Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Sunday afternoon Bible study in the Book of Daniel. This is study #5 of Daniel, chapter 2, and we are going to read Daniel 2:22-28:

He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter. Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation. Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation. The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof? Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;

I will stop reading there. In verse 22, it said, “He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.” Here, Daniel is referring to God because God has made known to Daniel and his friends the king’s dream and the interpretation of the dream. They were praying and beseeching God to reveal it to them and He did. The Lord answered their prayer and God opened up their understanding so that they knew what the king’s dream was and, not only the dream, but the interpretation of the dream. It is spoken of here as God revealing “the deep and secret things.” The word “deep” is Strong’s #5594 and it is only used in this verse in Daniel, chapter 2, verse 22, but there are related words. One is Strong’s #6009 and it is found in Psalm 92:5:

O JEHOVAH, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.

God’s thoughts are very deep. Of course, the Bible is a record of some of God’s thoughts. It is the Word of God and words are spoken only because there is first a thought and then the thought is spoken.

There is another related Hebrew word, Strong’s #6012, found in Ezekiel, chapter 3. It is translated as “deep” at times, but it is translated in a different way in Ezekiel 3:4:

And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel;

The word translated as “strange” is the word related to “deep” and it is also used in the next verse in Ezekiel 3:6:

Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.

Here, God is telling Ezekiel that he is being sent to Israel and they would have spoken the same language; He did not send him to a place like Babylon, for example, where they would have a “strange speech and an hard language.” Remember that God speaks of Babylon as a people whose language they would not understand. So the prophet was not sent to them. God explains to us that a “deep” or “strange” speech is defined as a speech “whose words thou canst not understand.” This is where it fits in with the Bible. The Bible is a “hard language.” It is not an earthly language, so to speak. Yes, we are reading the King James translation in our English language and others may read the Reina Valera translation in the Spanish language or other earthly translations in their particular language, but all the translations do is to make the words understandable to us. However, as far as the speech or language, the Bible is still a heavenly Book and it is a spiritual language. It is a language that is of a “deep” or “strange” speech and a “hard language,” whose words we cannot understand because man is of the earth. Man starts out with a natural mind and he has no ability to know the “deep speech” of God. As it said in the Psalms, God’s thoughts are very deep and very strange to us and we cannot interpret them unless God reveals it to us and provides the interpretation for us as He did for Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. God is the one that revealed the dream and interpreted the dream for Daniel and God opened up Daniel’s understanding to it and he could understand, as it were, the “strange speech” or language of the kingdom of heaven.

As it said in our verse in Daniel 2:22: “He revealeth the deep and secret things.” The word “secret” is Strong’s #5642 and it is Aramaic and, therefore, would correspond to Strong’s #5641, a word also translated as “secret” and in other ways. For instance, the Hebrew word, Strong’s #5641, is used in Deuteronomy 29:29:

The secret things belong unto JEHOVAH our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

The secret things belong to God. It is all according to His purpose and will whether, or not, He reveals these things to us. But once God does reveal something to His people, they belong to us. They are ours. They have now been interpreted and the heavenly thoughts and words of the kingdom of God have been interpreted so that we on the earth can understand them and then they are ours. God has given it to us and we are then responsible as stewards of the mysteries of God to be faithful concerning the things He has revealed to us. It is not a light matter. It is not a little thing when God reveals information and He opens up a particular truth to the ears of His people and grants us understanding. Now it has entered into the realm of our possession and we now know this thing that had been hidden and kept secret, perhaps, from the foundation of the world. God has entrusted this truth to us.

