As with Pharaoh in Genesis chapter 41, God spoke to Nebuchadnezzar in a dream. God can speak to wayward souls in their quietest moments and cause them to be troubled as to their standing before Him. In Nebuchadnezzar’s case the dream was a great dream, and the scope of the divine communication was vast; however, the problem lay in the fact that he couldn’t remember it. How wise God is to cause such a stir in the mind of the monarch and through it bring out Daniel His servant with a ministry for the moment.
Human wisdom would prove to be inadequate in the matter of interpreting divine communication, and the wise men of the day couldn’t tell the king his dream. Into the breach steps a man who had explored the great things of God in the past, and was walking with God; he would be the instrument through whom great truths of Bible prophecy would be revealed.
The wisdom Daniel applies to the task is worthy of note. Firstly, he speaks wisely to Arioch; secondly he requests time from the king, and thirdly he engages in the exercise of waiting upon God in company with other faithful believers. Those who wish to uncover the greatest depths of divine purpose must wait to discover it; they will be brought to confess ‘how unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out’, Rom. 11. 33.
‘There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets’, Dan. 2. 28. The purpose of God for a nation or a believer can sometimes be difficult to discover, or discern, but be assured – by waiting upon Him we can be drawn to a closer awareness of His mind.
The scope of this particular revelation will span way and beyond Daniel’s day, and even our life time. The nations may be as a drop of a bucket and as the small dust of the balance, Isa. 40. 15, but God has a definite plan which will be fulfilled with absolute precision. The stone cut out without hands will crush gentile dominion, and all its glory will be brought to nothing. God will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed and vindicate His Son in the very sphere where men said they would not have His reign over them. In those days the increase of His government and peace shall have no end, Isa. 9. 7.
