The Chinese language, and I understand that the word for crisis is made up of two characters, the character Wei and the character G, and for the Chinese people, the word the character Wei represents danger, and the character G represents opportunity. So in Chinese, a crisis is a dangerous opportunity. In fact they have a proverb about it, said a crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous winds, danger and opportunity. Read along with me if you will from Daniel chapter 2, we're going to read Daniel 2 verses 1 through 18 this morning. In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His mind was troubled and he could not sleep. So the king summoned the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers and astrologers to tell them what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood before the king, he said to them, I've had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means. Then the astrologers answered the king and air a mech. 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 is not a man on earth who could do what the king asks. No king, however great a mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchantor or astrologer what the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except of 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 that the decree was issued to put the wise men to death and the men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death. When Ariac, the commander of the king's guard, had gone out to put the death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom intact. He asked the king's officer why did the king issue such a harsh decree? Ariac then explained the matter, Daniel. At this day, he went into the king and asked for time so that he might interpret the dream for him. Then Daniel returned to his house, explained the matter to his friends, Han and Ayah, Misha El and Azaraya. 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. Let's pray together. Father, we read a passage like this and we look into what is just deep mystery and we realize that we are just dust. We're transient. We're passing through. We're just dust. We're dust that has been made in your image and you, the Lord and the god and the creator of the universe, the revealed of all things, even the deepest and most mysterious. You've loved us with an everlasting love and called us to be your people. Lord, we ask that of your mercy and by your grace, you would speak words of truth and grace and clarity to this morning. We're feeble and we're frail, but we ask your help to understand. Not only to understand but to apply, so we might take this text to heart and you might use it to mold us and to shape us and conform us more into the image of Jesus and whose name I pray. Amen. Or continuing this morning, our study of the Book of Daniel took a couple weeks out, one for a communion and one to hear from our friend, my friend Rusty, right last week. I really appreciate what Rusty brought to us from John chapter four last week, but this morning we're continuing to study the Book of Daniel. Just by way reminder, the theme of the Book of Daniel is that in spite of outward appearances, God is still in control. No matter what it looks like from our vantage point, God is still on his throne. That's a good reminder, especially in times of crisis. Daniel to set it in context, Daniel takes place beginning in the year 606 BC in the city of Babylon. We are now in a second year of the reign of African deserts, so we are in the year 605 BC. It's seven in the city, ancient city of Babylon. We know where Babylon was now, it's in an area of what is present day Iraq, south, south, west of Baghdad. Babylon was a real city with a real king and real people and real problems, especially if you were a Jew living in Babylon in the late seventh, early sixth century BC. It was not a good place for you to be if you were a Jew. One of the themes of the book is it's a manifesto for how to live as God's man or God's woman in a hostile culture. See in the Bible Babylon, it's a real place, but also comes to symbolize all that is wicked and evil and idolatrous, all that is wrong with the systems of the world. Daniel's a manifesto and how to live as God's man or God's woman in a culture like that. Now we don't live in Babylon. It's not nearly as rough for us as it was for Jewish exiles in the year 65 BC, but we do live in a culture that is increasing the hostile to our faith, to Christianity, to the Bible. So that's one of the reasons why I wanted to preach to Daniel. It's got great words and instruction and encouragement for those of us who live in a culture that is increasing the hostile. In ancient Near East and that is what Babylon was part of, in ancient Near East, dreams are considered important vehicles for messages from their gods and the dreams of the king are particularly important and Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream that troubles him greatly and perplexes him as well. And now Nebuchadnezzar's predicament is going to become a full-blown crisis for everybody else in the kingdom, especially for his so-called wise men, the magicians and chancers, sorcerers and astrologers that we meet in the story here. So what does a great king do in a crisis? First thing we see