Nebuchadnezzar had made his empire as secure as any great world power can ever be, but in himself he was not at rest. Night after night, dreams swirled round his head, robbing him of any sense of well-being. How rightly did Shakespeare say, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” King Henry IV bemoaned that, as a king – unlike the most junior lad on board one of his ships – he can’t find a moment’s peace for body, mind or soul.

One night, Nebuchadnezzar had such a troubling dream that it caused him to command his wise men to tell him it’s meaning while refusing to tell them it’s details. They had to interpret it correctly on pain of death.

At first sight, this deadly and capricious challenge is worthy of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, the sort of outrageous decree we associate with only too many tyrants who have ruled their roost since Nebuchadnezzar.

Knowing that his time is short, the devil is intent on wreaking all the havoc that he can. There’s no fear of God before Nebuchadnezzar’s eyes, for in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect – let alone hate – his sin. And as far as the powers of darkness were concerned, this represented not so much a random, wilful act, so much as an out -and -out attempt to do away with the four wisest and most God-fearing people in all of Babylon, namely Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

When Daniel heard the dread decree, the first thing he did was the most strategic thing he could possibly do: he gathered with his three young friends to pray with united hearts for God to reveal the dream, and so to rescue them from the desperate situation that they found themselves in.

Lord, thank You for the resources that You give us, the limitless gift of prayer, and the inestimable gift of precious friendships that we can harness not just for mutual comfort, but as the means of releasing Your purposes far and wide.

Limitless then are the means You use to answer our prayers – yet turning King Nebuchadnezzar’s utterly unreasonable demand into a process that would bring him face to face, not only with Daniel’s God-given abilities to understand mysteries beyond human understanding, but in time he would come to honour and glorify You, Lord Jesus, Whose dominion is an eternal dominion, and Whose kingdom endures from generation to generation [See Daniel 4], as well as to learn so much about Your purposes in human history in the rise and fall of earthly empires.

A dream in time can save many lives and just as You warned the wise men not to return to Herod or Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus, You’ve used countless dreams to bring Muslims to Christ. (Matthew 2:12-13) Just as once You spoke to Abimelech, to Laban, to the chief butler and to the baker in the prison where Joseph was being held, and to Pharaoh himself, not to mention the dream You gave Cornelius, which opened up an entirely new phase of Your working on planet Earth. And now, this one that You gave to Nebuchadnezzar. (Genesis 20:3-7, 31:24, 40:5, 41:1-8 Acts 10:3)

How absurd it would be to say that dreams are nothing but the workings of the subconscious mind, (or even, as some might say, that the devil can work through nightmares) but that You can’t, that You no longer do such things.

Lord, You speak by day and by night. Let many have ears to hear Your voice. For You are the one who ultimately changes times and seasons, who removes and sets up kings and who reveals the deep and hidden things. You know what lies in darkness, and the light dwells in You. You give us wisdom and power, and You make known what we need to know. (Daniel. 2:19-23) Our lives are in Your hands, and the destiny of nations is decided not in earthly courts alone, but in the heavenly court, where the real decisions are taken that determine the fate of nations. (Cf Isaiah 6:6, Jeremiah 23:18)

Keep us alert and mindful, Lord, to pray for whoever You would place upon our soul, for You are the revealer of mysteries. (Daniel 2:28)

As pride and insecurity combine in such volatile and deadly ways, in the souls of vicious and power -hungry rulers, hear the cries of Your people as they plead with You to intervene. May we not succumb to the lie that there is no God to hear our prayer, but rather strengthen us with the courage not to renounce the faith that means so much to You as well as to us. Bring deliverance to many even this day around the world, just as You did to Daniel when he faced imminent death at Nebuchadnezzar’s hands. (Daniel 2:1-13)

At one stage removed, dreams often reflect the preoccupations of our hearts. And now the Lord was showing to Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar’s dream had been of an enormously large and imposing statue. All the king’s energies had gone into building his empire to honour himself. But the God who goes to such great lengths to fulfil the dreams and visions that He has inspired, is prepared to go to equally great lengths to thwart those who are intent only on glorifying themselves.

