Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

Daniel. We come to chapter 2 and I'm going to read the whole chapter about Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

! I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.

Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic. O king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream and we will interpret it. The king replied to the astrologers.

This is what I have firmly decided. If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble.

But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.

Once more they replied, Let the king tell his servants the dream and we will interpret it. Then the king answered, I am certain that you are trying to gain time because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided.

If you do not tell me the dream, there's just one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change.

So then tell me the dream and I will know that you can interpret it for me. The astrologers answered the king, There's not a man on earth who can do what the king asks.

No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. What the king asks is too difficult.

No one can reveal it to the king, except the gods, and they do not live among men. This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.

So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death and men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death. When Ariok, the commander of the king's guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact.

He asked the king's officer, Why did the king issue such a harsh decree? Ariok then explained the matter to Daniel. At this, Daniel went into the king and asked for time so that he might interpret the dream for him.

Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

During the night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said, Praise be to the name of God forever and ever.

Wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness. And light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers.

You have given me wisdom and power. You have made known to me what we asked of you. You have made known to us the dream of the king.

Then Daniel went to Ariok, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king and I will interpret his dream for him.

Ariok took Daniel to the king at once and said, I found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means. The king asked Daniel, also called Belteshazzar, Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?

Daniel replied, No wise man, enchanter, magician, or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.

He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that pass through your mind as you lay on your bed are these. As you were lying there, O king, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mystery showed you what is going to happen.

As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.

You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue, an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.

While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time, and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace.

But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.

You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory. In your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air.

Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold. After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours.

Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, for iron breaks and smashes everything.

And as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom.

Yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle.

And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united any more than iron mixes with clay. In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.

It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands, a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold to pieces.

The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true, and the interpretation is trustworthy. Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him.

The king said to Daniel, Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.

Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men.

Moreover, at Daniel's request, the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.

You might have thought that was the sermon. It was rather long, but it all goes together, and so there was no other way than to read the whole thing.

What is the book of Daniel about? It's about living in exile. Daniel was in exile. He was far away from home, and yet he lived a godly life.

And the book of Daniel is written to help us to learn how to live a godly life while we're in exile. And we learn from Daniel's example, and that's what we saw in chapter 1, and we'll see that again and again throughout this book.

But Daniel also, the book of Daniel, gives us information, information that we need in order to live wisely while we're in exile. And the way he gives us that information is very unique, certainly different than what we're used to.

It comes through strange dreams and visions. And chapter 2 is the story of one of those strange visions that fills Daniel.

And the thing to understand right at the very beginning is that although this dream was given to Nebuchadnezzar, it was written down for you.

It wasn't just written down for him. It wasn't just given to him. It has something for you to think about. It's something for you to apply in your life as you live in exile if you're a believer.

So the sermon has three main points, and the first is what Nebuchadnezzar saw. What Nebuchadnezzar saw. Verse 1 tells us what he saw.

He saw a very troubling dream. It was the first thing that he saw. In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His mind was troubled and he could not sleep.

Now, dreams are very mysterious things, aren't they? We hardly need a sermon to talk about how very weird they can get. But sometimes dreams can be very frightening, very scary.

You probably remember some of your most vivid nightmares as a child, and they've never left you. You can still remember them scene by scene. They were so real, you woke up sweating, crying.

They were vivid dreams. And to this day, if you think about them, the fear can come back on you. So think of your worst nightmare, how you felt.

And that's exactly how Nebuchadnezzar felt when he had his dream. It was troubling. He couldn't shake it. He woke up and it was still with him.

And he knew there was more to this dream than most ordinary dreams. It was too vivid. It was too real. And so he did what any wise king would do.

He called in his advisors who were kept on the premises for these such occasions. And verse 2 says he sent for his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers.

So these were the court officials who Nebuchadnezzar kept on staff to give direction. And specifically, when it came to thinking about supernatural things, those kingdoms weren't adverse to thinking about things in supernatural terms.

And so before any battle or any major decision or any particular civic event, these men were summoned to participate in court life. They were summoned to go to work.

And they would do all sorts of things, reading livers and reading tea leaves and looking at the stars and you name it. There was all sorts of weird ways that they could tell Nebuchadnezzar and the kings what the gods had to say, what the gods were trying to say.

And of course, most of the time, they were just making up things. They were just giving their own hot air. And so they, and they came.

They've done this before and they came in full of confidence and Nebuchadnezzar says, I had a dream and I want to know what it means. Now, in verse four, we see that the enchanters seem to have a very reasonable request.

A reasonable request. Oh, king, live forever. Tell us the dream and we will tell you what it means. Now, Nebuchadnezzar was not in the mood for that.

