Daniel 1-8 • Trusting God with Opposition and Dreams

Have you been in a situation where you were surrounded by people who knew very little truth about your God? How did you respond? What choices did you make or need to make? The book of Daniel describes that kind of challenge faced by several young Jews and the choices they made to stay faithful to God in the pull-apart world of Babylon. In the last blog, we learned from Jeremiah 29:1-14 about the two aspects of trusting God and how knowing that helps you to flourish in every way. This is post #3 in the Ezra to Malachi blog series. In this post, we will learn from Daniel chapters 1-8 how Daniel learned to trust God with opposition against him as well as with his dreams.

Listen to this post as a similar podcast from our Identity: Sticking to Your Faith in a Pull-Apart World Bible Study covering the last 7 written books of the Old Testament.

As a quick review, the Jewish people had been pulled-apart from God by the idolatry of surrounding cultures. They actually adopted much of the worship of foreign idols as part of their way of dealing with the challenges of life, including threats from invading armies. God had warned them repeatedly that such disobedience to His commands and rejection of Him would result in their being kicked out of the land that God owned—their Promised Land. It was God’s land. The Jews were in it by His gracious plan and permission. The expected response was that they would stay faithful to God to enjoy the blessings He provided in the land and to communicate the awesomeness of their living God to all the Gentile nations around them. As a nation, Israel failed miserably to do both! So God delivered the consequences He had set in place—exile from their own country to live in foreign lands for seventy years. They would find out what it was like to live among people who served human-created idols.

But God loved His people so much that He gave them favor in their place of exile. He sent instructions through Jeremiah the prophet about how to flourish in the Babylonian settlements where they were held captive. He sent the prophet Ezekiel to those captives with spiritual instruction to encourage them to return to their God in complete faithfulness and commitment to Him. And God gave influential positions to several young Jewish men that would benefit the government of Babylon and the Jews living under its rule. Daniel was one of those young men.

Daniel and His Friends

We first meet Daniel as a young teenager. His family along with other royal and noble families had been uprooted from Jerusalem and taken to Babylon as captives of King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel and three of his friends were ripped out of those captured families and forcibly taken into a special training school for the king’s service.

We see in Daniel chapters 1-3 that those four young men had a firm grip on their identity as belonging to the true God. They met continual challenges brought upon them by their Babylonian captors with the two aspects of trusting God.

Daniel chapter 1

When confronted with all the new stuff required of them in Nebuchadnezzar’s training school, Daniel took a stand on the one thing that he could—not to eat meat that had likely been prepared in a way that was against the Mosaic Law.

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel … At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. (Daniel 1:8-9, 15)

1) Daniel resolved not to defile himself. He would not be pulled-apart from following his God in that way. So, he respectfully asked for permission that the four of them not be forced to defile themselves with that food. They did not rebel. They did their part God’s way.

2) Then, they trusted God to give them favor with the official and to nourish their bodies during those ten days so that they looked healthy. God did that! Within a short time, some Jewish priests were no doubt found in Babylon who could kill the meat according to the Jewish law. And God rewarded their trust in Him by giving them wisdom and understanding of all that they were learning so they became useful to the king.

Those are the two aspects of trusting God.

Daniel chapter 2

When confronted with the king’s decree to kill all the wise men, Daniel stepped forth to save the lives of himself and the other wise men.

When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact. … Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him. Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 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. During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven. (Daniel 2:14, 16-19)

1) Daniel responded to the king’s commander with wisdom and tact, asking for the facts behind the harsh decree. He spoke respectfully to the king, asking for time and expressing that he wanted to interpret the dream for the king. No harsh words. No rebellion. He sought his three friends to join him in prayer. This is doing his part God’s way.

2) While praying, the four young men asked God for His mercy and to reveal the mystery of the dream. God did reveal it, and Daniel praised God for doing what only He could do—reveal those kinds of mysteries.

The king was satisfied and even honored God who revealed understanding of his mysterious dream. Daniel and his friends were all promoted to higher positions in the government which gave them greater influence for God in their work.

Those are the two aspects of trusting God.

Daniel chapter 3

Daniel’s three friends were confronted with the command to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue or be thrown into a blazing furnace. The king even defiantly asked what god would be able to rescue them from his hand. This is the young men’s response,

Now when you hear the sound of the … music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?” Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:15-18)

1) The young men chose not to succumb to the threat of death by bowing down to a statue. They replied respectfully to the king as they witnessed to him about the power and faithfulness of their God. They would not serve the king’s gods or worship his image of gold. Period. Choice made. No wavering. They did their part God’s way.

2) They trusted God to deliver them from the king’s hand either by not letting them be incinerated or taking them to their eternal home with God after death. It was a win/win for them. God rescued them in such a miraculous way that the king was amazed and once again praised God for what He did.