is that Nebuchadnezzar turns to the magicians. Every king and emperor in the ancient Near East had a stable full of such so-called wise men. This is the same order in the same cast as the magi who came to visit Jesus after he had been born in Bethlehem. And every king or emperor in ancient Near East had a stable full of such magicians and astrologers and so forth and some of them were pretty impressive. Maybe you remember from the book of X's when Moses goes back and tells Pharaoh you better let my people go or else he uses that staff that God gave him to do the number of important acts of God. And for a little while Pharaoh's magicians are able to match him, strive for stride. Moses throws down his staff and becomes a snake and and Pharaoh's magicians and so are other staffs and they become snakes. Moses stretches his rod out with an island and it turns to blood and they can do it on a limited basis. And so for a little bit they're able to keep up with Moses until the acts of God get a little out of control and they can't match him anymore. Now I say that every king of every nation, ancient areas to have their own had his own stable full of additions and astrologers. Every king every nation except one. And I was ancient Israel. Ancient Israel was not to resort to such of the dark arts. In fact, God had said through Moses and Deuteronomy 18 verses 9 through 13. When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you. Do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or cast spells, or who is a medium, or spirits, or consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. Because of these detestable practices, the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God. Now the kings of ancient Israel had the prophets they could turn to who would speak to the king and to the people for God. But the prophets weren't like these magicians and astrologers and chanders. They didn't do parlor tricks for the king. They didn't perform. They didn't speak words of flattery to him. By the way, it was just the opposite. The prophets quite often had to get in the face of the king and say you're the one to sit in here and God's going to judge you for it. So the prophets were not at all like the magicians and the chanders and the sorcerers and astrologers. Ancient Israel was unique also in that the king was to abide by the same rules by the same laws by the same moral principles as the rest of the people. So I've heard of the ancient Near East, the ancient Near East, all the other nations. The king got to pass. He himself was considered as some of the gods, at least in his own mind. He could do whatever he wanted. Not so in ancient Israel. Now there God told his king and his people, you're all under the same responsibility, you're all under the same authority to obey what God says. I was thinking, ma'am, I say apply to everybody, the king on down. God's people would live lives of holiness in the midst of an unholy culture. That was true when they went into Canaan and dispossessed the Canaanites. That was true when they were down in Egypt in the land of bondage. That was true when they were in exile in Assyria and it's true now they're in exile in Babylon. They worked to be different than those around them. Jeremiah, echoing what Moses had written in Duran, and Jeremiah says, here with the Lord says to you, oh house of Israel, this is what the Lord says. Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them, for the customs of the people are worthless. And that's what God says to his people, but never could nether. Never could nether to pagan. So when he needed guidance, he turned to the midditions and chancers and the sorcerers and the astrologers. He asked them to conjure up answer to his problems. He asked them to interpret the dream he had with one wrinkle. He wasn't going to tell them what was in the dream. They not only had to interpret it, they had to reveal it. And this left them in a bad, bad way. You're not old enough to remember this, but I am, but back in the late 60s, the Beatles got in and thralled with the Maharishi, Mahesh Yogi, and transcendental meditation. And they got so enchanted by it, pardon the pun, they got so enthralled by it, that they actually went to India where they were going to study, transcendental meditation with the Maharishi. Ringo left after a week because he couldn't take the food. Paul left a couple weeks later because he was just, again, I'm sorry for the pun, but there's this enchanted with the whole thing. And George and John left a couple weeks after that because they found out that the Maharishi was hitting on some of the women who came to India with them. And so when they left, the Maharishi said to them, why are you leaving? And you can just hear John Lenin's voice saying, if you were who you say you are, you'd know. If you were who you say you are, you'd know. I had a, maybe a slightly lower, a little bit of a similar experience, a couple, well, a few months now. I was going to meet somebody at the Sacred Poyo Tropicala up here on US1. And I don't know if you know it, well I'm sure you do. Everybody in here, everybody, y'all have these for your cars? Everybody? You don't? Well you're the only people mind me that don't have these in your cars. Because everywhere I go, these