Nebuchadnezzar was dazzled by the golden splendour of the statue, but the Lord drew Daniel’s attention rather to its fallible feet of clay. This Babylonian Empire, like the various other ones that the dream foresaw, would dominate the world stage for a season, but because riddled with vanity and idolatry, its flawed foundations would ensure that neither it nor its successors would endure forever, any more than other rulers intent on world conquest and domination would ultimately do – whether Alexander the so-called ‘Great’ or Napoleon, or the supposed thousand -year reign of the Nazi Third Reich.

I think of President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who set up a huge statue of himself that bore these words, “Seek ye first the political kingdom.” By the time Nkrumah died in disgrace, he’d brought his formerly prosperous country to such a state of famine and collapse, that it required decades to recover from the effects of his short reign. Such is the hubris of countless descendants of the Roman Caesars, whose reigns so often culminated in passing some intransigent command that all should bow down and serve only them.

And now Lord, we ask You to overrule every one of day’s crop of autocratic rulers, even as You did with Nebuchadnezzar. For we in the West are reeling to adjust as a vanity -laden but paranoic Russian ruler, who honours a God of fortresses, unleashes his military might, and seeks to impose his will upon very much smaller nations. (Dan. 11:38-39)

And Lord in our own lives, break unworthy bondages and allegiances while we’ve still got time to repent and realign our hearts. Whether we’re overconfident in our own abilities, or whether we’re over proud of the strand of faith that we happen to represent, or because we’re too fond of certain things or people rather than of You – Lord, all these things are of the same fabric as the grandiose statue that Nebuchadnezzar built for himself and the president of Ghana likewise.

The Lord Almighty has a day in store
for all the proud and lofty,
for all that is exalted
(and they will be humbled),
for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty,
and all the oaks of Bashan, for the eyes of the arrogant will be humbled
and human pride brought low;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
(Is.2:11-13)

. . . And all else will be dashed to pieces by the Rock of Eternity.

Forgive us, Lord, when we replace You in our hearts with idols of our own making, and society believes in some generalised life force such as Mother Nature, rather than Father God, as You are revealed in the Scriptures, Lord. You alone are worthy of our praise, Lord. You alone are the Most High. You are the one who hears our prayers, and to whom we can turn at all times for comfort and deliverance. For You are the One who is and who was, and who is to come.

As we sow, we shall also reap. And whilst those who sow to please the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit, what else can those who sow to the flesh reap except destruction? And because we are sowing to the flesh on such a grand scale, You have no choice but to intervene to check our worship of Mammon. (Gal. 6:8) Forgive us that so many of our profit -hungry business classes remain enthralled to the prospect of doing business with specifically anti -Christian regimes, and turn a blind eye to connive at human rights abuses in the process, nor have a heart to see souls saved and turned around to serve Yeshua.

Strengthen and purify our heart motives, Lord. Long, long is the list of pastors whom the authorities have commanded to betray their flocks and to renounce preaching the whole counsel of Christ and to substitute somewhat easier affair, more readily acceptable. Forgive us, Lord, wherever the Church has compromised and collaborated with the powers that be, as occurred so often in the Soviet Union, and now perhaps in parts of the Three Self-Movement in China, and what’s happening now across so many parts of the liberal church.

Forgive us too, Lord, those occasions where the Church has been in the majority, and where all too often they themselves have become a force for oppression, rigidly insisting on legalistic and sometimes downright cruel practices, quite failing to see what You meant when You said that we are to go and learn not rules and regulations, but rather to show mercy. Set people free in every country of the world where idolatry prevails, Lord, and where the spirit of antichrist is at work.

And if someday the state should demand acts of obedience from us which we in honest conscience simply can’t accept, we pray for the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to be with us in that time of trial and to remain faithful to You. (Mark 14:20 7f)

For You Yourself were arrested and convicted on trumped-up charges, and warned Your disciples that betrayal and wrongful arrest would befall them too, as they in turn fell foul of the strong streaks of envy and meanness that lie at the heart of what passes for a heart in satan and his minions, and which boils and bursts out when confronted by the sight of the righteous taking ground for the kingdom of God.