Of course, we can look at a doctrine like the end of the church age as an example. Once God entrusted that truth to His people, we have the responsibility and obligation to maintain that truth and use it as a “talent” or “pound” to share it and utilize it as a good steward of that mystery. There are some that claim to be a child of God and they understood a particular truth and took possession of it, but at a later point they begin to turn back and stuff it back in the Bible, as it were. It was a truth that they may have suffered for or that caused them affliction for the Word’s sake or maybe it was a truth that was difficult to maintain or that they feel they would be better off not knowing it (although they will not admit that), but they say they have come to a new or enlightened understanding and they were wrong. Of course, that is not true regarding the end of the church age because there are hundreds of verses that teach it, but now they want to bury that treasure back in the ground. Can you imagine? One has just found gold, silver or precious stones and it is a glorious thing and they are true riches, but man in his blindness and foolishness takes what is truly valuable and stuffs it back in the ground and hides it. He does not want to have anything to do with it. Of course, people would not do that with earthly treasures, but they do it all the time with spiritual treasures because they really do not have “eyes to see” and they do not understand the value and glory of it. Remember what God says in Proverbs 25:2:

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

This word “conceal” is the same word, Strong’s #5641, and the Aramaic version is translated as “secret.” It is the glory of God to “secret” a thing and hide it so you cannot see it easily at all. It is not on the surface. It is buried beneath. It goes on to say, “But the honour of kings is to search out a matter.” The Hebrew word translated as “thing” and the Hebrew word translated as “matter” is the Hebrew word “debar,” the word for “word.” The word “debar” identifies with the Word of God, the Bible. It is the glory of God to secret a word, but the honor of kings is to search out a word. This is exactly what God has done with all Scripture. He has “secreted” the Word.

The wonderful truth we are reading in Daniel 2, verse 22 is that God reveals the deep and secret things, the things that God Himself had hidden and then God Himself makes them known to His people.

The same word that corresponds to the Aramaic word translated as “secret” is found in Psalm 119:19:

I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.

“Hide” is the word. It is like saying, “Conceal not thy commandments from me.” The whole Bible is a Law Book and it contains the commandments of God. Is it not rather unusual that God hides His commandments? You would think that God would want everyone to know His commandments, but the truth is that He does hide His commandments from man. For instance, in regard to the Sunday Sabbath, it is not apparent in Matthew 28, verse 1, that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday. The translation was not the best in that verse and it tends to hide the commandment that Sunday was the new Sabbath Day. It says in Matthew 28:1:

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week…

It literally says, “In the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths,” or the beginning of the New Testament Sabbath. The Old Testament Sabbath came to a close that Sunday morning and the first of the New Testament Sabbaths began. God hid that information. Why would He do this? We would think that God would want mankind to know that commandment. As a matter of fact, the Lord could have written it very clearly and He could have repeated it in many places. He could have said it in each of the Gospels and in the Acts and in all the Epistles. He could have clearly said, “Sunday is the new Sabbath,” but God does not work that way and God has not written the Bible that way. God hides His commandments, so people that are not the true children of God cannot see it clearly and they end up trampling the commandments of God and they do whatever they want on Sunday, the Lord’s Day. They do as they please and they often feel justified because the commandment is not readily seen on the surface. Again, that seems strange and unusual.

Also, why would God hide the commandment regarding the end of the church age? What was the commandment once the church age came to a close? It was a command to depart out of the midst and flee Judaea to the mountains. There are some serious, but tremendously important, commands that God hid in His Word to be activated at a certain point in time and they are commands that have to do with “life and death.” If people could not “see” or “hear” the commandment to flee the churches and the commandment was hidden from them, then they would not leave. They would listen to their pastor and they might even search the Bible, but they would see no need to leave their churches, but God opens the ears of His people and reveals His commandments. He does not hide it from the elect and they “see” the commandment. They see that God says to depart out of the midst in the Gospel of Luke and the command to flee to the mountains and God’s people realized, “God is speaking to me and He is commanding me to do this. It is not an option or choice, but it is God’s command, just like any other commandments in the Bible. God has not hid His commandment from my eyes.” Therefore, the child of God who has been given an ongoing desire to do the will of God and to do His commandments does obey. Like Abram came out of Ur of the Chaldees by God’s command, God’s people came out of the churches and went into the world.

