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The Bible Breakdown
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The Bible Breakdown
Daniel 02: God VS The Gurus
Have you ever been stuck in a place you didn't want to be? Daniel's story in Babylon proves that our most uncomfortable situations often become our greatest platforms for divine purpose.
The Bible Breakdown Podcast tackles Daniel chapter 2, where we witness one of history's most dramatic spiritual showdowns. King Nebuchadnezzar challenges his court magicians and spiritualists to an impossible test: tell him his dream before interpreting it. When all the self-proclaimed spiritual experts fail, young Daniel steps forward with unwavering faith claiming, "There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets."
What follows is breathtaking – Daniel not only reveals the king's dream about a massive statue with a golden head but delivers a prophetic panorama spanning centuries of world history. The statue's different materials (gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay) represent successive kingdoms from Babylon through Rome and beyond. Most remarkably, Daniel predicts that a kingdom "not made by human hands" will ultimately crush all earthly powers – a clear reference to God's eternal kingdom.
This ancient confrontation between divine wisdom and human spiritualism feels surprisingly relevant today. We're surrounded by modern "gurus" claiming special insight while offering nothing more than repackaged self-help. Daniel's story exposes the emptiness of such claims while demonstrating the power of authentic connection with the true source of wisdom.
Whether you're feeling displaced, unseen, or stuck in circumstances beyond your control, this episode offers profound encouragement. God can use your current situation – however unwanted – as the very platform to display His glory and advance His purposes. As Daniel proved, sometimes our greatest ministry opportunities emerge exactly where we least want to be.
Listen now to discover how you might be planted precisely where God needs you most. Then join our Bible Breakdown discussion group on Facebook to continue exploring how this ancient wisdom speaks to your modern challenges!
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The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Well, hello everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today, daniel chapter 2, and today's title is God vs the Gurus God vs the Gurus. I can't even say it right, man, I don't know what world you're living in, but it seems like everybody and their brother is coming out as like a spiritualist and they're just like connecting with their inner child and connecting with the universe and all this kind of stuff. We have no lack of gurus. Well, not just now, but back during the time of Daniel, there were gurus o' plenty, right, and at some point you got to put your money where your mouth is Like are you true? Is what you're saying true? Well then, prove it. Well, we're going to see this kind of come to a head today in Daniel chapter two and it's it's really cool, along with probably one of the most epic dreams that's ever happened. So if you have your Bible, just want to open up with me to Daniel chapter two. While you're doing that, as always, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. Make sure you're also a like, sharing and subscribing and sending the YouTube channels to other people so that they can get in on this, and it doesn't cost you anything. It's absolutely free, but it helps us get the word out and make sure you go into the Bible Breakdown discussion on Facebook. It's an amazing group of people doing wonderful work and, as always, the more we dig the more we find.
Speaker 1:Well, welcome back to Daniel, chapter 2. And so I'm really, really excited about Daniel and the overall idea of Daniel is God is in control, and there's so many reasons to love the book of Daniel. If you remember, we were talking yesterday, the first six chapters are some of the most famous stories in the entire Bible. I mean, it's amazing. Today is one of those. But also I love the idea that Daniel is in a place that he doesn't want to be. He's in a place that he doesn't want to be. He's having to do something he doesn't want to do and he's just decided I'm going to grow where I've been planted. I don't want to be here, but as long as I'm here, I might as well do the best I can, and that just already speaks to us, doesn't it? You ever been at a job you didn't want to be, yet you ever been in a marriage you didn't want to be in. Don't reply to that, especially if you're with other people. You ever been in any kind of situation that you'd rather not be in? Well, if you are, Daniel's got a word for you, and that is God is in control. And I'm just so excited about this as we get further into this chapter and as we start to just watch how, in the middle of a place you don't want to be, god is able to do more than you can ask, think or imagine. And always God does not call us to do the impossible. He does call us to do the really hard possible, over and over again. Well, today we're going to see how God has gifted Daniel, shadrach, meshach and Abednego to really step in and take advantage of an opportunity. So if you're ready, let's read Daniel, chapter two, and let's just enjoy the story of what God is doing in the lives of these young men. So here we go.
Speaker 1:We're going to start with a guy named Nebuchadnezzar. Here we go, chapter two, verse one. One night during the second year of his reign, nebuchadnezzar had such a disturbing dream that he couldn't sleep. He called his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers, and he demanded that they tell him what he had dreamed. And as they stood before the king, he said I have had a dream that deeply troubles me. I must know what it means. In other words, he got all of his gurus together and he said hey, you guys claim to be spiritualists and speak to the universe and all that. Well, tell me what the universe just made me dream. Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic Long live the king. Tell us the dream and we will tell you what it means.