things are plastered in the windshields and unhained from the mirrors of the cars that park there. And it's a miracle people park there and they get healed and able-bodied people walk out of their cars. It's a marvelous thing. I'm waiting on my healing. So Poyo was crowded and I couldn't park there because of other people. Not that this bothers me, I want you to know. Not that it bothers me at all. That when you get your driver's license in Miami, they just hand you one of these. It goes with it. But I couldn't park at Poyo so I parked a block or two up north at the fortune teller. You know a sister who ever named the fortune teller up there? She had an open one of these. So I parked my van there and I get out and somebody came out. I assume it was sister so and so and she said, where are you going? And I said, you tell me? Seeing fair when I went to Poyo. Anyway,
Nebuchadnezzar does a version of this with his magicians and astrologers. He says, if you are who you say you are, you should be able to tell me what's in my dream. I give him high marks for cleverness, but I give him much lower marks for discernment in knowing who to ask these things and who to turn to. And then when you get your verses five and six, man, you talk about a risk reward ratio. You do this for me. You get riches and houses and jewels and lends. I give you my daughter's hand and Mary. Well, you didn't say that, but you get the idea. It's going to be so great for the person who can do this for me that you can't. I'm going to dismember you. I'm going to burn your houses to rubble and all your family are going to become homeless and beggars. Talk about past fail. Man, get it right. Great riches, great rewards. Get it wrong death. This amendment, no one wants to go first. Well, they did what I would do. Well, time out. You can't be serious. You can't ask us to do the thing like that. And then in verse 12, after they say you're being unreasonable to find out that Nebuchadnezzar has a little bit of a temper. You could use a little anger management treatment, you know, this made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon. What does a king do in a crisis? Well, Nebuchadnezzar turns to his magicians. What do they do? I'm using her magicians to cover all the magicians turned to the stars. The first response verse 4 is to say, well, a little, a king lived forever. Did they think he would? No, this is just what you say in the presence of a king. A king lived forever. I have always thought that it was a serious mistake to name yourself king or president or dictator for life because there's only one way you're leaving office. I've always thought that was an unwise thing to do. But I wasn't around the ancient Near East and so they say, a king lived forever and then they say, tell your servants the dream and we will interpret it for you. And he tells them to stand and deliver or face the consequences. Now the text doesn't tell us explicitly what they did after that other than to say they tested it was too hard. In fact, it was impossible and even more time. But it's implicit in their titles. They are magicians. They're enchanters. They're sorcerers and astrologers. We don't deal so much in our day and time with magicians and enchanters and sorcerers. At least I don't think you do, but astrology is with us still, is it not? Astrology is with us still. They look to the stars and their charts and their secret scrolls and they try to find an answer. None of that was going to tell them the truth. Let me talk about astrology for a minute. Astrology is the belief that the sun, the moon, the stars, the other planets that those heavenly objects and their movement and their relationship to one another have an impact on or even outright control human behavior, the lives of humans and even humanity itself. I checked on the internet so you know this is true that the surveys say that somewhere between 25 and 33 percent of all Americans still believe in astrology. I saw one survey that said it was as high as 48 percent, but they tended to run between 25 and 33 percent. That doesn't surprise me too much. I was surprised and disappointed to read that surveys said 10 to 30, somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of evangelical Christians buy into astrology. I found that disappointing, but so be it. That's the way it is. Astrology, again, if you're old enough to remember, became something of an issue back in the 80s when President Reagan was discovered that Nancy Reagan was consulting an astrologer by the name of Joan Quigley out in San Francisco and she had input into the president's schedule and it was quite a scandal. Quite a scandal. So I looked online yesterday and I checked the Miami Herald's horoscope and I read them all and they were, you know, they're so vague and generic that how could you say with it? But try this one out. Now this is for you Capricorns. I assume you know who you are. Now what's your list of this? You have never been particularly keen on psychic impressions, okay? Today you need to be aware of a strong psychic atmosphere which can help you to understand some of the instincts currently coming your way. Be fair-minded. Well way to go out on a limb there. Astrologers, you don't care much for this stuff but you need to be more