Daniel’s Two Prayers (Daniel 2:1-23)

This sermon was preached on 30/10/2011

Hardly any time has passed since Daniel and his friends finished their three-year course in Nebuchadnezzar’s learning establishment. The second year of his reign would coincide with their third year (their first year was the year of his accession, so their third year would be the second year of his reign). The point of the date is that it reminds us that Daniel is still a very young man, perhaps even only about nineteen.

This chapter in Daniel serves several purposes. It contains a vision in which the future kingdom of Jesus the Messiah is described; it also shows how Daniel almost from the beginning of his career in government experienced promotion; and as far as this study is concerned, the chapter from Daniel highlights the importance of prayer. We are told about two prayers that Daniel made, and we should remember that he is still a young man. And we will see later in the book that his prayer life was very important.

It is worth spending a few minutes considering Nebuchadnezzar because God has his hand on him, not merely because he is a powerful emperor, but because he needs to be taught important lessons. We will see Nebuchadnezzar go into different classrooms in God’s school in later chapters and discover what he became in the end. For the moment we can ask, ‘What was he taught in the classroom described in Daniel 2?’

One obvious lesson is that the Lord can speak to a person anywhere and through any means, even if the individual is the most powerful person on earth. Here God speaks through a dream in such a way that Nebuchadnezzar is very disturbed by what he saw. Both the dream and the disturbance come from God. Others may have had similar kinds of dreams and were not bothered any more about them. Here God used a dream as a way of getting Nebuchadnezzar’s attention, which is an indication that he wants to do something for the king.

Another lesson is how easy it is for God to show the foolishness of earthly wisdom and the weakness of earthly power. Babylon was the foremost empire on earth and its subjects would have regarded its resources as greater than what had been known before in previous realms. The Lord knows how to make them appear in their real limitedness. One request from Nebuchadnezzar, in response to his dream, reveals the incapability of his leading advisors because they were unable to provide him with what he wanted. Of course, his request would have shown the incapability of any regime that had ever existed.

His request also shows his fear, because although he is a king of a worldwide empire, his dream showed there could be more than one empire. Which of the four was he, and who is the little stone that is going to have a mighty worldwide empire? All this was very unsettling from Nebuchadnezzar’s point of view and he could not restrain his apprehensiveness about it.

The crisis

So Nebuchadnezzar had a dream which he wanted to understand. It is not clear if he had forgotten the details or whether he was testing the claims of his advisors regarding their ability to interpret dreams (perhaps he had worked out that on previous occasions they had merely told him what they thought he wanted to hear). In any case, there was a crisis situation in the palace. The unreasonableness of the command of the king made the crisis worse for the other advisors, but not for Daniel and his three friends.

As we think about Nebuchadnezzar’s demand we can see in Daniel’s response how we should react to situations in which we are being hemmed in by political powers. We live in a society where that possibility is becoming starker as the government attempts to enact more laws that are unbiblical. There are already several laws on our statute book that are against biblical teaching and we wonder what we should do about it. Daniel here gives us one response, the most important response, which is to pray.

Yet to only see Daniel’s situation as the hemming in of the political ruler would be a mistake. In addition, we should see that Daniel is in this situation because of God’s over-ruling providence. That providence had taken him from his homeland and had helped him when he arrived first in Babylon, so that he was now a junior government official. One of the dangers that we face when concluding that a situation has been brought about by providence is to become fatalistic and to assume that we should not respond. Fatalism is never a response of faith. In contrast, Daniel saw the crisis as a God-created opportunity for prayer.

Today we see financial and moral crises in the nation, but have we seen them as God-arranged circumstances about which we should pray? There are crises facing the evangelical church, but have they compelled us to pray earnestly to God? The Lord is pleased when we respond to his providence with suitable prayer attitudes. Like Daniel we should see all circumstances as providential opportunities for prayer, of them being arranged by God so that his people can pray for spiritual growth in the church.

On hearing about the demand of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel went to him and asked for time, which he was given. Immediately Daniel went to his three friends (Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah) and asked them to pray. It is interesting that here they are called by their Hebrew names, and each of these names had one of God’s names in it. The four young men were being asked to live up to their names and call upon their God.

How did Daniel know that he could depend on them to pray? I suppose the obvious answer is that he knew them so well. Together they had shared other spiritual exploits (as recorded in Daniel 1) and no doubt had prayed together many times. I should ask myself, ‘When a crisis comes in my life, who do I know that would definitely pray with and for me?’ It would be foolish to wait until the crisis comes before trying to find out.

In particular Daniel asked them to pray for mercy, a request that gives insight into his character. When a person prays for mercy it is an admission that any answer they receive from God is undeserved. It would have been easy for Daniel’s friends to say to God, ‘Lord, we have been faithful to you. Please deliver us!’ Instead they asked for mercy, a confession of their unworthiness.