We know that. He wasn't in the mood for, I'll tell you the dream and then you can make up whatever you want it to mean and we can go on our happy way. It would put him, he wasn't going to put up with that rigmarole in this occasion because this dream was too real.

It was too vivid. He knew this was not a normal situation. He kept these guys around to help him in matters like this and he was beginning to understand that this was too important to deal with just like any other ordinary situation.

So, the dream was the real deal and he wanted answers. So, he said in verse 5, he has a way of figuring out that they're going to tell him the truth.

He says, I've made up my mind. If you don't tell me what my dream was and what it means, then I will have you cut into pieces and your house turned into piles of rubble. Literally, I'll turn your houses into a dunghill.

So, if you don't tell me what the dream was and what it means, you're dead and your house is a latrine. It's all over. But if you tell me what it means, there's going to be rewards and gifts.

Now, at this point, we see the second thing Nebuchadnezzar saw. He saw that his wise men were wicked liars. They were frauds.

Look at verse 7. The astrologers try to buy time. Let the king tell his servants and we will interpret it. So, they're going back again.

Just tell us the dream and we'll tell you what it means. And Nebuchadnezzar sees right through it. He says, I'm certain that you're just trying to gain time because you know what I've decided. You know how this is going to be.

You've conspired. Look at verse 9. You've conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream and I will know that you can interpret it for me.

So, Nebuchadnezzar lowers lowers the boom on them. If you can't tell me what the dream was, then how are you ever going to tell me what it means?

If you don't even have access to the gods to let me know what I dreamt, there's no way that you're going to have access to the gods to tell me what that dream means.

So now tell me or else. What can the astrologers and the enchanters say?

They don't know. They have no idea. And so Nebuchadnezzar is seeing right through them that they are wicked liars and they're in trouble.

so that what can they say except what you ask is impossible. You're going out of bounds. This is impossible.

There's no king no matter how great he was. He's never asked such a great thing like this. And then in verse 11 it says what the king asks is too difficult.

No one can reveal to the king except the gods. They do not live among men. So now the jig is up. It's over for them.

The wise men have shown their cards. They've shown what they are. They're nothing but frauds. And Nebuchadnezzar is angry. And he says then kill them all.

Kill them all. Kill these ones. Kill anyone else that claims to be an advisor. Kill them all. Nebuchadnezzar doesn't know how deep this fraud goes. But he's not going to deal with any of it.

And so he says kill all the wise men. Here's where we want to pause and think for a second. What did Nebuchadnezzar see?

Now we've read the entire chapter so we know what he's seen. He's seen a dream. A God given very vivid dream.

Now we've already read what it means and what it was. God was revealing to Nebuchadnezzar what his plans were for the ages, for the kingdoms of this world.

And it was something momentous. It was something important that Nebuchadnezzar needed to know, that we need to know. It was the blueprint of where this world is going and who's in control.

But could the wise men of this world see it and understand it? No, they were totally blind.

Now this isn't just an indictment against Babylon's wise men. This is an indictment against all worldly wise men.

Today's worldly wise men take very different forms. They're generally not astrologers and enchanters, but instead they're professors and talk show hosts, they're politicians and they're authors and they claim to know the future and they claim to know where everything is going and they claim to know what is best.

But if they are blind to God, what can they see? They can't see anything. The God of this world, Satan, has blinded them and they are as lost and as foolish as the Babylonian sorcerers.

And so I want to ask you, people of God, who are you listening to? Do you spend more time listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and all those kinds of peoples or this politician or that politician or reading this author or that author?

Or do you listen to God's word? Do you listen to God as he is the revealer, we're going to see, of mysteries? He's the one that's going to tell what is going to happen and he knows what is best.

And so are your fears, are your hopes, are your cares and concerns and your joys tied up in what we'll say the Fox News enchanters say?

Or are those things tightly connected to what God says in his word? If anyone listened uncritically to the Babylonian enchanters, they were fools.

Because they were blind, they didn't understand what was going on in the world. And if anyone listens uncritically to the American wise men, they're still fools because they're blind.

And if they weren't blind, they would see Christ in all of his glory, but they don't see it. And so, they're wicked liars. Maybe not intentionally, but they deceive.

Maybe not intentionally, but because they are blind. they're depending on their own wisdom and not God's wisdom. Well, we need to move on. They saw, Nebuchadnezzar saw a very vivid dream, and he also saw that wicked or worldly wise men are wicked deceivers.

So, our second point, what Daniel saw, what Daniel saw, Daniel saw that it was God who reveals mysteries. Daniel saw that it was God who reveals mysteries.

