JOY "Daniel --- His Non-Negotiable Faith" March 25, 2015

March 25, 2015

Daniel---His Non-Negotiable Faith

Daniel 1:1-12: 13

While Secretary of State during the Regan presidency, George Shultz kept a large globe in his office. When newly appointed ambassadors had an interview with him and when ambassadors returning from their posts for their first visit with him were leaving his office, Shultz would test them. He would say, "You have to go over the globe and prove to me that you can identify your country." They would go over, spin the globe, and put their finger on the country to which sent--unerringly. When Shultz’s old friend and former Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield was appointed ambassador to Japan, even he was put to the test. This time, however, Ambassador Mansfield spun the globe and put his hand on the United States. He said: "That’s my country." On June 27, 1993, Shultz related this to Brian Lamb on C-Span’s "Booknotes." Said the secretary: "I’ve told that story, subsequently, to all the ambassadors going out. ’Never forget you’re over there in that country, but your country is the United States. You’re there to represent us. Take care of our interests and never forget it, and you’re representing the best country in the world.’ "

And we, ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ, must never forget where our home and our allegiance is –we are citizens Heaven. ( the other day, baby Leona’s social security card came in the mail, and Lizzie and I both cried, we were so moved by the fact that she is a US citizen,,,,Andrew thought we were crazy…but you know, it is eternally more important that we are citizens of Heaven…) 

Daniel worked in a land that was hostile to his faith. His bosses were some of the most powerful, most ruthless, and egotistical kings in all ancient history. To contradict these men could have meant his death. The book of Daniel is a record of the many times Daniel’s faith placed him in inconvenient and uncomfortable circumstances where the odds were the highest. It was in that atmosphere that Daniel stood firm with a “Non-negotiable Faith”. He knew what it meant to have his faith put him in some inconvenient places.

Almost everyone looks at the book of Daniel with a sense of wonder and anticipation, because this is usually regarded as a prophetic book foretelling the future. This is true. The book of Daniel, together with the book of Revelation, marvelously unfolds future events as God has ordained them in the program of history. By no means has this book totally been fulfilled, neither has the book of Revelation. 

These two books, one from the Old and one from the New Testament, remarkably complement each other in their symmetry and harmony. The book of Revelation explains the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel lays the basis for the book of Revelation. If we want to know God's plan for the future, it is essential that we understand this book of Daniel.

But knowledge of the future can be a very dangerous thing. Imagine what would happen if any, or all of us, possessed the ability to know what is going to happen in the days ahead. Think what an advantage that would give us in the stock market, in the buying of insurance, and in other practical matters of life.

But, by and large, God doesn’t unfold the future to us -- certainly not in detail and certainly not any individual's future. But what he does show us, in the prophetic scriptures, is the general outline of events and what the end result will be….and  If we analyze the Lord’s prophetic books,  thoughtfully, carefully, and scripturally, we will discover significant and helpful things about what is happening in our world today. Everything that is happening is working out God's purposes on earth. These will all end exactly as God has foretold. And we can understand what is happening, in our world, around the world, and leave it in the Lord’s hand, if we know and trust and believe, that God is in charge of His plan… 

Ray Stedman, the author of our books says that God has taken two precautions in the matter of unveiling the future. First, he has clothed His prophetic passages in symbolic language. He has given them to us in figurative form. That’s why, in all the prophetic books, that unusual things appear, strange beasts with many different heads, and horns sticking out here and there, with wheels and fiery images, and all kinds of things that are out of proportion to our way of thinking., . There are the same things in Ezekial (a valley of dry bones coming to life) and in the Book of Revelation -- bizarre beasts with strange combinations of characteristics.

These books have always fascinated and puzzled people. We can't just sit down with the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation and read them through, and understand them like we would a novel. We have to study them, taking the whole of the Bible to interpret the symbols in them. Dr. Stedman says that this is one of the locks that God has provided to keep curious minds from getting into these books without an adequate background in scripture; that we can’t understand what is going on in them without first knowing a great deal of the rest of the Bible. These symbolic things are signs erected by God, and signs are given to us so that we can understand facts that are otherwise hidden. God's plan for the future is hidden from us, until we spend time understanding the signs, and these books are full of signs.

And a second precaution that God has taken in Daniel, and even more especially in the book of Revelation, is that He doesn't introduce the prophetic section first, instead ,He brings us through six chapters, into an understanding of the moral character, that He wants us to understand before the prophetic language, can even begin to make sense. In other words, you can't understand the last section of Daniel, unless you have lived through and understood what is involved in the first six chapters, and the moral lessons that He wants us to grasp, first. And, there is no way to cheat on this. We can't just read them through, and hope to understand them. We won’t get anything out of them. You really have to carefully analyze these initial chapters, understand the kind of people that God was using: think through their relationship with Him, and begin to walk accordingly, in obedience to Him. That is the glory of God's book. We can't understand it with just the intellect, because it’s a matter of the heart, and we need the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding

We can sit down with the prophetic outlines of Daniel and of Revelation, draw charts, spend our time explaining to people, what all these things mean and how God's plan is going to work out, and analyze it down to a T-- but unless we’ve  incorporated these lessons, of the first part of the book into our own lives, we won’t have any reason for them…..