open to it. Be fair-minded. How would you possibly know whether that was valid or not? There's not enough nuts and bolts there. There's not enough concrete stuff there where you could ever say where there's any validity to it. By the way, I need to tell you, some of you here are probably surveys or some of you read your horoscopes and you let it have an impact on you. You need to understand something. The Zodiac, the signs of the horoscope that we have today, those are standardized somewhere before the year 200 AD by Greek philosopher Astrologer by the name of Tollamy. Tollamy standardized was charts. Not quite two thousand years ago. And here's what you need to understand. Since that time, the earth has shifted on its axis just enough, just enough, that all those signs of the Zodiac, they're off one house. And I'm not going to tell you which way. Don't waste your time reading this stuff, folks. Now, there is a sense. There is a sense in which the stars and the heavy objects, they do tell us something, don't they? What I was saying to the kids up here, there is a sense in which they do have something to tell us. Some 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. And after night, they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. But see what that's about. That's not astrology. That's astronomy. And what that is, the stars and the heavy objects, the heavy beings, the heavy bodies, they're not there to dictate the destiny of man. They're the glory of God. That's what they're there for. So here's what the kings of astrologers say and apply. Verse 10, they answer the king. There's not a man on earth who can do it. The king asks, no king, however great in mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or entantre astrologer, but the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods. And they do not live among men. And so the stage is set. Nebuchadnezzar turns to his magicians. The magicians turn to the stars. Daniel turns to the Lord. Daniel turns to the Lord. See when the king's dream produces this crisis for everybody, Nebuchadnezzar calls them the magicians. The magicians call for more time. Daniel calls for a prayer meeting. Verse 17, then Daniel turns to his house, explain the matter to his friends, Hannah and I, Michelle and Ezraia. He earns him to plead for mercy from the God of heaven, concerning his mystery so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Where do we turn into crisis, folks? Where do we turn? I'm not confess. If I had been well as astrologers, I would have been looking at the bus schedule to catch the next coach out of town out of Babylon. You guys can figure it out later or not. Daniel, instead, he goes to the church. That's what they were in Babylon. He goes to the church and he says, we need to pray. Some of you have been through the Henry Black of these Experiencing God years ago in previous church. We work through the Black of these Experiencing God and his fifth principle is this, God's invitation for you to work with him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action. Let me say that again. God's invitation for you to work with him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action. Let me paraphrase that. If you're serious about following Christ, he's going to take you out past your death. He's going to take you out to the deep end of the pool or the deep part of the ocean where you can't stand on your own, where you got to cry out to him for his help. And then you're going to have a crisis of faith and you have to decide what you're going to believe and who you're going to believe and what you're going to do. Daniel is a prime example, prime biblical example of this. He didn't look to the stars. He looks to the one who made those stars because Daniel knew something that Isaiah had written about 150 years before this. Isaiah had written his follows. Isaiah 46, 9 and 10. Remember the former things, those of long ago, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. This is where true wisdom is found, ladies and gentlemen. It's not in scrolls or secret books or magical spells or incandations. It's not even the stars. It's through a relationship with the one who made those stars. This is where wisdom is found. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 20 something years ago, I had lunch with Henry Kissinger, aren't you impressed? Dr. Kissinger, myself, you're about 300 of his other closest friends. I got an invitation to a friend to go and sit in a lunch and symposium. The Dr. Kissinger's composing was offering at University of Miami. It was a longer symposium, but I got to go to the lunch meeting. He was fascinating as you might expect. In the course of his remarks, I wrote down a bunch of stuff that he said, but he said, here's a Chinese proverb, when there's turmoil in the heavens, little problems are treated as big ones and big ones, not treated at all, when there's order in the heavens. Big problems become small and small ones do not upset us at all. Where do we look in a crisis? There is order in the heavens because there is a God in heaven who brings order to our chaos. But where do we look in a crisis? You're husband, your wife, with your parents up to the internet, look to a book, look into a bottle. Where do