Speaker 1:But the king was no fool. He might have been born last night, or I've been born at night, but it wasn't last night. So he looked at them, astrologers, and he's like I don't know, I'm serious about this. If you don't tell me what my dream was and what it means, you're gonna be torn limb for limb and your houses will be turned into heaps of rubble. But if you tell me what my dream, and tell me my dream and tell me what it means, I will give you many wonderful gifts and honors. Just tell me the dream. I love that. It says just tell me exactly what the dream means and then we'll be fine. So here we go.
Speaker 1:Then they said but the king replied You're stalling for time, because you know I am very serious when I say if you don't tell me the dream, you're doomed. So you have conspired to tell me lies, hoping I will change my mind. But tell me the dream and then I will tell you, and then I'll know that you can tell me what it means. Then the astrologers replied to the king and this is not a very good response. They said no one on earth can tell the king his dream. No king, however great and powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any magician, enchanter or astrologer. The king's demand is impossible. No one except the gods can tell you your dream and they do not live here among people. So pause again. So in order to make the king more, more, you know, like ease him up just a little bit, they say well, our last king didn't ask us to do that. Can we just go ahead and say that's the worst response in the entire world? Well, unsurprisingly, the king was furious and when he heard this, he ordered that all the wise men that would include Daniel and them, that they would be executed Verse 13. So I'm guessing all the other guys were screaming their heads off. Daniel was like hold up. He asked Arak why is the king issued this harsh decree? So Arak told him all that had happened.
Speaker 1:Daniel went at once to see the king and requested more time to tell the king what the dream meant. Then Daniel went home and told his friends Hananiah, mishael and Azariah what had happened. He urged them to ask the God of heaven to show them his mercy by telling them the secret so they would not be executed along with the other wise men of Babylon. That night the secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision, and then Daniel praised the God of heaven and sang Praise the name of God forever and ever, for he has all wisdom and power. He controls the course of the world events. He removes kings and sets up other kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in the darkness, though he is surrounded by light. I will thank and praise you, god of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.
Speaker 1:Then Daniel went to see Arak and told him whom the king had ordered to execute the men of Babylon. And Daniel said to him Don't kill the wise men, take me to the king and I will tell him the men of Babylon. And Daniel said to him don't kill the wise men, take me to the king and I will tell him the meaning of his dream. So Arah quickly took Daniel to the king and said I have found one of the captives of Judah who will tell the king the meaning of his dream. And the king said to Daniel, also known as Belshazzar, belshazzar is, is this true? Can you tell me what my dream was and what it means? Daniel replied there are no wise men, enchanters, magicians or fortune tellers who can reveal the king's secret. In other words, there is no guru that can do this, but there is a God in heaven. Oh, come on now, my Pentecostal is about to come out. But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets and he has shown the king, king Nebuchadnezzar, what will happen in the future.
Speaker 1:Now I will tell you your dream and the visions you saw as you lay on your bed. Okay, here it is. While your majesty was sleeping, you dreamed about coming events. He who reveals secrets has shown you what is going to happen. It is not because I am wiser than anyone else that I know the secret of your dream, but because God wants you to understand what was in your heart.
Speaker 1:In your vision, your majesty, you saw standing before you a huge, shining statue of a man, and it was a frightening sight. So he saw this big statue of a man, of a man, and it was a frightening sight. So he saw this big statue of a man. And then what you're going to see here is it's going to say that this statue, almost like a caterpillar, has you know the different things. The statue had different layers of things, going from the head all the way to the feet. The head was a statue of. The statue was made of fine gold. Its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron and its feet was a combination of iron and baked clay. As you watched, a rock was cut from the mountain, but not by human hands. It struck the feet of the iron and clay and smashed them to bits. The whole statue was crushed into small pieces of iron, clay, bronze, silver and gold. Then the wind blew them away without a trace, like chaff on a threshing floor, but the rock that knocked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth. That was the dream.
Speaker 1:Now we will tell the king what it means. Your majesty, you are the greatest of kings. The God of heaven has given you sovereignty, power, strength and honor. He has made you the ruler over all the inhabited world, and he has put even the wild animals and birds under your control. You are the head of gold, but after your kingdom comes to an end, another kingdom inferior to yours will rise to take your place. By the way, the next kingdom to come into power was going to be the Persians. After that kingdom has fallen, a third kingdom, represented by bronze, will rise to rule the world. Now, if you know your history, the people that took over the Persians were the Greeks, alexander the Great. If you know your history, the people that took over the Persians were the Greeks, alexander the Great.
Speaker 1:Following that kingdom, following Persia, there will be a fourth one as strong as iron. That kingdom will smash and crush all the previous empires, just as iron smashes and crushes everything it strikes. Now, do you remember who took over the Greeks? The Romans? The Romans were next, but then the feet and toes you saw were a combination of iron and baked clay, showing that the kingdom will be divided, like iron mixed with clay. It will have some strength of iron, but while some of the parts of it will be as strong as iron, other parts will be as weak as clay. This mixture of iron and clay also shows that these kingdoms will try to strengthen themselves by forming alliances with each other through intermarriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron and clay do not mix. During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered, and it will crush these kingdoms into nothing and it will stand forever. That is the meaning of the rock from the mountain, though not by human hands that crushed into pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver.