And so, the death warrant goes out, the king is angry, and now he sends his soldiers to execute all the wise men, and Daniel and his three friends are included in it.

And when the executioners come, Daniel asked what was going on, he doesn't know. And look at verse 14, when Ariok, the commander of the king's guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact.

Now, this is the second time. The first time was in chapter one. We saw that Daniel was a man that had wise words. He knew how to speak to people. And so, now we see Daniel's wisdom in action, and he speaks to the king's officer.

And then he does something very brave. Daniel was a very brave person, wasn't he? He went to see the king, and what did he ask for? He asked for the very thing that the enchanters and the sorcerers asked for.

He asked for time. Lord, our king, I need time for this. And his words were so gracious, and so tactful, and so wise, that Nebuchadnezzar gives him time.

Now Daniel goes home, and he gets his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Nazariah, and together they prayed. And they prayed to the Lord who can reveal mysteries.

And they prayed for mercy. Their lives were at stake, and I'm sure they used arguments when they prayed. Lord, we're your people. You have promised to be with us. Lord, we're going to die if you don't hear us, and if you don't answer us.

And so they pray for mercy. They need to know the dream. And Daniel says, no man can reveal these things. Only God can reveal them. They need God to act.

They need the dream and the meaning. And so they prayed. And then what did Daniel do? This is one of the most surprising things, I think, in this whole chapter.

He goes to sleep. He went to sleep, and as he's sleeping, God gives him a vision. Verse 19, during the night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision.

Now, who revealed the mystery? Well, it was God. And what did Daniel do? He praised God. He praised God who is sovereign, who's the king, who changes times and seasons.

He praises God who reveals mysteries. He reveals deep and hidden things according to verse 22. God. So, the wise men of this world are blind because they don't see God.

The God of this world, Satan, has blinded them, but it's God who reveals his mysteries to people. He uncovers his designs. He tells his people what it's going to be.

Now, hasn't God done that? How many other people know what the future is going to hold? None, except for those who listen to God, because God uncovers what's hidden in darkness.

He uncovers his plans. Now, we don't get those in all very specific detail, but we know the big picture of where this is going. He uncovers his designs. And so, brothers and sisters, do you need to be blind?

Do you need to live in darkness as to what's going on in the world and where this world is going and what is the most important thing and who's in control? You don't have to be blind because your father is the revealer of the things hidden in darkness.

He brings out to light and he shows his servants. So, what did Daniel see? He saw that God was the revealer of mysteries and then he also saw what Nebuchadnezzar dreamed.

He saw the dream and in verses 31 through 35 he tells us what that dream was. Nebuchadnezzar was lying in his bed and he's thinking about his kingdom and he's a very important person and a lot is weighing on his shoulders and as he thought about his kingdom he fell asleep and in his dream do you ever bring your life into your dreams?

Well, Nebuchadnezzar brought his life into his dream and God gave him a vision and Nebuchadnezzar looked and there was a large statue. It was a dazzling statue awesome in appearance it was breathtaking and at the top was this head of gold and the chest was silver and the arms were silver and the belly and the thighs were bronze and the legs were made out of iron and its feet were part iron and clay.

Now Nebuchadnezzar is looking at this brilliant statue he's amazed at it and then a rock was cut out by unseen hand and it started rolling down the mountainside and it smashes the statue to pieces well we could not really to pieces to dust to chaff and with a breath of the wind the statue is gone and Nebuchadnezzar looks and there's not a line in the sand where it was there's not a speck of gold dust there's not any remnants of it left there's not a single piece it's totally gone and Nebuchadnezzar keeps looking and something even stranger happens that little rock that smashed the statue started to grow and first it was the size of a boulder and it was the size of a house and it was taller than the trees and then it was a mountain and then that mountain filled the whole earth wherever there was earth there was the mountain there was no escaping it the mountain filled the entire earth that was the dream that

Daniel saw that Nebuchadnezzar saw but Daniel also saw more than the dream he saw the interpretation he understood the interpretation this dream was special Nebuchadnezzar knew it it was a dream from God to reveal the things that are to come to reveal the things that were hidden in darkness these things that are mysterious that God had planned from ages past now he's revealing them to Daniel so that Daniel can reveal them to Nebuchadnezzar and so that we can see them so we've read it already but we won't go into detail what does the dream mean what does the dream mean well the statue was made out of four parts and it was more glorious at the top but stronger in some ways at the bottom and so who was that head of gold Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold the gold head was the Babylon the Babylonian empire and it was glorious it was brilliant it was dazzling the birds of the air the beasts of the field rested under

