Daniel: Does God Reign? Does God Care? - Reading PlanSample

Start with prayer, then watch the video and read Daniel 2.

Daniel 2 is an amazing story of God’s power and reign both in Daniel’s life, and on the grandest of scales. The combination of the two helps us to see how God’s sovereignty impacts our lives, and how to live in the light of it.

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is famously prophetic, foretelling what is going to happen in the centuries after Daniel. It can be tempting to focus on the empires (probably Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome). But the real point is actually the next bit – the rock cut out “but not by human hands” that shatters them all. It represents the kingdom of God, which will never be destroyed or left to another.

God’s kingdom is not like other kingdoms. This is not the promise of a fifth kingdom, just better and longer-lasting than the others. The old order is shattered and broken.

On one level the rock points forwards to Jesus’ first coming during the fourth kingdom of Rome. But it also points beyond time and history. The rock doesn’t just crush the fourth empire. All the kingdoms in the statue are "broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer” (v35).

Somehow the rule of God reaches back through history, right to the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It is God who is in control, through everything that this dream describes. The rock is Jesus – but Jesus isn’t just a souped-up version of Nebuchadnezzar – his rule is over all of time, over all empires, over all, period. That means these kingdoms aren’t just Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome – they’re all human power and nations.

And that makes this relevant to our lives now – as well as Daniel’s life then. We can see it’s a lesson he’s already learned, in the amazing words of trust and faith he prays after God reveals this all to him (v20-23).

But Daniel’s actions more generally in this passage also show us how to put this truth into action in our lives. He is faced by an impossible problem. What does he do? He gathers his friends together, and they pray for God’s help and mercy (v18). If we believe in God’s power and reign, that should be our reaction in difficulty too – to cry out to him for help. Take a moment to do that now.