Speaker 1:Now pause again. So you have Babylon, then taken over by Persia, then taken over by the Greeks, then taken over by the Romans, and, a little bit before the Middle Ages, you have a time when the Romans, actually the Roman Empire, split into two and you had these two different kingdoms. You had two different empires, and many people think that that was where the feat came from, and so just throwing it out there, letting you know that it actually turned out to happen, which is really cool. Verse 46,. And Lord over kings, the revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this secret. Then the king appointed Daniel to a high position and gave him many valuable gifts, and he made Daniel ruler over the whole province of Babylon, as well as chief over all his wise men. That's when he became over all the king makers. Verse 49.
Speaker 1:At Daniel's request, the king appointed Shadrach, meshach and Abednego to be in charge of all the affairs of the province of Babylon Verse 49, statue. But he didn't want to tell anybody because, I mean, think about it Like they could just make anything up. But to truly know if these gurus were, who they said they were, well, then they should be able to ask the universe or whatever to tell them the dream. And then the interpretation. Well, we know that gurus are full of crap and they had no idea. And so he said, okay, kill them, which is not cool. But that's exactly what he did. Well, daniel was one of them, you know, because he's just doing. That's where he was put in the kingdom. And he said wait a minute, I can tell you, not because of me, because there's a God in heaven and he will tell me the dream. And so he said here's the dream. It was a statue that had these different kingdoms, and what god is telling you is that you are going to have the great kingdom, but it's not going to get any better after you, it's going to get worse after you, and these are the things that's going to happen in the future. And when this guy, when nebuchadnezzar, saw this, he gave glory to the lord and then he gave daniel these promotions and different things, and which also helped for Shadrach, meshach and Abednego, at least for a season We'll find out about that tomorrow and it was awesome, because what Daniel did primarily brought glory to God.
Speaker 1:And so there are so many takeaways that we can get from this. First of all, if there is a guru, if there is anybody in your life who is trying to put anything above God's word, stop listening to them, okay. That includes books like the Law of Attraction. That includes anything that is trying to tell you that you can speak anything into existence. No, stop that, okay. God's word is what's true. That's what Daniel was saying. He was saying listen, none of us got any power around here, none of us know what we're doing, but there is a God in heaven who does, and if we move according to him, man, there's some pretty amazing stuff God will use us to do. And so, first of all, make sure that the primary authority in your life is the only one who's got any authority anyway, and that's God's word. Secondly, after you've done that, then step into this world of chaos. Step into this world that's looking for something that's real, and show them that God is real. And that's what Daniel was doing. Daniel wasn't trying to make a name for himself. Daniel was trying to save his life, and he's using this horrible opportunity as an opportunity to shed light on Jesus. Shed light on Yahweh, which turns out to also be Jesus, the father and son there.
Speaker 1:And so my question for you is would it be possible, instead of shrinking back from the difficulties of this culture, what if we stepped into them and said I don't want to be here, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this, but if we're going to be here and we're going to do this, man, I'm going to do it in such a way that I bring glory to God. What does that look like? Well, maybe you work in a place where you don't want to be. You don't want to work there, you're trying to find another job, but it's not working out. Well, if it's not working out and God wants good for you, then that means there's a reason why you still work there. So what would it look like if you said I don't want to be here, I don't want to do this, but as long as I'm here, I'm going to show the glory of God. Watch what happens. After a while, the devil's going to help you find a job.
Speaker 1:What about school? If you're a student? Right now? I don't want to do this. I know more than these teachers anyway, at least that's what we think right.
Speaker 1:Well, how about this? As long as you're there, what if you were an undercover agent for the kingdom of God, making a difference, and then you decided not to become so undercover, but you decided to go public with your faith? What if God had you there for a reason, so that you can bring glory to God? And here, by the way, and here, by the way, the byproduct of this is that God is also going to bless you in the process. God elevated Daniel to higher levels so that he could be an even greater and greater witness. But that wasn't the point. The point was to show the glory of God. What if God has put you right where you are for a reason, so that you can show the world that God is in control?
Speaker 1:Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, god, that you're with us and you're for us. In a thousand ways, lord, I can imagine there's probably a thousand different things that had to happen just for us to be in this moment right now, wherever we are, for listening, in a car, for watching on YouTube, whatever it is you have ordained this moment. You're in control. Maybe we're in a moment or in a season we'd rather not be here, but, god, if we're here, we might as well bring you glory and watch what you can do, because you can do exceedingly and abundantly. Above all, we can ask or think, and you are in control. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen. And then, with Daniel, chapter 3, those three Hebrew boys look at the most powerful man in the world and they say our God is able to save us, but even if he doesn't, we will never serve your gods. My prayer is that you will have that raw tenacity in God every day. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Daniel, chapter 3.
