Well, I grew up in the 80s, which is the greatest decade for many reasons. One of which is it is the high watermark for slasher movies. In the late 70s and early 80s, it was just every year we either had a new slasher movie or a sequel. For instance, the Texas Chainsaw Master 1, 2 and 3, Halloween 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I think we're up to 6 now. Friday the 13th, the last night I slept with my mother. It just happened to coincide with being the first night that I saw Friday the 13th. I don't know how that worked. But the scariest by far, for me at least, the scariest was Nightmare on Elm Street. If you don't know the story, Nightmare on Elm Street is about a villain named Freddie Krueger. And Freddie Krueger comes to you in your dreams. And there is nothing you are more defenseless in front of, quite like a dream. You can't defeat him. You can't do anything to keep him out. Because if you go to sleep, there he is. Dreams, man, they have a power to get under our skin. I don't know if you are a vivid dreamer. And sometimes I don't even remember what I dreamed about. All I know is I woke up scared. I've had a Nightmare. It hadn't happened in a couple of years. But I haven't had Nightmare. All I know is this. I would hear someone knocking at our door. And I would wake up terrified. I would lay in bed waiting for the knock to happen again. It never did, because there was no one there. I had that dream probably ten times, or two year period. And I was just scared. There was nothing clear to be scared of, but I was scared. I don't know if you've ever had dreams like that. You just wake up in a mood. Sometimes I wake up in a mood that affects me all day. Sometimes it goes longer than a day. Dreams do that to us sometimes. They are unpreventable. They are inevitable. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, had a dream like that. A dream is not clear if you remembered it clearly or not, but a dream that woke him up and troubled his soul, troubled him to the soul. And it troubled him so much that he went to his wise men, his magicians, and his miracle workers, and he said to them, I want you to tell me this dream and tell me what it means. And they said, well, you tell us the dream. We'll tell you what it means. It's not clear if he's just tired of them snookering him or if he just wants to be a capricious king. But he says, I'm not going to tell you the dream. You have to tell me what the dream is and what it means. And they said, there's no one under heaven that can do that. And he said, if you don't do it, how have you all killed by tomorrow? Now, Nebuchadnezzar, you know, you reached out to the story of Daniel, and something he's going to slip by, like the fact that he has a lion's den. And he has a furnace that's the size for people. And so when a man who has torture devices in his castle says, I will have you killed tomorrow, we take that seriously. We take that seriously. And so they were terrified and could do nothing. They said, sir, we cannot tell you the dream. And so he sends his executioner out. And the executioner comes in knocks on Daniel's door because he was one of his wise men. And he says, Daniel, this is kind of a funny conversation if having your mind, right? Daniel opens the door, hey, how are you doing? I'm great. Why are you here? I'm here to kill you. Can I ask why? The emperor had a dream. And no one's been able to tell him what it is or what it means. And he says, can I get an appointment? And he has to be sure. And so he takes him and gets an appointment as constrained, says an appointed time for me to come before an African Ezra. And I will tell him his dream and I will tell him what it means. And so everybody's excited and gets their lives saved. And Daniel goes to his friends and says, guys, this is what I promised. I need you to pray. And they start praying for him. And God reveals the dream to Daniel. And Daniel comes back to his friends. He goes immediately to his friends. And they praise him. They praise God. They don't praise Daniel. They praise God with the words they're in. They call it a worship. Praise the Lord. He is the revealer of mysteries. He makes the dark things come to light. And then the next day comes. And Daniel is taken to the king. And that's where we're going to take up. Please stand as we read the word of God. And I want you to think about this as if I read it. The God's new kingdom is unstoppable. It's unstoppable like a dream. And it comes with a warning to fall on the rock before the rock crushes you. Here's the word of the Lord. You saw, O King, and behold, the great image. This image mighty. End of exceeding brightness stood before you. And its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was a fine gold. Its chest of arms and arms of silver. Its middle and thighs of bronze. Its legs of iron, its feet, partly of iron, and partly of clay. And as you looked, a stone was cut by no human hand. And it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces and became like chaff of the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This was the dream. Now we will tell you the king. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O King, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom the power and the my and the glory. And into whose hand he has given wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beast of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you ruler over them all, you are the head of gold. Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you. And yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there should be a fourth kingdom strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron it crushes, and it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and the toes, partly a potter's clay, partly a iron. It should be a divided kingdom. But some of the firmness of iron shall still be in it. Just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdoms shall be strong and partly brittle. And as you saw all the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together. Just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broken pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, a great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel, and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him. And the king answered and said to Daniel, truly your king is God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries for you have been able to reveal this mystery. Thus far the reading of God's word, all men are like grass and all of our glories like the flowers in the field, and the grass withers and the flowers fall, but not God's word. God's word stands forever. You may be seated. The kingdom of God is unstoppable like a dream. And we had better fall upon the rock, lest it crush us. The first thing I want you to see are the toolboxes of terror. What do I mean by that? I mean, where do you go when you're afraid? Where do you go when you are absolutely uncertain, you're anxious, you don't know what the future holds, you get scared, you're made to feel weak. If you've been able to come in and walk up from the stream afraid, for the first time in his life, and what did he do? He did what he always does. Nothing reveals your faith better than fear. When you're afraid for your job, when you're afraid for your family, when you're afraid for your future, where do you go? Navicon Ezra went first to his wise men, and then the millisecond they let him down. He went to power, he went to threats, he went to violence, he went to his toolbox. Those are the things that gave him the kingdom. Those were the things that made him who he was, and he was looking to them to alleviate his fears. Nothing he'd get to me. This dream scared him. It scared him to his soul, and when he was scared in the past, what did he do? He always grabbed for his sword. He reached out to his generals, and so he does the same thing here. Does that sound familiar? What have you grown up depending on? You're always the smartest guy on the room. Are you the richest guy in the room? The prettiest guy? A girl in the room? The strongest? What have you grown up depending on? The Eagles sing that song. I think it's very interesting first verse. Some girls just seem to find out early how to open good doors with just a smile. My son's the same way. He thinks he can get anything if he smiles, right? And he is right. And when we're afraid, when we're uncertain, we go back to those toolboxes, don't we? We go back to the things that have worked. A friend of mine was flying overseas to make a huge business deal, something that honestly up until this point had been out of his league. And he was scared. And he was a sharp businessman, very sharp, and had succeeded so far whenever he tried to do something professionally. But he was scared about this. It seemed too big. And so he went back to his Bible verse. His comfort verse, up until this whole time, had been Proverbs 3, 1. You know, lean not on your own understanding. Trust in the Lord all your ways, lean not on your own understanding. And as soon as you got those words out of his mouth, he felt the Lord say to him, you don't understand anything. You have no understanding. And he said, well, thanks God, that was helpful. And he started looking out the plane window, and he saw the ocean. And he started thinking about Peter. And Peter was asked if he could walk to Jesus on the sea. And Peter got out of the boat, and he starts walking to Jesus. But Peter was a fisherman. He'd gone out on that sea every day of his life, except the Sabbath. And he had lived on the sea, and he knew ways, and he knew the water. And when he recognized the storm, he went back to his toolbox, right? He went back to the things that always served him before. And he started trusting them. And the second he starts trusting them, he sinks. And then he remembers Jesus, and he calls out to Jesus, and he saved. The Lord says, you're going to have to trust me for this. Don't go back to those things that you've trusted before. Don't try to be crafty. Don't try to be strong. Don't try to make threats. You're going to have to trust me. I think one of the reasons the Lord gives us the gift of fear is to show us our faith. Show us what we're really relying on. Daniel opens the door, sees a man with the sword. Why are you here to kill you? That would be frightening. I think that's more frightening than a dream, personally. What does Daniel depend upon? He goes to his friends, and he asks them to pray. Let's talk about prayer for a second, can we? Do you do it? I'm not even asking you if you do it right. Do you do it often? Do you do it at all? Really? And this is the key to understanding that question. Do you understand the difference between worrying about something and praying about something? You know, uttering the phrase, oh God, I have a test coming. That's not prayer. That's worry. Have you really made your desires known before the Lord? Do you really recognize Him as a father who cares for you? Do you really trust Him? Do you come to Him with your worries, your doubts, your insecurities? It's shocking how often we get mad at God about things. We haven't even talked to Him about. Do you pray? Do you pray? And when you get what you ask for, do you pray? If fear reveals our hearts, the next thing that reveals our hearts even better is what you look to to give praise. When Nebuchadnezzar gets what he wants, what does he immediately do? He falls on his face before Daniel. It's like you didn't get the point at all, buddy. I made it very clear to you. I did not reveal this to you. I didn't come up with this because