Nebuchadnezzar's shade they gathered under it and and did you catch that title that Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar you're the king of kings this is a glorious Babylonian empire but soon the gold gave way to silver it was less glorious but it was a little longer lasting and the silver chest was the Medo-Persian empire empire and Daniel 5 and 6 talks about how the Medes and the Persians came in and conquered Babylon and they began a new empire so for 70 years remember we talked about this in the first sermon for 70 years Babylon rules they're the empire then it comes crashing to an end Cyrus comes in and destroys Babylon destroys the empire and then for 200 years the Persians have an empire and then a third kingdom came and out of the west came

Alexander the Great and Daniel chapter 8 compares him to a ram that's flying across the earth with a giant horn and he smashes the Persian empire to pieces and then for 200 years the Greeks had their separate kingdoms where the Persian empire was but in the west there's this restless monster growing and growing and in the second century Rome smashes Greece and takes over Greece and rubs their boot over them puts the remains of the Greek empire under their boot but the Roman empire was a divided empire I'm not sure how much you know about history that's one of these debatable things about when I'm preaching this how much history to include but Rome in the third century AD so we're talking in the late 200s AD was effectively split into two parts the western and the eastern

Roman empire and the western empire was soon overran overran by Goths and Visigoths and Ostrogoths and Huns and all sorts of people they came creeping in they came rushing in but soon the western Roman empire was no more it was smashed and then in the east but the east was stronger and in Constantinople there was the Byzantine empire it was the remnants of the Roman empire and it endured for 12 centuries until in 1453 the Ottomans Ottoman Turks finally conquered it in 1453 like I said so that was the statue and that's how it was historically played out but enough about the statue Daniel saw a rock praise God he did look at verse 44 chapter 2 verse 44 and the time of those kings that's the fourth kingdom the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed nor will it be left to another people it will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end but it will itself endure forever so in the middle of the rising and falling of these world human kingdoms

God was going to act it would be during the fourth kingdom God would establish his kingdom and so during the Roman empire the fourth kingdom the God of heaven would set up his kingdom and brothers and sisters what happened what happened well we read in Luke 2 in those days Caesar Augustus who's he he's the emperor of the Roman empire Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world and so Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea to Bethlehem the town of David and he went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child while they were there the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn a son and she wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end

Caesar wanted everyone to know how great he was and then so during that fateful census God was going to show how great he was and so God said it's time an unseen hand cut a rock and it rolled down and it planted itself in the middle of the Roman Empire and eventually destroyed it and from a manger to the ends of the earth God's kingdom has come and it is coming the mountain is filling the earth and so Jesus came and he preached the kingdom of God is at hand he said from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay a hold of it and so have things changed have things changed not at all

Christ's kingdom is still growing Christ's kingdom is still advancing where is the British Empire where is the Soviet Union where is the French Empire where is the Third Reich where is the Holy Roman Empire where is the Spanish Empire they are dust where is all the other empires of this world they have come and gone but Christ's kingdom is still here it is still growing it is still filling the earth and Daniel saw it he saw Jesus Christ he saw the kingdom of God he saw what is going on now what did God show him Daniel this is so important for you to see Nebuchadnezzar this is so important for you to see he showed him the church growing and filling the earth the kingdom of God would fill the earth and that's what Daniel saw now third point what should we see what should we see we looked at what

Nebuchadnezzar saw we looked at what Daniel saw now what should you see well we should see the kingdoms of this earth for what they are Daniel's apocalyptic literature and apocalyptic like I said it means the unveiling the uncovering of something now apocalyptic literature unveils uncovers the true nature of things it gives us glasses to see things as they really are so what do the kingdoms of this world look like well they look like a dazzling statue awesome in appearance breathtaking they look so enduring so strong so sturdy they seem like they'll last forever isn't that true can you imagine a world without the United States government it just seems so permanent it just seems so there it's always there and that's the way it's always been people have always looked upon these human kingdoms as enduring and dazzling and so strong and so sturdy but Nebuchadnezzar's dream

God's vision to Nebuchadnezzar shows what things really are they're weak they're fragile they don't last their foundation is in the dust and to dust they will return and so they won't last they can't last so you should see the kingdoms of this earth for what they are you should see our nation for what it is it's here for a time and it will be gone human governments human nations human political states are not our great hope the United States is another state that's destined for destruction with all the rest and that's the problem with unbridled patriotism unbridled faith in our government in any government or the utopian ideals of people that think that human government can solve the problem the kingdoms just don't last they're weak they don't endure they can't solve the problems and if you don't believe me read