This is how God has written the Bible. It is why God’s people are doctrine-oriented, because when we read the Bible we see the commandments of God everywhere and God gives us the desire to do His commandments, whatever it is. We see the commandment that women are not to teach in the churches, so why is it that so many churches have women teaching men and women in positions of authority? They do not “see” it. We see the truths that God has laid out in His Word as He opens our ears to the “deep and secret things,” as it says in Daniel, chapter 2.

Let us go on and look at the last part of the verse, in Daniel 2:22:

… he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

God knows what is in the darkness. He knows what is in the light and what is in the dark. It is actually all the same to Him, as it says in Psalm 139:11-12:

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

God knows what is in the darkness or, to put it another way, He knows what we do not know. Maybe that is a better way to put it. We are in the “dark.” In his spiritually dead condition, mankind is in the dark about a great many things and about everything in the spiritual realm. He is dead in his soul and spirit and he is dead to spiritual things, so he is in darkness. God knows everything that man does not. Everything man is ignorant of and lacks knowledge of, God has absolute and perfect understanding and knowledge of, so when we go to God because we are in the dark about a matter and we lack understanding God is not in the dark about it. He knows and has perfect knowledge in all things.

When we read a verse in the Bible and we just do not understand it at all, we can go to God knowing that God does fully understand it. We know God knows everything about it. Here is the wonderful thing about prayer and the wonderful encouragement for Daniel and his friends when they did not know the king’s dream or its interpretation: they turned to God who did possess the knowledge of the dream and its interpretation. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego knew that God had all the information they desired, so they besought Him and earnestly prayed for that knowledge.

Let us ask the question: Does God know when the end of the world will be? Does God know the timeline for this present period of time? We know that there is a Biblical calendar of history that God has mapped out the timetable for the entire history of the world. He has shown us the timetable for the Great Tribulation. Now we are in the days after that Tribulation and does God know how long this period of time will be and when it will conclude? If you listen to the churches, they read the verse in Mark 13:32 where it says, “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son,” and they actually think that Christ who is God lacks information. They are not reading verses like Daniel 2:22 that says, “He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him,” and, yet, they put God in the “dark” as if He cannot know or understand a certain doctrine. You know, it is not a good thing in any way to say, “The Lord Jesus Christ is eternal God and He possesses 99.9% of all knowledge, except He lacks knowledge in this one area about the end of the world.” To think or say that is degrading and dishonoring to God. It is taking away from His glory and power and Almighty nature. Remember what the Lord moved Job to say concerning Him in Job 24:1:

Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?

Times are not hidden from Him. If something is hidden, it is in the dark, but times are not hidden from the Almighty. He knows what is in the darkness. He knows what man does not know in every matter and in every point of doctrine so, of course, in every Word and jot and tittle of the Bible, God knows the fullness of the meaning and the depths of the meaning. God knows it all. It is His Word and it comes from His infinite and glorious mind, so what foolishness it is for man to say that God does not know His own Word and He does not know the true depths of what He has spoken. It is totally dishonoring to God for a man to say that God is “in the dark” about anything and that He has kept a secret from Himself that relate to the Bible. No, that is not in the realm of possibility because He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with Him and the Light is the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the Light that dwells with God and since He is the Light, how can He not know something? The Bible equates a “lack of light” with “darkness,” so if Christ lacked knowledge on even one Word of the Bible, it would be a little speck of darkness and, therefore, He could not be the Light that shines with the brilliance of the sun any longer – there would be a taint of darkness in Him. Again, that is not true of Jesus. He is Light and understanding and He is wisdom. He possesses all knowledge concerning all things that have ever been going back into the far reaches of eternity past and going forward into the never-ending eternity future, and everything in between. Certainly, with everything that concerns this little “speck of time” that God has unfolded for planet Earth, we just cannot say how ridiculous it is for man in his darkened condition to dare to imply that Jesus is “in the dark” about anything.

Let us go on to Daniel 2:23:

I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter.