I was smart. God revealed it to me, but you're following before me. You couldn't get it more wrong. What does Daniel do? Before he even goes to Nebuchadnezzar? I mean, I think I would have gone early, right? The appointment is for me. I would have showed up at 4 in the morning. God can answer. But before he does that, he goes straight to his friends and leads them in praise. It's a long praise. It was the entire call to worship. Praise you. You are the one who holds mysteries. And they praise Him. Nebuchadnezzar prays Daniel. It really does reveal our hearts, doesn't it? Is there a book called The Case for Faith? It was a book that really encouraged me. I'll know that. I struggle with my faith sometimes. And I read that book. It was funny. Whenever I'm kind of endowed, the Lord throws me into the situation. So this group asked me to teach a whole seminar on apologetics proving that God exists. And I was like, don't be helpful. Yeah, I'll do that. And so I went and one of the books I grabbed was Case for Faith by Lee Strobo. And he, in there, tells a story about his first born child. And you know, if you've been in the birthing room, what you want is the nurses to kind of look like they're bored. Right? Or the doctor looks like he's bored. The nurses are always happy for you. But you know, you just kind of want, yeah, this is the 14th baby I've delivered today. Nothing strange here. That's what you want. When everything gets quiet and people start looking serious, you get a little nervous. You get a little edgy. And they did that with him. They didn't even let him see the baby. I mean, as soon as the cord was cut, they're running out the door with him in the little cart. And Lee says, what is happening? And the nurses say, you can't see him yet. He's not breathing. We'll let you know as soon as we know something. And Lee, who was an atheist, a devout atheist, fell to his knees and began praying. If you're there, save my son. Please save my son. And he stayed on his knees for a few minutes. It took for the nurse to come back in and say, everything's okay. The breathing was obstructed. We got it cleared out. You have a healthy baby boy. Lee got up and walked out of the hospital and didn't think about God again for years. He was not converted on the spot. It'd be years later before he'd be converted. Do you remember the giver of good gifts? Do you remember the one who pulls you out of the pit? Do you praise him? That's our first point. The toolbox we go to when we're afraid. The second thing I want you to see is that fantasies are fleeting. What was a message to Nebuchadnezzar? The message was, your kingdom's going to pass away like a dream. You're going to wake up and have nothing. Now, there's a lot of ironies in this text. One is, it's probably reason why Nebuchadnezzar was so afraid, because he was actually planning on building this statue. It's in the next chapter. And he was planning on having everybody fall in their face and pay homage to him, the exact way that he paid homage to Daniel. And so, when you see the thing of your dreams come crashing down, it's frightening. And that's brought him into despair. He sees that his fantasy, the thing that he has set his life on to be a kingdom, he wants to make himself into a god, literally, and have people worship him. And he sees it fall down before him. You all remember when you had English literature senior year, I remember reading Percy Bisch Shelley for the poetry section of that year. Aussie Mandius. What am I going to find a statue in the middle of the desert? Just ahead and a foot. And the inscription. And the inscription says, my name is Aussie Mandius. Look on my work, she mighty, and despair. Now, what do you mean? He meant it to say, look at this beautiful kingdom I've built. Look at how big my statue is. Do you see me despair? No one can defeat me. But ironically, he was right. When you looked and you saw nothing but sand. Nothing. That would bring the mightiest leaders to despair. A rock's going to hit that statue and navigate that. They're a simple rock. And the things that you've dreamed of, the things that you've set your heart on for your entire life, they're going to come falling to the ground. Your goals are going to crumble and crash. It's going to become junk. Your job will go on without you. Your loved ones will disappoint you. Your children will grow up and leave the little jerks. That beauty you trust, open doors for you. It's going to wither right in front of you. You're looking to mirror every day. Look on my works and despair. Every now and then, I would try to take my kids out to a junkyard or a salvage yard. Salvage yards are the best because their boys dream about cars. Cars are the thing. You take them out to salvage yards and you see these cars that have been crushed like that size or they're just out in the field rusting and letting people come rummage through them for parts. And I say, boys, you see these? Only pieces of junk. There was a day when a dad drove that home and said, hey, kids, come see the new car. There was a day when somebody felt awesome driving that car down the street. There was a day when the smell of that car made somebody feel better than they had felt the day before and now it's junk. Look at my works and despair. It all just flies away. It's true in a micro level. It's true in an individual level. It's also true in a macro level. That was the other message that Daniel makes clear. On an international level, King Nebuchadnezzar, you're the head of goals. You're Babylon and after you hit, this is a bad news for Nebuchadnezzar. After you, Daniel's always kind of had these little pokes by the way. If you'll see the last verse of chapter one, Daniel's, Daniel stayed in Babylon or stayed until the, uh, Daniel lived until the first year of Cyrus. It's got a little