Daniel 2 again see what happens well what else should we see what else should we see we should see that there's no reason to be discouraged there's no reason to be discouraged so are we in exile here yes is God's kingdom hidden and in distress yes what we are has not yet been made known we are hidden and we are in distress are the kingdoms of this world a mess is there wars and rumors of war yes but the Lord rules over all and he has this plan he knows where he's going he has promised his son a kingdom and he will give it to him and that kingdom will fill the earth wherever there is earth there will be the mountain the God's kingdom and so our hope isn't connected to what's going on in Washington or what's going on in New York at the UN or any other human government or human nation our hope is connected to the ever-growing ever-prospering forever kingdom of God so should we be discouraged when we see what's going on in this world not at all there's no reason to be discouraged the king is coming and his kingdom will endure forever and it will soon be here so what should we see that's the second thing here's the third thing we should see we should see that we all must repent we all must repent from seeking our own kingdom and we must submit to God's kingdom to Jesus

Christ and his kingdom so we must see that we all must repent from our own kingdom building seeking our own kingdom and we must submit to Christ's kingdom let me ask you who was this vision originally given to it was Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar this dream is the beginning chapter 2 is the beginning of three chapters and each of these chapters have to do with Nebuchadnezzar and with God and so this dream was given to Nebuchadnezzar and we can't deny that we don't want to miss that point and this three chapters they won't end until Nebuchadnezzar is submitting to God and to his kingdom until he admits that God is king alone that he is the most high king and that his kingdom indeed rules over all other kingdoms now this dream was given to

Nebuchadnezzar in order to warn him to tell him as glorious as your kingdom is it's not going to last your kingdom won't be forever there's still a higher kingdom that will last forever and so your kingdom Nebuchadnezzar it's going to be here for a short time but God's kingdom will last forever and so God gave this dream to Nebuchadnezzar to bring him to repentance and to bring him to submission so I wonder what kingdom are you building doesn't Daniel chapter 4 if you remember say Nebuchadnezzar looks over his kingdom and says look at this kingdom that I have built for my own glory we all do that don't we we have our own kingdoms by nature that we're building so what kingdom are you building whose kingdom are you building God came after Nebuchadnezzar's soul in a dream he wanted to warn

Nebuchadnezzar to turn away from his kingdom building project your kingdom won't last your kingdom is sand and it's going to blow away but Christ's kingdom is coming and it will endure forever and so to each one of us we have to kiss the sun we have to forget our kingdom building and submit to Christ stop building your little kingdom and join Christ in his kingdom and Jesus died to seal the constitution of his kingdom and what is that constitution what is the constitution of the kingdom of God what is the law of the land what is the foundation how do you become a citizen it's by grace it's by free sovereign grace it's undeserving sinners are welcome you've been building your own kingdom come stop that come sinners are welcome one and all and they're welcome to come into

Christ's kingdom and through Jesus enter into the kingdom of God and so if you will stop building your kingdom for your glory then you can be saved and you can enter into a kingdom that will last forever and ever and so if you're an unbeliever you have to do what Nebuchadnezzar had to do forget the selfishness repent of your arrogance and come to the king of kings to be saved and believer the same is true for us what is the most important thing going on in the world today Christ is building his kingdom that mountain is growing so are you with him on that parents do you raise your children with Christ's kingdom in mind or is your household your little kingdom that you do the things that you want to do are you loving your husband or your wife with Christ's kingdom in mind are you spending your money and your time with God's kingdom in mind every one of us is building a kingdom but there's only one kingdom that will last and it's not any of our personal kingdoms

Christ alone will have the kingdom he alone will have the glory he alone will have the honor and so will you learn your lesson will you learn your lesson and submit yourself to the king of kings if you're lost will you do that if you're a brother and sister will you learn the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar needed to learn that God's kingdom alone will be forever well let's pray our heavenly father we are glad to be a part of your kingdom for all of those who are in Christ we are a new creation and we have been made into a kingdom for you and lord we thank you that you have brought us in on such gracious terms that if we will repent we will give up our way our wicked ways and come to Jesus we can be saved and we can be brought into this kingdom that will endure forever father we give us a vision of

Christ's kingdom and so as we're going through this week that we will remember that picture of that rock filling the earth and live differently because of it and when our wills are crossed and we want to sin in some way or we want to be lazy or selfish or arrogant will you remind us of that rock that is filling the earth and remind us that Christ's kingdom is the only kingdom that will last and our little kingdoms cannot survive thank you lord that you are slowly breaking us from our selfishness and our pride and I pray lord that you would do so more this week bring Daniel to to mind again and again as we live our lives as we're at work as we're raising our children as we're loving our husband or our wife as we're going to and fro will you remind us of the what is the most important thing when we're reading the paper and watching the news give us grace to remember the truth that we've heard here tonight and it's in Jesus name I pray for his glory I pray amen