is revealed, and this brings us to our text for the evening, Dan 2:20-23 Daniel answered and said:“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king’s matter.”

Remember that Daniel’s life is on the line. A command went out to kill all of the wise men, including Daniel and his friends. The clock is ticking, and Daniel is running out of time. When the mystery is finally revealed, he doesn’t run over to the Captain of the King’s guard with the answer to spare his life. He gets up and prays, and thanks the Lord. His priority was not saving his skin or getting out of trouble. It wasn’t going back to sleep so that he would be well-rested for what would be a big day tomorrow. His priority was to praise God. 

Daniel is in a foreign land, under a pagan ruler, and living in the unknown. When he gets a beam of light in the middle of a storm, Daniel stops and prays. 

Proposition: This prayer reminds every believer of two attributes of God that lead us to fall on our knees and worship the Lord in the midst of trials.

The first attribute Daniel reminds us of is that God is the possessor.

At the end of verse 20, Daniel says, “wisdom and might are His”. We understand wisdom as not only knowledge but a good and practical use of knowledge and we know of might as the ability to accomplish your purposes. 

Daniel separates the world into two basic spheres, wisdom and power, and declares that both belong to God. God is the possessor! And we do not have to take Daniel’s word for it, he goes on to prove it.

Daniel argues for this attribute of God that demands our attention during trials, and he is going to prove it with four lines of reasoning.

1. The first line of reasoning is that God changes times and the seasons (21a)
2. Second, God removes and sets up kings (21b)
3. Third, he gives wisdom and knowledge to the wise and understanding (21c)
4. And the fourth and final line of reasoning is that He reveals mysteries (22)

We will examine Daniel’s argument one point at a time.

The first line of reasoning Daniel uses to argue that God is the “possessor of wisdom and might”  is that “God changes the times and the seasons” at the start of verse 21. This is a remarkable way for Daniel to start his praise. If you remember the book of Jeremiah which was finished being written just years before Daniel was taken in exile as a young man, the book of Jeremiah tells us of Jeremiah’s whole ministry that was dedicated to calling Judah to repentance with the warning that if they did not repent they would be exiled to Babylon. After it became evident that Judah was stuck in her ways, the Lord decreed 70 years of exile. Daniel was taken as a young man because the generations before him refused to listen to Jeremiah and repent. But the Lord promised to remember his people and regather them. In Jeremiah 31, the Lord promises to make a New Covenant with Israel. And the Lord sealed his promise to regather His people by setting the terms and conditions. 

In Jer 31:35-36, it say,s “Thus says Yahweh, who gives the sun for light by day, the regulations of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—Yahweh of hosts is his name. “If these rules would cease from before me,” declares Yahweh, “also the offspring of Israel would cease from being a nation before me forever”. 

God calls His people to look at the sun and the moon and stars and says “as long as the sun keeps rising and moon keeps changing and the seasons come and go, know that I am faithful” If God is powerful enough to keep the fixed order of the universe going then he is powerful enough to bring his promises to pass. And Daniel, who in the middle of the night,  is suffering for the sins of his ancestors, in a foreign land, under pagan rulers and about to be unjustly killed and facing the unknown, looks up at the moon and says and does not just say that God has the wisdom and might to keep the universe going. But Daniel cries out that  “God is faithful!” God’s wisdom and might are so transcendent that if he can keep the universe going, then he can keep His promises. We might say then that this first attribute of God is that He is the faithful possessor of power and wisdom.

Daniel continues to make his case that God is the possessor by appealing to his sovereignty over the nations. This again is a remarkable line considering that Daniel is about to be killed at the hands of a pagan king and will go on to suffer and be persecuted for the rest of his life at the hands of the pagan government and that Daniel is currently in exile in a foreign land because of the wickedness and unrepentance of his own government in Israel.

The next line of reasoning Daniel appeals to prove that God is the possessor of wisdom and might is that God gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the understanding. This line of reasoning is closely tied to God removing and establishing kings. Daniel takes it a step further and says not only does God set up and take down people in high positions, but he also gives them the ability to carry out the position he has put them in. This doesn’t make God responsible if they abuse the wisdom and knowledge. Solomon is a prime example of that.

The fourth and final proof that Daniel offers of God’s possession of wisdom and might is that God reveals. 

He reveals deep and hidden things in the first part of verse 22.