we turn in a crisis? The wisdom that Daniel displaced for us here is that he turns, not to any of these things, he turns to the Lord. In the last centuries before Christ, some Jewish priests took the weighing robes that were decorated with or embroidered with the sun, the moon, and the stars. And they did this not because they were idolatrous and they were looking to the stars to guide them. No, they did that. They put that on the robes to express the idea that the altar was the center of the universe. Altar in the temple was the center of the universe and that in worship chaos becomes cosmos. Whatever the chaos is in your life, and I know, I know directly and I know indirectly that many of us in this room are experiencing a great deal of chaos. Some of us are flat out in crisis. I mean, I began our time of corporate prayer this morning by pointing out four deaths in the surrounding family of Kendall Presbyterian Church. I know a lot of us are either in chaos or outright in crisis. If it wasn't for the loss of loved ones, marriages are in crisis. Parents that are relationship with their kids are in crisis. Financially, our entire economy is in a state of crisis. Everybody in here at some level or another can relate to what it must be like to be confronted with extreme crisis. Where do we turn? Where do we look to the government? Do one of these other places or do we look for wisdom in one place where it can be found? The one place where it can truly be found in the God of the universe. If your life is not centered on God, please hear me. If your life is not Christ centered, your next crisis will knock your world off its axis. You will be left scrambling as surely as the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the astrologers who stood before King Nebuchadnezzar and said, nobody can do this except the gods and they don't dwell among men. But there is a God who was pleased to dwell among men. Paul wrote about 60 AD, about 30 years after the crucifixion of Christ. Paul wrote to the people in Corinth as follows. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wives, the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know him. God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling lot to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who God is called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is why is there the man's wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. And then a little later down the next chapter, he concludes, this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught us by the Spirit. Expressing spiritual truths and spiritual words, the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. I want to say again, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, many of us in this remote crisis now, for some of us it's well known, for some of us it's hidden from everybody but God. Many more will be in crisis in the days and the weeks and months of head. I'm not a prophet, I don't have a crystal ball, but I know this, life in this planet, it's a fallen planet, we're broken. If we're not in crisis now, we will be at some point. If we do not learn the lesson that Daniel knew, 605 years before Jesus was born, it has to look to the one who is not only the source of wisdom but is himself wisdom. If we don't look to Jesus while we have the opportunity, your crisis may be that dangerous opportunity you need to look to Jesus and say, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, move into this crisis of mind and save me. This is your opportunity, one day you will run out of opportunities. If you know Christ is Lord today's a day to remember and to be reminded of all he's done for us, it's what worship is about to remember and to celebrate and return thanks to God for his goodness to us. And if you're here today or you're listening to this on the internet and you have never opened your heart by an act of faith and receive the payment of Christ as a man that crossed for you. Today is your day, today is your opportunity. You may not get another. Today is your day of salvation. Let's pray together. Father, I'm so grateful for your servant Daniel and how you used him mildly in a very pagan and hostile city and he stood up strong and tall along with Hannah and I, Michelle, Azariah and they a model for us godly living in a pagan culture. Lord, more than anything else, they were also sinners who looked to you in faith and trusting your deliverance. I pray today you will remind us clean up well. We look nice and presentable on Sundays, but every single person hearing these words is broken. Fundamentally, broken. We look to you for our healing and for being made whole. And Lord, for the man or woman or young person who is hearing this and has never opened his heart or her heart in faith and see the payment that Jesus made on the cross for him, for her. Lord, put it upon their hearts right now. Today is the day of salvation. This is their opportunity. This is their opportunity to be made right in your eyes. Jesus is done for us and I made my prayer in his name. Amen. And receive now the Lord's benediction. Go in the love of God the Father, the grace and mercy of God the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God, the Holy Spirit, and live the life. Amen.