“…everybody has something that isn’t working in their life somewhere.”

Most of us in difficult conditions turn to our tried and true solutions first – you know, those little shortcuts and dodges that have bailed us out of trouble before. When these don’t work, we may confide our problem to a trusted friend or two. That failing, we may become desperate. We begin to entertain a willingness to open ourselves to things we haven’t considered before.

In that condition, some of us are, perhaps for the first time, willing to listen to what God might have to say. If, at that point, there is a Christian near us whom we trust and who is ready to help us understand, we find ourselves listening with a new level of attentiveness. For some this can result in becoming lifelong disciple of Jesus.

This process of a crisis bringing the unbeliever to the believer for help has been repeated over and over. It seems to be a prime method God uses to call men and women to Himself.

In the Bible narrative we’re going to consider this morning, we have one of those “turn-to-God-in-time-of-crisis” stories.

This lesson: “When They Call For Help.” How should we respond when someone who doesn’t know God comes to the end of his/her rope and reaches out to us for help?

As we’ve noted already, often an unbeliever’s first serious consideration of his Maker comes in a time of crisis. In this case the unbeliever is the king of Babylon 600 years before Christ – a man named Nebuchadnezzar. The crisis is a dream he had (to him more like a nightmare.) We begin then, with the crisis of:

I. A Rattled King.
Daniel 2:1: “In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep.”

Because they possessed almost unlimited power and authority, Oriental leaders were notoriously temperamental and unpredictable, and here Nebuchadnezzar reveals this side of his character.

The Lord gave Nebuchadnezzar a vivid dream that he couldn’t understand, and it distressed him. That the Lord God Almighty would communicate truth to a pagan Gentile king is evidence of the grace of God.

That word “troubled” in this verse in the original language means “to be beaten, compelled, or pushed.” It was the kind of dream that causes one to sit up suddenly in bed, heart pounding, eyes wide, utterly terrified. It was so troubling that the King couldn’t go back to sleep. The plural “dreams” suggests that perhaps this same dream persisted night after night.

The King did what all people do when they hit a situation they cannot control. He turned to his familiar, tried and true solutions first.

Daniel 2:2-4: “So the king summoned the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood before the king, {3} he said to them, “I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.” {4} Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will interpret it.””

Now get ready. The king is about to put these men to a test that will expose the limits of their power.

Verse 5: “The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: …you  tell me what my dream was and interpret it…”

The king wants not only the interpretation of the dream, he wants them to describe to him the dream itself! Without some sort of supernatural power, that is going to be impossible for them. As you can probably imagine, it didn’t take long for these Chaldeans to realize they were in deep trouble!

By issuing this impossible challenge, the king was unconsciously following the plan of God and opening the way for Daniel to do what the counselors could not do.

Daniel 2:6, 10: “But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.”

{10} The astrologers answered the king, “There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer.”

What a revealing statement of the limits of human resources in the face of some crises! “There is no earthly solution to a problem like that, O king!” That was the best their most advanced wisdom of their day could produce.

Daniel 2:11: “What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men.””

Daniel 2:12: “This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.”

There is nothing surprising about such a declaration from our perspective. Most of us here have realized that there comes a point when man’s solutions run out. You have to wonder, though, what these guys had been claiming to the king about their powers and abilities prior to this that would provoke such a violent threat.

What we’re talking about here is this: all people, sooner or later, sense the limitations of human resources. The Chaldeans state it well: “It would take a god to do what you are asking!”

There comes a time in the life of every person when you realize you can no longer dodge the bullet. You can no longer get off easy. You can no longer sidestep or ignore the problem or dig yourself out of your predicament.

You’re in trouble and unless there is something beyond the power of man, you won’t escape. At that point, sometimes for the first time, the possibility of a Supernatural Being who transcends human ability becomes relevant. You think, “perhaps there is a God.”

How then do we respond to the world’s call for help? We must first:

1. Realize that unbelievers will come to us in time of crisis.  If you build an authentic, consistent Christian witness, unbelievers in the time of their crisis, will come to you. God will see to it, just like He did here.

You never really know what is going on in the life of that unbeliever next to you until a crisis brings it out into the open. Realize that unbelievers will come to you in time of crisis.
2. A Ready Witness.  
That God would provide a witness is no surprise. What is always surprising to me is how He goes about it sometimes. That is what we see next.

Those words “destroy all the wise men of Babylon” would include Daniel and his three Hebrew friends who proved so faithful to God in chapter one. The King’s edict amounted to a death warrant for them. What is God up to?
Daniel 2:13: “So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death, and men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death.”