message, isn't it? Oh, by the way, Nebuchadnezzar kidnapped me, but outlasted him by four Kings. You're fleeting. After you, Nebuchadnezzar's going to come another kingdom, Persia. That's Chester Silver. After that's going to come Greece and they're going to rule the world. And King Alexander's going to be the greatest emperor of his time or of his history. And he's going to be the bronze, but after them's coming Rome. And Rome is led. Rome is going to, the saying about Rome was Rome would commit genocide. You know, to the Celts or the Carthaginians. Commit genocide, throw salt in their fields so they can't grow more food and then call it peace. They're going to crush everything in their path. And that kingdom's going to get divided. And at that time during Rome and Empire, the stone is not cut by human hands. The supernatural stone is going to come and it's going to look small and it's going to look weak. And he's going to strike that empire and it's going to bring all empires to dust. And it's going to grow and it's going to grow until it fills the earth. Who's that rock? We know who the rock is, right? We know because we've read the Old Testament enough to know that. You know, I love you Lord, you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and deliverer. Who is God but the Lord and who is a rock, except our God? Over and over again, we're told through the Psalms that God alone is the rock. Daniel got it. And we of course know that's Jesus. He even said that to his followers, right? Those who've listened to my words and put them in practice are like a builder who builds his house upon the rock. On the rock. And in Jesus' kingdom, it's going to grow and it's going to stand forever and it is as unstoppable as a dream. There's nothing you can do to prevent it. There's nothing you can do to prevent your fall upon it. Jesus has something fascinating in Matthew. He says, he quotes this verse. He tells a weird parable about a guy building a vineyard and then leasing it out. And the people he leased it out to refused to pay the rent, refused to pay the rent, refused to pay the rent. And then the guy who built the vineyard finally sent his son and said, surely they'll respect my son. And they killed his son. And then he looked at the Pharisees and he said, what's that guy going to do? Is he going to give them the vineyard? He said no, he's going to send an army into crush them. And he said, you need to learn what this means. The stone that the builders have rejected has become the chief cornerstone. And then he said this, it's only. He said, everyone who stumbles on that stone will be broken. And everyone upon whom the stone falls will be crushed. He got two choices. Neither one of them sound great, either. Stumble upon the stone and be broken. Realize that the things that you've trusted in, that you've hoped in, that you've relied in, they're just going to break. They're all temporary. And they're going to break. They call that repentance. And God takes the broken and he heals them. And he nurses them to health. And he really can do that. He can take the worst day of your life and make it the one that you look back on and go, that was the most important day of my life. I see that. All my hopes grow as a young man, all of my hopes were in my ability to charm and my ability to preach. And the first time I got turned down for a job, well that guy was just an idiot. I thought, and I got turned down for nine jobs that year, nine more. And I was broken. I was broken. I started to learn what it meant to live by grace. I started to let Jesus put me back together. Man, that was the turning point in my life in a lot of ways. It made me a different person, maybe a different person. He says, if all those on whom the rock falls, all those who refuse to kneel, all those who refuse to receive the Lord's offer of grace at those times of failure, all those who just insist on propping their idol back up, propping their idol back up, they will be crushed.
You have no choice. You're going to fall on this stone. Are you going to let it crush you? Is there a question? I told you about that nightmare, a knocking. It was weird. I happened over and over. But once there were two months, I would just be lying in bed and a cold sweat, praying there's nobody at the door. And then about that time, a couple here in the church was going through some marriage difficulties. And I was helping them. I was trying to help them. You can only do so much. I was trying to help them. And in the midst of that, I made a promise to them both. There were some stipulations that were made, and if certain sins were committed again, he wasn't going to be allowed to sleep in the house. And I made a promise. I said, I promise you, if she kicks you out, I'll take you in. You'll have a place to sleep. You're not going to be alone. And I had that nightmare again. But this time, I laid in the bed for a second. I thought, I was probably home. And I got up and I opened the door. And there was nobody there. But I never had that nightmare again. I have no idea what the lesson is there. I'm going to use it as a really cheesy illustration to say, maybe the reason you still live in fear is because you have an open the door. Because Jesus really does want to know you better. Will you open the door? Please pray with me. Father in heaven, it makes no sense to us that you would stand at the door knock, but your grace is unstoppable like a dream. And all we have to do is relax. All we have to do is rest. All we have to do is stop doing. And your grace is there. We'll just let you in. We do that right now. We know that's not something we do once. We spend all week building our doors back up, building our walls back up. So that on Sunday you can knock them down and walk in the door and tell us you love us still. And Jesus name.