Sunday, September 18, 2016

DIVINE ATTRIBUTION



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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him.”

Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means.”

The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?”

Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come.”

Daniel 2:24-28a

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Unless someone figured out what King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was all about, there were going to be a lot of dead wise men in Babylon. That was the dilemma facing a lot of people with a reputation of having psychic, supernatural abilities, a group which included Daniel, Hananiah. Mishael, and Azariah.

But as we saw in yesterday’s devotion, God had answered the pleas of His faithful servants and revealed the mystery of the king’s dream to Daniel who in turn took dedicated time to give His Lord the fullest measure of his thanksgiving and praise.

This brings us to the moment of truth and Daniel’s disclosing of the dream to Nebuchadnezzar but we don’t want to be in too much of a hurry to get to the dream and miss these preliminary verses to the great revealing. Look again at this passage:

Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him.”

Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means.”

The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?”

Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come.”  Daniel 2:24-28a

Note that before Daniel goes to the king, he seeks out Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, to tell him to call off all executions of wise men in Babylon because He had the ability to do what Nebuchadnezzar wanted, using the knowledge God had given him to interpret the dream.

And so the scriptures tell us that Arioch took Daniel to the king “at once”, informing Nebuchadnezzar that he had “found a man among the exiles from Judah” who could tell him the meaning of his dream. We read where Nebuchadnezzar asks Daniel directly if this was true and instead of a simple “yes”, we find Daniel giving all honor and credit to God in an exhibition of divine attribution. Look again at what Daniel said:

“No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come.”

Daniel wanted Nebuchadnezzar to know right up front that he wasn’t the one responsible for what he was about to tell him. In fact, Daniel even validated the words the astrologers had spoken to the king because no human could give him what he was asking for. The astrologers believed that the gods (plural) were the only ones possible but we find Daniel setting the record straight. There was only one God, the God of heaven, who could reveal the mysteries of life and it was that God who provided Daniel with the dream interpretation intended to show the king “what will happen in days to come”.

As for the king’s future, we’ll get into that in detail tomorrow but for today, God is showing us how we are to carry ourselves through the actions and words of Daniel. Daniel was about to do something that no other man could do but it wasn’t through his power or intellect. Rather, God had enriched him with knowledge so he could in turn share it with Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel wanted the king to know it.

In other words, Daniel had given credit where credit was due, divine attribution to God and God alone.

As we close today, God would have us consider the following questions:

Are you practicing divine attribution in the way you are living?

How good are you at being like Daniel in the way of giving God all the glory and acclaim?

When you accomplish things, do you take all the recognition or do you deflect and direct the honor to the God who ordains your accomplishments, the One who is the Orchestrator of your life?

As stated, tomorrow we look inside Nebchadnezzar’s dream. Tune in to see what it all meant.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark

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