We see that the Lord granted understanding of the dream and its interpretation. I do not think I mentioned this during this study, but it is through the giving of the dream and the interpretation of it that Daniel, his friends and all the wise of Babylon will be delivered, just as was the spiritual reality during the time of the Great Tribulation when Satan overcame the world’s churches and God opened the Scriptures to reveal the interpretation of this “heavenly language” and the “hard speech” we did not understand regarding the doctrine of the end of the church age. The Lord revealed His commandment to come out of the churches. It was a command of God to flee to the mountains, which represented God and His Word, the Bible. We were to get out of the churches and congregations and deliver ourselves because the Lord was using His command as a mechanism to separate the wheat from the tares. The tares would not “see” or “hear” the command and, therefore, they would remain and be bundled as tares for the burning. God was separating His people from those that were only professed Christians and anyone that remained within the corporate body at the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of Judgment Day on May 21, 2011 would be destroyed. God had been saving a great multitude outside of the churches, but many families remained in the churches where there was famine in that desolate land and where God was not saving anyone at all. For the benefit and welfare of His people, God issued the command to flee and God’s people moved to obey Him as the Spirit of God moved within them to will and to do of His good pleasure and this is a cause for thanksgiving: “I thank thee and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter.”

When God opens up a truth and reveals understanding of any verse in the Bible, the appropriate response of the children of God is thanksgiving: “I thank thee and praise thee,” and how much the more when God opens up Scripture that saves us from destruction. He opened up information that delivered us and this was the case, historically, with Daniel and his friends. The information that God revealed literally saved their lives because they were about to perish with all the rest of the “wise” of Babylon, but through His revelation in making known to them the dream and its interpretation God saved their lives. It is the same thing when God made known to His people that we must get out of the churches and never go back. Do not look back, like Lot’s wife and if you are on the housetop do not go back into the house for anything. If you are in the field, do not turn back to get your clothing. Do not return to the church ever again because the church age is over and the Spirit of God is no longer present there, so be thankful and praise the Lord that He has spared you and delivered you from the horrible death that awaited all those from whom God hid His commandment. The reaction of the child of God for deliverance is one of praise and thanksgiving. Remember what it says in Philippians 4:6:

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

Daniel and his friends were making prayer and supplication and if anyone had a reason to be anxious, they did because they were threatened with certain death and, yet, they turned to God and with thanksgiving they made their request known unto God. Of course, we are reading of their thanksgiving after God had made the dream known to them, but they would have been thanking God before He granted wisdom and they would have thanked Him that they could come before Him and present their petition. They had hope that God would help them and that is a wonderful thing in itself because they had a relationship with God who is almighty, all powerful and all knowing. The fact is that we can turn to Him in whatever matter or difficulty there may be and we can beseech God for help, knowing that God has the power to help. It is a blessing that is deserving of thanksgiving and praise.

We should be coming to God at this time and praying, “O, Lord, help us. We lack understanding. We are not quite sure what you are doing in all matters that regard these days after the Tribulation. We ask you, O, God, that you might reveal to us your plan and that you might lay it out before us. Make us to understand. Cause us to understand and grant us a sure interpretation of the things you are now doing because we know that you possess the knowledge. We are not asking something of you that you have no information about because you know all things, but we ask thee humbly and we recognize you are God and the secret things belong to you. They are not ours and we do not deserve to know. We have done nothing to earn this, but we come before you to make our request and we ask you for understanding, according to your perfect will.” We can make our prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, making our request known unto God.

The word “known” is repeated a couple of times in our verse in Daniel 2:23:

I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter.

The word “known” is Strong’s #3046 and as is true of many words in the Book of Daniel it is of Aramaic origin and it is strongly related to a Hebrew word that is Strong’s #3045. This word is used, for instance, in Proverbs 1:23:

Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

Notice how God says, “I will make known my words unto you,” because His words are of a “deep speech.” They are words we cannot know or understand and we need an interpreter. We need someone to reveal it to us and only God can do that. We follow the methodology that God lays out, comparing Scripture with Scripture and the Holy Ghost teaches – the Holy Ghost is the interpreter that can guide us into all truth. It is the Spirit of God that can direct His people in understanding the things of God.

