Daniel interprets King Nebuchadnezzar’s statue dream
Daniel 2

re-told by Debbie Dunn

Story highlights:

* Tell King Nebuchadnezzar his dream and meaning or die.

* God revealed the king’s statue dream to Daniel after his prayers

* Daniel successfully interprets King Nebuchadnezzar’s 1st dream

Bible tale begins:

Have you ever had a dream that felt really important?

That is what happened with King Nebuchadnezzar [neh-buh-kuhd-neh-zr]. In the 2nd year of his 43 years as king of Babylon, he had a startling dream.

RINGLEADER: Oh, no! What did he dream?

Group repeats

Wishing to test if his wise advisors were really wise, he said:

KING: Tell me the meaning of my scary dream and be rewarded. But, ..., if you fail, you will die a painful death.

RINGLEADER: Yikes! That's not fair!

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I agree. The wisest of the scared men gulped and said:

WISE MAN: Uh, Your Majesty, tell us your dream so we can reveal its meaning.

The king shook his head from side to side and said:

KING: No. Tell me my dream, PLUS, reveal what it means.

RINGLEADER: That's impossible! Nobody could do that!

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No human could do that. But with God, nothing is impossible.

RINGLEADER: Hooray for our powerful God!

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It's time for the hero of the story to save the day.

RINGLEADER: Who was the hero?

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His name was Daniel.

When Daniel was just a teenager, he was part of the hundreds of people kidnapped from Jerusalem by that same king.

When Daniel heard the king planned to kill him as well as all those wise men, he went to the captain of the guard and said:

DANIEL: Captain, please ask the king to give me time to pray to my God to reveal the meaning of his dream.

When the king agreed, Daniel and his 3 buddies, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, spent most of that night in prayer.

Thankfully, God gave Daniel a vision of every detail of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

The next morning, Daniel went to the king. He said:

DANIEL: Your Majesty, my God showed me your dream.

KING: Tell me now.

DANIEL: The huge statue in your dream had a gold head. His chest and arms were silver. His belly and thighs were bronze. His legs were made of iron. His feet were part iron and part baked clay.

KING: True. The statue did look like that.

DANIEL: Invisible hands lifted a rock that smashed to bits first the feet and then the rest of the statue.

The king shivered as Daniel continued.

DANIEL: A wind blew away those pieces. Then, that rock enlarged into a mountain that covered the entire earth.

KING: Yes, I saw all that, but what does it mean?

DANIEL: Your Majesty, you are the statue's head of gold. God has decided to give you great power and the strength to rule all parts of the world where people live.

The king smiled proudly. Then, he frowned as he said:

KING: Uh, …, wait a minute. In my dream, the statue was smashed to bits, including that golden head.

DANIEL: Your Majesty, this dream shows you what will happen in the future. After a long life, your kingdom will eventually come to an end. The other parts of the statue represent future kings who will rule the world after you.

KING: What about the mountain that covers the earth?

DANIEL: God Almighty will one day, far in the future, set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered.

In other words, the KING of all kings, Jesus, will return.

RINGLEADER: Hooray for King Jesus!

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Relieved to hear the meaning of his dream, the king stated:

KING: Truly, your God is the greatest of all gods. He reveals mysteries and must be the Lord over all kings.

The grateful king gave Daniel many gifts, appointed him the chief of the wise men, and the ruler of Babylon's capital city.

As for that 90-foot-tall gold statue you heard about last week, the king might have built that soon after having that dream or as much as 20 years later.

When the king learned that Daniel's 3 buddies helped him pray for God to reveal the meaning of his strange dream, he also wished to reward them.

RINGLEADER: What was their reward?

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The grateful king gave special jobs to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

It's too bad he forgot all about being grateful when he learned they refused to bow down to his towering gold statue. Instead, the king angrily threw those 3 into a fiery furnace.

RINGLEADER: Thank goodness God saved their lives!