This request for mercy is another biblical example that when we pray we should focus on the attributes of God that are best suited to our situation. Their appeal for mercy is a request for God to have pity on them. It is a petition that goes direct to the heart of God. They are asking him to be moved with compassion for them. Such a request only comes from those whose own hearts have become soft and tender. Surely we know that real prayer is the meeting of two hearts – the heart of a pitiful God and the heart of a pleading believer interceding for himself and others.

Daniel also gave them another motive for prayer and that was their lives depended on getting a favourable answer. If they did not discover the contents of the dream they would die. Of course, they would go to heaven if they died, but they would go without obtaining a spiritual victory in this case. Imagine a situation if they had not prayed. A person visits the cemetery in Babylon forty years later and sees their graves. He asks what happened to them and is told, ‘They seemed devoted to God initially, but on one occasion they did not pray seriously for a matter and they were put to death.’ It would be a tragedy. We have a similar motive, don’t we? Whatever our past achievements, the next stage in our progress depends on what we do now. It would be sad if in fifty years’ time people will look back at us and say, ‘They did not pray when the crises came and their church petered out after a few years. Sadly it now has gone.’

We are not told how long they prayed for before Daniel was given the answer by God. I suppose the obvious lesson is that we should keep on praying until we receive the answer. Daniel and his friends could not dare give up praying, because if they did they would die. They would say to us, ‘Keep on praying earnestly until the answer comes.’ Although we are not told when the answer came or how long they prayed about it, we are told what Daniel did once the prayer was answered. The first thing that he did was offer thanksgiving to God and his thanksgiving is recorded in verses 20-23.

Daniel’s Prayer of Thanksgiving

The first detail that comes out of this prayer is that everything God does deserves eternal praise. Daniel affirmed that this one answer to their short-term prayer should be remembered always. Of course, he has helped us to do so by recording the details for us. Yet it is a question worth asking, ‘For which of his activities does God delight in being known?’ One of them is that he is a prayer-answering God. It would be wonderful for us to enter God’s presence, fully aware of his endless existence, but able to say about it that he should be praised for ever for answering our prayers.

Daniel then highlights that he has a balanced understanding of God when he states that wisdom and might belong to him. We know that wisdom without power is pointless and power without wisdom is dangerous. Yet in God they work together in perfect harmony. Often when we pray, we discover the beauty of God.

The prayer of Daniel also reminds us that the Lord himself is the complete source of everything that his people need. On this occasion they needed divine wisdom and they needed divine power. No doubt we can see why they needed wisdom; after all, they had to find out the contents of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. But why was there a focus on divine power? I would suggest that Daniel and his friends were fully aware that they were engaged in warfare against demonic powers. It was not only the power of a tyrant that concerned them, but also the malevolent powers behind the scenes. Their only source of help was the almighty God.

Daniel’s prayer is also a reminder that God is the resource for everything a young person needs as he attempts to live for God in a hostile environment. We have to remember that here we have the prayer of a teenager who, with his young friends, is prepared to do great things for God. They had realised that one person with God on his side will win the battle, no matter who the enemies are.

In his prayer, Daniel acknowledges the consistent sovereignty of the Lord. In verse 21, he says that God reveals his wisdom and might through his control of historical eras. Of course, Daniel is basing this insight on what he has received from God regarding the details of the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. Yet what a contrast between the universal control of the calm God and the restlessness of the agitated human emperor! We need today to have this insight of Daniel because if we don’t we will imitate the anxiety and impatience of Nebuchadnezzar.

Further, Daniel realises that the Lord knows everything. As Daniel says in verse 22, the Lord knows what is incomprehensible to humans. He knows what dreams we have had; he knows what kingdoms will arise; he knows when he will overthrow the earthly kingdoms and begin his kingdom. Prayer enabled Daniel to realise that the Lord’s perspective on an event is all-comprehensive and focussed. I suppose what he discovered here is that the Lord knew the links between Nebuchadnezzar and the coming of the kingdom of Jesus. We can forget so easily that the Lord’s priority is the kingdom of his Son, not our national or ecclesiastical concerns. Yet his priority does have implications for our concerns.

A final aspect of his prayer is that Daniel identified the Lord as the covenant God, the God of his fathers. He discovered through prayer that he could receive what the great leaders of his people had discovered when they prayed. The details of God’s actions in the past now became means of showing Daniel what the Lord could do for him. And we can do the same. He is the God of our fathers in the Bible, and he is the God of our spiritual fathers who did exploits for him in their days. Because he is God, there is no reason why we should receive less from him than they did. But we will have to pray to him as they did before we will experience the wisdom and power that they were given.

So Daniel went off to tell Nebuchadnezzar about his dream. On the way he showed that his time of prayer to the God of mercy had made him like God because he asked for mercy to be shown to the other wise men. They had done nothing to find out the contents of the dream; perhaps they were even addressing their non-existent pagan gods in a pointless search for help. Nevertheless, because he had been in the presence of the God of mercy, Daniel wanted mercy to be shown to the undeserving. And he did not merely think about it – he acted out his enlarged vision of God.