This same Hebrew word, Strong’s #3045, is found in Ecclesiastes 8:5:

Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.

The word “feel” is the word “know” and the word “discerneth” is also the word “knoweth.” Why will a wise man’s heart know “both time and judgment?” There is only one way. It is because God will reveal it and that is the only way that anyone can have understanding in regard to anything in the Word of God. God has to reveal it, as it says in Ephesians 1:8-9:

Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:

God can make known unto us the mysteries of His will. If we were to take the time to search out the word “mystery,” it has to do with the hidden things of the Bible or the parabolic things; a parable serves to hide truth. All the Bible is a parable and God has to make known the “mystery of his will” and the hidden things of the Bible according to His good pleasure. It was His good pleasure to save those He would save and it is His good plan to reveal to them the mystery of His will.

Let us go back to Daniel, chapter 2 and move on to Daniel 2:24:

Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.

The word “interpretation” is Strong’s #6591 and it is used 13 times in Daniel, chapter 2. That is interesting, is it not? The word “interpretation” is used 13 times in a chapter that has to do with God opening up information during the Great Tribulation period at the time of the end when His people would come out of the churches and go into the world, just like the Jews in Daniel’s time came out of Judah and went into Babylon. At a time like this God uses the word “interpretation” 13 times and, of course we know that the year 1988 was the year when the Great Tribulation began and it was the point at which God opened up the Scriptures (interpreted the Scriptures) and it was the 13,000th year of earth’s history. I do not think this is a coincidence that God uses this word 13 times in this chapter. It also appears in Daniel 2:25-26:

Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation. The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?

Again, 13 times the word “interpretation” is used. It reminds us of when Ezra was preaching from the pulpit in the Book of Nehemiah and there were 13 men that “caused” the people to understand the Word that was preached because it related to the time when God would make known the “mystery” and the deep and hidden things that had been sealed up to the time of the end.

Notice the sequence of events. Daniel and his friends beseeched the Lord and God revealed to them the dream and the interpretation. Then Daniel went before the king. It was not God who went before the king and made the dream known and interpreted it. That is not how God works. That is not the process that God has put into place here about 2,600 years ago and it was not the process God put in place for the church age and it was not the process God put in place for the Latter Rain and it is not the process God has in place in our time in the days after the Tribulation in the Day of Judgment. The process is always that God reveals things to His people and then His people share it with others, so we see Daniel going to Arioch and then before the king. Arioch and the King of Babylon only see Daniel. They are not aware (and it probably would not concern them) that Daniel had besought the Lord for information he could not possibly have known on his own, but God revealed it to him and now Daniel possessed the knowledge. So Daniel came before the king and he did not try to make himself the “wise one” or the “great one.” Look at what he said, in Daniel 2:28:

But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days…

Daniel told them that it was not because of himself that he knew the thing, just like Joseph said to Pharaoh when he interpreted his dream, in Genesis 41:15-16:

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.

The child of God, like Daniel and Joseph, does not try to take God’s glory in any way, but this is the process that God uses as He granted them understanding of the dreams and interpretations of the dreams. Then they are the ones that are found to stand before Pharaoh of Egypt or the King of Babylon and they declare the dreams and the interpretations. Then the Pharaoh or the King are mightily impressed with the “men” that stand before them and they shower them with gifts and riches and, yet, Daniel and Joseph told them the truth. They told them that God is the revealer of secrets and the deep and hidden things. They said that God had shown them the interpretation and now they are sharing it. You see, that is how God works, just as Christ broke the bread and then He gave the bread to the disciples and He gave the disciples to the people. Each group of fifty persons had a disciple ministering the miraculous loaves of bread to them. Jesus was off a distance from them and the people saw only the disciple sent with the bread.