GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
DANIEL 2:7-9
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7 They answered him, saying, “Let the King tell his servants the dream, we will give its interpretation.” 8 Then the King answered: “I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you see that I have made my decision. 9 If you do not tell me what the dream was, then there is just one penalty for you. You have conspired to give me a lying and corrupt answer, until the situation changes, you hope! Tell me the dream, and I will know that you can give me its interpretation.”
The King and his wise men prove the truth that human reason is often self-contradictory. The King demands that if these men truly are what they claim to be, they should be able to tell him his dream before they interpret it. Their claim is that nobody could ever do that, so he should just tell them his dream. This is like the reasonable claims about life after death. On the one hand, since no one can prove that there is life after death, it is reasonable to conclude that there is no life after death. Yet since no life and certainly no suffering makes any sense without life after death, there must be a life after death. These arguments do not uncover any truth; they only show that human reason is flawed.
Nebuchadnezzar was in a position to have all of these prophets and fortune-tellers killed. They were no longer in a position to do anything except be killed. They were proving their worth, or rather their worthlessness, but trying to “gain time” (the King’s own words), or make delays. A liar is always more interested in delaying an outcome long enough for some other matter to distract his accuser. But the King is adamant: “…because you see that I have made my decision.”
Jeremiah said: “The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading” (Lamentations 2:14). And it applies to these prophets, as well.
We should acknowledge that sometimes a fortune-teller is not a charlatan at all; he or she might be genuinely capable of telling the future because of the influence of Satan. This was that case of the girl the Paul, Silas, Luke, and others encountered in Philippi. Luke says that “she earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling” (Acts 16:16). So when Paul drove out the demon working through her, those owners of hers had Paul and Silas thrown into prison. They weren’t bothered by sin or grace or the power of the devil; they only cared about making money from this poor slave girl who was possessed by a demon. Just how much silver could they earn from her before she was driven mad, or died from its viciousness?
Perhaps Nebuchadnezzar showed his own opinion of the false religion of Babylon. He didn’t trust these men. Whether or not he believed in his Babylonian gods is not touched on by these passages, but he certainly didn’t hold these wise men to be honest. “You have conspired” he says, “to give me a lying and corrupt answer.” There are three accusations in that one statement: conspiracy, lying, and corruption.
The wise men had gone as far as fallen, sinful human wisdom can take anyone. Now there was no way out for them. As we have already shown, this illustrates the way that sinful man stands before Almighty God. We are guilty in every way. As James says: “Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). So anyone who thinks that he has kept the law but does not trust in Christ for forgiveness remains guilty of all of his sins. Anyone who thinks that the pet sin he cherishes in his heart is not really a sin because he only thinks about it but does not do it, is still a sinner. What if that sin is a violation of the Third Commandment? What if he goes to church, sits in the rows with everyone else, sings the singing parts and speaks the speaking parts, but doesn’t worship God? Has he kept the command to make a Sabbath day and to keep it holy by worshiping God in his heart? Not at all, although nobody else would know about it. “So if someone who ought to do good does something evil, doesn’t he appear to do even more evil than someone who doesn’t know God?”
This is why we need a Savior, because without him we stand before God as condemned as these wise men, trying to reason their way out of an unreasonable problem. Thanks be to God forever and ever that Jesus Christ has rescued us from such an impossible position. He has given us the only escape from the one and only penalty for sin. He has given us himself.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Daniel 2:7-9 The failure of reason