The Lord Jesus himself points this out, in Matthew 24:15,16, when his disciples asked Him to tell them what the symbol of his return to earth would be. Jesus said, "So when you see the desolating sacrilege, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place then...let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains..."  "Get out of the city of Jerusalem, because things will happen there that will tremendously affect the people living in that area. Then is the time to flee the city, for the great tribulation will be upon you."

When he said, "When you see the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place," he added in parentheses these words, "let the reader understand." meaning, don't read through Daniel superficially. Think it through. Give yourself some thought on this. You have to understand what he is talking about before you will be able to recognize the desolating sacrilege, or abomination of desolation, when it comes. This is why the Lord went on to say that the world in its superficial approach to the truth, won’t understand when it cries out for "Peace, peace, peace," because there will be no peace; sudden destruction will come upon them, and they will be swept away, just like the people of Noah's day were swept away when the flood came.

I say all of this to say, that I think that it is important to know and understand God’s prophetic word, but I think it is more important to know and obey the Lord God and be about His business…whatever He calls us to,.. This book divides very simply into two sections… the first six chapters are a history of the prophet Daniel himself and his friends, in the land of Babylon -- men of faith in a hostile world.

And there is no section of scripture more helpful to someone who is trying to live as a Christian in difficult surroundings, than these first six chapters of Daniel. For anybody who works in a company, or lives in a neighborhood or whose children go to school or play on a playing field or a court, or an arena, surrounded by a  crowd of people, who either by words or actions, are taking the Lord’s name in vain…who agree with the ideas and attitudes of the world and its ways, and who make fun of the things of God, showing little interest in what God says to mankind, there’s a lot we can learn from the book of Daniel.

And the first six chapters are for teenagers who go to school, even Christian school, where they are surrounded constantly, by those who seem to have no interest in what God is like, or in the things of God. Daniel and his friends were themselves teenagers when they were first taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar and carried off to the land of Babylon. As they began their career of faith, they did it with a total lack of understanding of life, and with all the insecurity of a teenager in a hostile environment. The book records in these first six chapters the pressure they underwent as they stood for their faith in the middle of very difficult circumstances.

 During Daniel’s day Babylon was the superpower of the known world. Babylon itself, the capital city, is a city that now lies in ruins. It was in Daniel’s day one of the great wonders of the world. It had a wall about it about 60 miles around, 300 ft high, 80 ft thick and even extended 35 ft below the ground to prevent tunneling. It had 250 towers on the walls. There was over 100 gates of brass at it’s entry points.
It was a very large city, but also a very religious city. It had over 53 temples and 180 altars to Ishtar within it. It was split, with the Euphrates river running down the middle of the city. J.Vernon McGee said about Babylon in his commentary that "Babylon was known as the fountainhead of pagan religion, the womb of heathen idols."

Daniel’s ministry span about 72 years. It begins with Daniel’s being led into captivity by King Nebuchadnezzar, something that happened around 606 B.C. the same year that Nebuchadnezzar became co-ruler with his father Nebopolassar. This is mentioned in 2 Kings 24:1. By 604 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar became sole ruler of Babylon.
Later, in 597 B.C. he took King Jehoiachin, king of Judah, captive. At that same time, he also took Ezekiel captive. This is mentioned in 2 Kings 24:10-14. Still later, in 586 B.C. he burned Jerusalem to the ground and took still more captives, leaving only the poorest people of the land including Jeremiah (2 Kings 25:9).
The main reason for the multiple attacks and not destroying the city all at once is taxation. Nebuchadnezzar had a very large army and he needed funds for all of his building projects and to supply his army. Years earlier, then king Hezekiah had shown the Babylonians all of his wealth (2 Kings 20:13), so it was known that Judah was filled with gold and many treasures. Isaiah told Hezekiah after the Babylonians left that one day they would return and all of those treasures would be carried off along with his sons (2 Kings 20:17-18). So, taxation become the initial reason at least that Jerusalem wasn’t completely destroyed at first.


Daniel was of noble birth, so he was with the king and others in the royal family when he was led into captivity v.3. Daniel had already begun to demonstrate that God had blessed him with wisdom, as well as, a attractive appearance and strength. v.4. He was brought before King Nebuchadnezzar for the king wished to make some Judeans leaders subject to him that they in turn might help him subdue their people. So, the king orders them to learn the literature and language of the Chaldeans.
The Chaldeans were originally probably a Cushite tribe that was a majority in that area. Later, their tribal name is used almost interchangeably with Babylonians. They were of the educated class who had a written language. They were to undergo this formal treatment for 3 years.

Right away, the young men are confronted with the necessity of changing their diet. Ordinarily, there would be nothing particularly significant in that. Many of us could stand that, perhaps frequently. But these young men already have been told by God what they are not to eat, and the very things that they were told not to eat are the things that are required eating for them as prisoners in the palace of the king of Babylon.