Something similar happened to Daniel sixty years later in chapter 6. When he was about eighty years old, Daniel trusted God by continuing his daily prayers. And he trusted God to take care of him in the lions’ den however God chose to do it. Once again, those are the two aspects of trusting God. And what shines through Daniel’s life is that God still does amazing things by very old people, who actually grow in usefulness over the years as they grow in their trust of God.

Daniel and Dreams

The book of Daniel is more about the God of Daniel than it is about Daniel himself. God gives favor. God changes hearts of kings. God answers prayer. God gives dreams. God gives interpretation of dreams. In fact, we see a lot of emphasis on God revealing something through dreams and visions in chapters 2, 4, and 7-12. Visions can refer to what one sees in a dream or while one is awake. Either way, the temptation to put any kind of sensational interpretation to elements of dreams is paganism. The Babylonians had dream manuals for just that purpose with descriptions of dream images and what each one meant.

Several years ago, I learned that the tendency to seek dream interpretation even among Christians is very popular today. A friend of mine shared with me her sister’s complete obsession with dreams, especially animals in dreams. So, I did some research on this topic.

What dreams are and are not

Dreams are little more than the continued functioning of the mind during sleep. They do not tell your story. They can sometimes reflect recent thoughts, events, and scenes so that your mind creates scenarios based on fears, hopes, or desires. What I see on television may appear in a dream over the next week. Have you noticed that? As such, dreams are a perfectly normal function of the brain.

Dreams cannot be seen by another person. We cannot read minds. What the astrologers said in Daniel chapter 2 is absolutely true. Nebuchadnezzar demanded that they tell him the dream first then interpret it. Their response is this:

There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks! … What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among humans.” (Daniel 2:10-11)

Daniel responded to Nebuchadnezzar with the same truth:

The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?” Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.” (Daniel 2:26-28)

Biblical truth about dreams

My friend’s concern about her sister led me to research the Bible for every incidence of dreams and their interpretations. It is clear that God spoke to people sometimes in dreams. Examples are Joseph in Genesis 37, Joseph in Matthew 2, Solomon in 1 Kings 3, and Daniel on several occasions.

Here are four biblical truths I learned about dreams:

1. Dreams in which God speaks to a person are always initiated by God not that person. In Daniel chapter 2, Daniel asked God to reveal the dream that God had already initiated to Nebuchadnezzar. God initiates dreams today in many closed countries, always directing the person to trust in Jesus.
2. Only God can reveal the meaning of any dream that He initiates. Anything God reveals to someone in a dream will agree completely with what He has already revealed in His Word.
3. Dreams from God will always encourage complete obedience to God. In the last lesson, you learned that the Jewish “dreamers” in Babylon were false prophets who were declaring that the Jews were not to serve the king of Babylon and that the temple treasures would be soon returned to Jerusalem. This was prophesying a quick return of the people to their homeland. But the Bible teaches that any dream, vision, or prophecy that does not stress obedience to God is not from God. God placed the Jews in Babylon, and He would come for them when it was time for them to go home. The Jewish dreamers were deluded into thinking their dreams meant something, yet what they declared what is in direct opposition to God’s will. That shows that visions and prophecies can be self-generated.
4. Dreams from God will never dethrone Christ from being absolute Lord of your life. This is the most important thing to remember. Anything that does not exalt Christ as Lord of your life over anything else, including your dreams, is not from God. Don’t get caught up in the supposedly Christian dream interpretation movement. That is paganism. It is not from God because it takes your focus off of Christ and puts it on something else to meet your spiritual need. That is what happened to my friend’s sister. It is very sad.

We as believers in God need to be discerning about what we read and hear. That means we need to know the truth of God’s word to help us discern false teaching. And that includes dream interpretation.

What if you think you had a dream from God?

I found this wise note on the website gotquestions.org. It is a great source to ask questions about the Bible.

If you have a dream and feel that perhaps God gave it to you, prayerfully examine the Word of God and make sure your dream is in agreement with Scripture. If it is, prayerfully consider what God would have you do in response to your dream (James 1:5). In Scripture, whenever anyone experienced a dream from God, God always made the meaning of the dream clear, whether directly to the person, through an angel, or through another messenger (Genesis 40:5–11; Daniel 2:45; 4:19). When God speaks to us, He makes sure His message is clearly understood. (“Christian Dream Interpretation?” gotquestions.org.)

That is truth, my friend. But we need to be willing listen. That involves desiring to be in God’s presence. In the next post, we will let the small yet personal book of Haggai teach us about what it means to desire God’s presence.

Let Jesus satisfy your heart with complete trust in Him so that you will follow His way of living life instead of the world’s way or your own way.

All of the above information is covered in the  Identity: Sticking to Your Faith in a Pull-Apart World Bible Study  covering the last 7 written books of the Old Testament.

Related Resources:

• Identity: Sticking to Your Faith in a Pull-Apart World Bible Study
• Satisfied Series 18 Podcasts (Ezra-Malachi)
• Jeremiah 29:1-14-The Two Aspects of Trusting God

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