Thank You that when crunch times came, Daniel and his friends had the courage to stand firm and to declare that, whether or not the Lord chose to intervene and save them, they were perfectly confident that He was able to do so. (Dan. 3:17-18) Bless the many who have died for their faith with the name of Christ on their lips rather than being prepared to live in abject apostasy.

Forgive us that we have done so many things that directly oppose Your way, and which are deeply displeasing to You. Sin is always sin, and to endorse and cover it with the protection of the law merely takes us one step further away from Your hand over us as a nation and as a church. Strengthen us for the needs of this hour, and yet have mercy, even though we’ve turned our backs on You in so many ways, and are seeking to walk less in the light of the Lord than by the light of the fires that we ourselves have lit.

Forgive us, Lord, that many of us have long since fallen into the way of trying to bargain with You, even as Jacob did, saying things along the lines of, “If You prosper me and bring me back safely, then I will serve You.” (Genesis 28:16-22) May we rather be like Peter and John before the Sanhedrin, who declared that they must obey the word of the Lord rather than the orders of officialdom, even as those many courageous Jews did who remained faithful to You during the gruesome persecution that Antiochus Epiphanes launched against them in the time of the Maccabees.

Antiochus Epiphanes means God manifest. What a blasphemy. Faithful Jews called him rather Antiochus Epimhanes, which means ‘the madman.’ For in his crazed determination to wipe out all traces of the Hebrew religion, he banned even the ownership of a copy of the Torah and a penalty of torture and death. And the altar that he set up in the temple amid disgusting pagan rites and cruelties is graphically described in 1 Maccabees as the ‘Abomination of Desolation,’ which Jesus speaks of as to come again in the future in another way. (1 Maccabees 1:54, cf Daniel 12:11, 9:27, 11:31; Mark 13:14)

Rather as Chairman Mao not only did away with virtually the entire educated class in communist China during the Cultural Revolution, taking extreme measures to stamp out religion, and imprisoning, torturing and killing huge numbers of religious leaders. There is every need to keep praying for believers in China who are constantly watched and restricted, and to pray for believers in the Middle East, where IS have so recently killed or sent vast numbers of believers into exile.
Such savagery is heart-rending to hear about. But in the book of Daniel, the Lord has given us a powerful message for our times. A supreme spiritual resistance manual, if you like. And like the book of Revelation, it reiterates the call to stand firm in the face of the temptation to compromise, and emphasises that You are still in control, and that the kingdoms of the world will become Your kingdom, Lord Jesus.

May we, like Daniel, remain at our post on our knees, seeking Your face for mercy to yet visit our nation. So work and walk among those in peril, Lord, that the three in the furnace become four, true enlargement through pressure, and that many like Nebuchadnezzar, are humbled and, with the Potter’s skill, come right through to a living faith.

And just as the secret of Daniel’s ministry was his familiarity with the unseen world – for all that this awareness very often drained him of all his strength – may we truly be familiar with Your voice. May our own voice be well known and respected before the throne of God in the courts of the Lord. For You have chosen to hide many things from the wise that You have gladly revealed to the simple and the faithful, and to them the angel of the Lord comes to reveal the king of kings to their hearts.

May we be filled with that same excellent spirit that was in Daniel, Lord, and serve You in our generation as he did in his, even then. For in many ways, the wind of science has fostered hopes that we have all the answers for life’s dilemmas in ourselves. And yet, though we have tools to measure the awareness of impending catastrophes – and the extra warning that the hands of the doomsday clock now stand at just ninety seconds to midnight – we have no full true answer for the real problems that we are facing.

We have the means to measure, but neither the spiritual nor the physical resolve to forestall, let alone to solve these things. It’s only You who can do that Lord, and Your kingdom will continue to grow in ways that are both powerful and dramatic, but also quiet and unassuming, until the final moment when the Bridegroom returns, and all is put to rights.