This argument is somewhat easy to follow because you can’t reveal wisdom that you don’t have or that you don’t know, and you can’t reveal something unless you have the ability or the might to do it. Daniel proves God as the possessor of wisdom and might because he reveals the hidden and deep things. Specifically, in this context, it is referring to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. The dream that the Chaldeans said no man could understand. God possessed the wisdom and might to understand. But I think even in this context, it is bigger than that. 

The point of this prayer is to remind every believer of two attributes of God that lead us to fall on our knees and worship the Lord in the midst of trials. 

And this prayer is doing that by showing us that God possesses wisdom and might. God’s possession of wisdom and might is not something to scrutinize and debate. They are something to praise God for. Look at how Daniel concludes this last line of reasoning for praising God, he says, “He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him”. This prayer is not concerned with how God knows or when God knows, the point is that God knows. He knows what is in the darkness. Darkness is a common way for scripture to refer to a lack of knowledge and ignorance, foolishness, being unaware. For example, 

Job says in Job 12:22, “He uncovers mysteries out of darkness, and he brings deep shadow to the light. 

And Psalm 139:11-12 reads, “And if I should say, ‘Surely darkness will cover me, and the light around me will be as night,’ even the darkness is not too dark for you, and the night shines as the day.” 

Not only a lack of factual knowledge, but darkness also takes on this idea in scripture of seasons of suffering and trials. I think this is also tied into the unknown. One thing that makes trials and perseverance so hard is that they are in the unknown. We don’t know what is going to happen, we don’t know when the trials will be over.

A trial wouldn’t be a trial if God said, “You are going to lose your job and you will be unemployed for 8 weeks and you will have to use some of your savings, but then you will get hired at an even better job and make all of that money back”. Although if that is how it worked, we would still find a way to doubt and complain.

Daniel doesn’t know if the Captain of the Guard will even allow him to offer an interpretation of the dream. Even though this mystery has been revealed to Daniel. He is still in a lot of darkness, in a foreign land, under a pagan ruler, in the unknown. He doesn’t know what is in the darkness.  But look again at his comfort. He says in vs 22, God knows what is in the darkness. And the light dwells with Him.

God’s promise to provide doesn’t change depending on if we can see where our next paycheck is coming, God’s promise to conform us to the image of His son doesn’t change even if we can’t see clear growing fruit in our life, God’s promise that nothing can separate us from His love doesn’t change even if it seems that we are in the middle of the storm and surrounded by darkness with no way out. What is true in the light is still true in the dark. God knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him. And so we would do well to drop to our knees along with Daniel and bless God.

This fourth and final argument shows God’s attribute as the possessor of wisdom and might lead us to drop to our knees and praise the Lord in the midst of trials. But we still don’t have the complete picture.

Verse 23. “To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might”.

God is not only the possessor, but God is the dispenser. God shares what is His. 

Prop: Daniel reminds every believer of two attributes of God that lead us to fall on our knees and worship the Lord in the midst of trials. The second attribute Daniel reminds us of is that God is a giver. God does not hoard what is His, but He shares it.

God gives, and He has given Daniel wisdom and might. The exact same attributes that God possesses, He gives. This is why Daniel repeats His praise and thanks. He has been the recipient of God’s giving. Daniel is in a foreign land, under a pagan ruler, and in the unknown, Daniel still doesn’t know how this whole situation will turn out. But God does, and God has given what is His to Daniel, and so Daniel drops to His knees and praises the Lord.

The Chaldean wise men were right when they said that no man could solve this mystery, but went wrong when they said “no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh”. First, there is only one true God, YHWH. And 2, he became flesh and dwelt among us. He gave Himself and met us exactly where we are; we know Him as our Lord Jesus. 

 The true God meets us right where we are at, he met Daniel in the middle of the night in a foreign land, under a pagan ruler, and in the midst of trial.

So what about us? You might have more in common with Daniel than you think. 

1. You live in a foreign land, believe it or not, America is not your home, to some of us, it is very literally not our home. We are here on this earth on a mission. 

2. We are under a pagan ruler and government, that is true whether you are in America or not, and it seems to be getting more and more true every day.  

3. And right now, you might be in the unknown. Maybe you don’t know what life looks like this summer, or after seminary. If that is the case, then you are in good company. Daniel was in that situation. And we have the same God Daniel did. The God who is the faithful possessor of wisdom and might is the same God who is the giver. He will meet you right where you are and give you what you need. So get on your knees and praise God.