At first glance, King Nebuchadnezzar seems like he’s lost his mind. It’s a tall order to ask someone to give you an accurate interpretation of a dream that you may have had. To ask that they first tell you the dream (for verification) and THEN to give its interpretation seems like a set-up. This goes way beyond mind-reading, doesn’t it?
In this case, the king was so adamant about his command that he started out telling his “wise” men what the penalty for failure would be. It was no small thing, since the king promised that they would die and even their houses would be destroyed. Wow! How terrible is this, and the only way to avoid it was to first tell the king what he dreamed and then to give an accurate interpretation. It is almost as though the king had got tired of hearing silly things from his supposed “wise” men, as though he had received poor advice one too many times. He told them that he had already made up his mind, that there was no avoiding what he had already determined.
Apparently, the “wise” men didn’t quite “get it.” They really thought that this was going to be business as usual. They must have thought that this was one of the king’s jokes because they certainly did not take him seriously. Instead, the merely asked him a second time to tell them the dream and offered to give an interpretation of whatever dream he laid out before them. But this made the king angry. I think maybe he was becoming tired of being taken for granted by some of his top advisors. So, when they asked him the second time, he replied by accusing them of trying to buy additional time.
What kind of a man (because the king was first a man and only second was he a king) asks ANYONE to reveal out loud what he only knew from the recesses of his mind, and then in a dream while he was sleeping? What kind of a man makes this kind of a demand of his most faithful, his most trusted and closest advisors? What kind of a man uses this demand as a set-up, already believing that these men were in their positions more for their own good than for his?
This was not a righteous man, but he exhibited some of the qualities that God calls His people to have. In this case, the king exhibited a gift of discernment in that he was skeptical about the motivations and even the wisdom or abilities of the “wise” men who had been called to serve him and he was not about to put them in a place of power and then just take whatever they might dish out. He was going to make them accountable, in a verifiable sort of way, for their actions. In the end, the king’s skepticism served to work the will of the Lord God of Heaven, as he revealed both the dream and its interpretation through Daniel.
Thought: As professing Christians, we should be more careful to “test” the things that we hear. If even pagans can benefit from discernment and God uses it in their lives, how much more should we be discerning if only as an act of honor and obedience to Him? Will He not also bless and benefit us if we heed His word and cultivate an attitude and habits of discernment?
I challenge you, this week, to challenge the things that you hear, not merely to be a skeptic but to practice discernment as all godly people are instructed to do. And remember to be always on your guard. Nebuchadnezzar listened to his advisors later when he should have been more discerning. Daniel ended up sleeping with lions.
By His grace, there is more to come….
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1 comment:
mmmhmmm . . .
excellent, meaty, "wise"
thank you
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