There will be great rejoicing as Babylon is finally overthrown, and for those who have longed for Your touch, there will be everlasting joy. (Revelation 14:8, 18:2, 19:2-3) The tears we shed over that which is false and foul will turn to tears of joy, as sorrow and sighing are put to flight when You pour the revival rain of the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit the world has ever known.

Therefore, we refuse to spend our days fearing the wrath of Babylon, but seek rather to live as true believers have always done, living the life You’ve given us to live one day at a time, wholeheartedly for You. For You are preparing a mighty harvest, that will touch the heart and consciousness of communities with Your sovereign fire, causing people to be willing to face their guilt, and to turn their hearts to receive both forgiveness for their sins, and the water of life that You are offering.

You invite us to come and see Your works, Lord, to enter into such an understanding of the world that it completely changes the way we see events around us. And then, as we survey the breadth and the scale of Your workings, we still our hearts to worship You. We would still our hearts to know that You are God, and that You will be exalted among the nations, and exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:7:10)

No matter how great the forces that oppose, or how mighty the empires that strut the surface of the earth, they will have their day, but in time will fall, for Yours will be a very different kingdom, one that will overthrow the most iron-fisted regimes, and bring to an end all that is not of You. (Daniel 2:34)

Grant us grace Lord, to go through the birth pangs that presage the age that is to come, the day when Christ will reign as Lord, the day when You will wipe away every tear from the eyes of those who have longed, waited and suffered for You. (Revelation 7:13-17)

Thank You that You’ve dotted and darted the scriptures with glorious hints of the glory that is to be revealed in the age that is to come, the time when idols will come crashing down and when Your kingdom rules from shore to shore and it will be those who have humbled themselves who will be exalted and the meek who will inherit the earth. (Isaiah 13:11, Psalm 18:27)

For while Daniel was watching, A rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
(Daniel 2:34-35)

Thank You, Lord, that this seemingly small and insignificant stone symbol and reminder of the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of all. (Ps 118:2, Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11) And the whole course of history demonstrates that that which is to destroy evil often begins in such a small and seemingly insignificant way, that one could never believe it to be strong enough to overcome the forces ranged against it. Is it not thus with the death of Christ and is it not thus you talked about the kingdom of Heaven as being the smallest of all seeds that would soon become the largest of all trees?

Thank You that although Your kingdom was ushered in with a baby in a drafty stable, it has spread into a worldwide church of billions of God-fearing souls. Thank You that Your kingdom can’t finally be shaken because it’s not carved with human hands. You do the most important things of all by Your own sovereign working without the need for human help, and yet You call upon us to play our part and to cooperate fully with You.

For this is where we see the principle of the majority of quality rather than quantity, where people were facing a task that would have been quite beyond their powers had You not come to their aid – just as it would have been impossible for those first apostles to share all they knew about the Lord Jesus Christ in such a way that kings and empires would in time bow the knee to Him and become part of His kingdom – and all because they persevered because they saw Him who was invisible.

Thank You that great heroes of faith began in small and local ways by being willing to take their stand for You. Thank You for all the faith and courage they demonstrated as they challenged vested interests and withstood powerful opponents in their bid to extend Your kingdom and to bring about lasting change. Thank You for all who have laboured faithfully to bring a true understanding of what it means to follow Christ. Praise You for so many faithful souls, who will take their place in the great pageant of favoured souls in the great cloud!

But now, to each one of us who feels small and insignificant, let this precious principle of the majority of quality fill our hearts, as we set out to accomplish the missions that You’ve placed on our hearts. Because You are the Rock of Eternity, we can encourage each other as Caleb encouraged his fellow Israelites and say, “Don’t be afraid of the people of the land. The Lord is with us, so don’t be afraid of them. Take heart and despise not the day of small things. For who can tell what You will bring to pass from humble beginnings as we seek Your face, even as You did so wonderfully, Lord, in Daniel’s case?” (Zechariah 4:10)

Yes, we pray again for that most excellent spirit, for that spirit of discernment, to understand the God who is the revealer of mysteries and to move in the power of that prophetic anointing, Lord, as much as we need to do from one day to another, to be at home in the heavenly places with Christ. Thank You.