The Evil One is willing to sacrifice all his false prophets in the city of Babylon if he can destroy four of God’s faithful servants.

Doesn’t it seem a bit strange to you that God would use a death warrant and the fear it would provoke in the minds of Daniel and his friends to bring the seeker and the witness together? Yet that is the way God did it.

Don’t ever think that the difficult circumstances in your life are without purpose in God’s scheme of things.

So Daniel got word of the edict. When the king and his soldiers knocked on his door, he was ready: Daniel 2:14-16: “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. {15} He asked the king’s officer, “Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?” Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel. {16} At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him.”

Those words in verse 16, “asked for time” are translated: “requested that he would appoint a time for him.”

We saw back in verse 8 that the king had already denied the Chaldeans additional time to collaborate. Daniel did the second thing we need to do when an unbeliever is in crisis: take the initiative with discretion and discernment.

“What on earth could I say?”
You could tell him how God has made a difference in your life. You could promise to pray for him. If he sees the need for salvation you could have a few verses handy and show him what he needs to do.

You could enlist a few other Christians to help you hold him up before God in prayer. You could spend time with him and encourage him to hang in there and not give up.

When we recognize that God does things this way, that is, He brings crises into the lives of unbelievers so they will seek Him, and that He uses believers like you and me to deliver His message, we can move forward with enthusiasm knowing that God is with us. He can even help you in your ineptness!

What has always amazed me in reading Daniel’s response to all this is the degree of confidence he had in God – not in himself. He didn’t know what God was going to do! He just knew that the king’s life was spinning out of control and that God was more powerful than any man or circumstance.

We should never face a situation like this alone. Intercession from the rest of the body to invoke God’s help is important. That is how Daniel saw it.

3. Solicit support from God’s people.
In this case we’re talking about prayer support of others which led ultimately to answered prayer from God.

Daniel 2:18-19: “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. {19} During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven”

If God is instrumental in bringing crisis to the life of the unbeliever and brings the unbeliever into contact with the ready witness, we must recognize that this whole procedure is primarily His, not ours. We are simply His tools. It is only reasonable that we should go to God and seek his help and guidance through it.

3. A Revered God. Let’s look again to see what Daniel did. Daniel 2:19-28 (ESV) ¹⁹ Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.
   ²⁰  Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.
   ²¹  He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;
   ²²  he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.
   ²³  To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king’s matter.” 

²⁴  Therefore Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said thus to him: “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon; bring me in before the king, and I will show the king the interpretation.”
²⁵  Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him: “I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king the interpretation.”
²⁶  The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?”
²⁷  Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked,
²⁸  but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these:

Daniel 2:29-30 (ESV)
²⁹  To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be.  ³⁰  But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.

Daniel 2:31-45.

To sum up what the large image represented: four Gentile kingdoms:

• The breast and arms of silver—The Medo-Persian kingdom (539-330 B.C.). Darius the Mede conquered Babylon ( 5:30-31).
• The belly and thighs of bronze—The Grecian kingdom (330-63 B.C.). Alexander the Great established what was probably the largest empire in ancient times. He died in 323 B.C.
• The legs of iron and feet of iron and clay—The Roman Empire (63 B.C.-ca. A.D. 475). Iron represents strength but clay represents weakness. Rome was strong in law, organization, and military might; but the empire included so many different peoples that this created weakness.
• The destruction of the image—The coming of Jesus Christ, the Stone, to judge His enemies and establish His universal kingdom.

What started out as possible tragedy—the slaughter of four godly men—was turned into great triumph; and the God of Daniel received great glory. Daniel gave the glory to God!

4. Pass on the praise.
   It is a heady experience when God uses you to make a difference in the life of an unbeliever. What do you think the temptation is at that point?The temptation is to take the glory for yourself. Daniel realized that his purpose was to glorify God, not himself. In so doing, ultimately, God would honor him.Daniel 2:46-48: “Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. {47} The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.” {48} Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men.”
   

   Conclusion
   Everyone has something that doesn’t work someplace… Everyone faces the reality of a crisis in their life sometime. …Everyone has a need somewhere, regardless of how together they seem to be.

   People who have been watching your life and listening to you for weeks, months, or even years. When the crisis comes, you need to be ready. Because we build a credible witness of Christ in your life, they will come.

   Perhaps there is someone here among us this morning who is in a crisis. We don’t want you to leave this building this morning without an opportunity to get help.

   If you would like to talk to one of our ministers or elders, please take one of the attendance cards from the rack in front of you and write your name, phone number, and anything pertinent to your situation and hand it to one of these men.

One of us will call you privately and discreetly this week. We want to help you.