Daniel 2:1

TROUBLED KING—CALM SEER

‘Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams … Daniel sat in the gate of the king.’

Daniel 2:1; Daniel 2:49

The lessons of the chapter are—

I. God in human life.—Nebuchadnezzar was an idolater, and although he was ready to ascribe great distinction to Daniel’s God, yet he never became a believer. For all that He that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. We may not acknowledge God, but He still works in us. He controls our sleeping and our waking hours. He is, as Daniel afterwards told Belshazzar, the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways.

II. God in human history.—Not we, but God is governing us. The distinction between sacred and secular in history is mischievous. It is very important that we should recognise fully that God is ruling among the nations of the earth. He has never relinquished the sceptre. These proud kings, whose boasted glory can be seen yet in the carvings in Babylon, are only His subjects. Daniel was nearer far to Nebuchadnezzar than Nebuchadnezzar was to Jehovah.

III. As to dreams.—Here, as in the history of Joseph, our attention is drawn to the part which is played in ancient history by dreams. In a general way we can say that the thought is often father to the dream. Something which, perhaps unconsciously, has been passing through our minds before we sleep suggests the rapid visions which follow. Nor ought it to surprise us that the God Who controls our thought should sometimes speak to us in this way. Formerly, when there was no Bible, it was still more likely to happen than now. But we are not warranted by the facts of history or experience in relying very much on what dreams may reveal to us.

IV. How much we forget!— The thing is gone from me, says Nebuchadnezzar. But not finally and for ever. Daniel can recall it. Here is a light upon the judgment which will, we may presume, be a sudden lighting up of those caves of memory which now lie in shadow. Son, remember.

V. We cannot leave off without a final glance at Daniel’s character.—Some of its noblest traits can be found here. We notice his prayerfulness, his modesty, his godliness, his love of his friends, and his sterling worth. “In the gate of the king.” To have the King’s ear in prayer, to be a worshipper on the threshold of the King’s house, to be sent on the King’s business, all this should be our ambition as King’s sons.