What were they to do? This king was the most powerful tyrant who had ever lived on earth. The Bible itself records that there was no king that had ever lived before Nebuchadnezzar or would ever live after him who was equal to him in authority. There were no restraints whatsoever upon what he desired to do. His word was absolute law. He could take any man's life at any time. Later on in his reign, he took the lives of the sons of the king of Judah as their father watched and then had the father's eyes put out. Another man was burned to death over a slow fire. This king was an expert in torture. So these young teenagers facing this test know that they have to either comply with the king's demands or forfeit their lives.

What could they do? I’m sure that they felt all the pressure and they heard all the familiar arguments that any person hears today to try to get them to give up living their lives, on the basis of  their faith. They surely heard the argument, in whatever form it took in those days, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." "Everybody else is doing this; what difference does it make what you eat? So what if you have a ham sandwich with these Babylonians? What's the difference?" After all, they were prisoners in a country far away from home. Their own country has been laid waste. Who would  know, or care, what they did?

They might have felt the pressure. But those young men stood firm and God honored them. God gave them the grace to stand, despite the pressure, and as a result they were exalted and given positions of authority and responsibility in that kingdom. And the story of repeated pressure goes right on through the book.

In chapter 2 you see part of the reason for this kind of testing for these particular young men. It comes out more clearly here, in the story of the great dream vision of King Nebuchadnezzar. He dreams one night of a great image of a man with a strange body. He had a head of gold, shoulders of silver, mid-section of brass, legs of iron, and feet of a clay and iron mixture. But he forgets his dream. He calls in the wise men and asks them to tell him not only the interpretation, but the dream as well. The astrologers and the soothsayers and the sorcerers of Babylon were totally unable to come up with anything. Obviously, if the king couldn't tell them the dream, then they couldn't dream up an interpretation. So, their lives were hanging the balance.

Daniel was placed in the middle of the situation. Again Daniel was pressured and threatened with death if he didn’t conform.

But God's man came through, as he always does when he is willing to stand and obey God despite the pressures he faces. God overrules in the affairs of men. Life is never just determined by superficial pressures. The outcome that seems logically inevitable as you face a situation is not necessarily the outcome that will happen if you are trusting in the invisible God, who rules the affairs of men. And that is the great lesson of this book all the way through. Daniel expresses it beautifully in his prayer to God in chapter 2:20-22

"Blessed by the name of God for ever and ever,
to whom belongs wisdom and might.
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;
he reveals deep and mysterious things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him." 

When we have a relationship with God like that, we don't need to worry what the crowd is doing. For that same God is able to carry us through and to work the situation out no matter how impossible it looks. That is exactly the story of Daniel, repeated five different times through these first six chapters.

And God gave to Daniel and his friends the privilege of leading the most powerful man on earth to a saving faith in Him. Do you know that this is exactly the position every believer is placed in today? The world lives with the idea that there is no God, or that if he does exist he has no real power. He doesn't do anything. He doesn't change history. He doesn't affect human lives. He doesn't enter into situations and make any difference. He is a great old man in the sky, off there somewhere, who doesn't really affect anything that happens down here. That is the world's philosophy.

But every believer is put into a position in which if they walk faithfully, if they obey what God says despite the pressures that are put upon them, they are given the privilege of opening the eyes of men to the fact that God exists, that he is not dead, that he is at work in the affairs of men, and that he is a power to be reckoned with.

(An inner city church had an annual student recognition day. Normally, students would share about their educational experiences and then the pastor would get up and offer a few closing words. One year, the pastor’s words were a bit alarming. He stood up in front of all the young graduates and proud parents and said, "Children, you’re going to die! You may not think you’re going to die, but you’re going to die! One of these days they’re going to take you out to the cemetery, drop you in a hole, throw some dirt on your face, and go back to the church to eat potato salad …
When you were born, you alone were crying, and everybody else was happy. The important question I want to ask is this: When you die are you alone going to be happy, leaving everybody else crying? The answer depends on whether you live to get titles or testimonies. Will they list your degrees and awards, or will they tell about what you meant to their lives? Will you leave behind a newspaper column telling people how important you were, or will you leave behind crying people who give their testimonies about how they’ve lost the best friend they ever had? Will they talk about all the boards you sat on and things you owned, or will they talk about all the money you gave away that made a difference in this world?
"There’s nothing wrong with titles. Titles are good things to have. But if it ever comes down to a choice between a title or a testimony, go for the testimony …"
"Pharaoh may have had the title, but Moses had the testimony!
Nebuchadnezzar may have had the title, but Daniel had the testimony!
Queen Jezebel may have had the title, but Elijah had the testimony!
Pilate may have had the title, but my Jesus had the testimony!
And then he asked a single question: "What will it be for your life?")

In chapter 3 there is the story of the fiery furnace. The young men are commanded to bow down before the image that Nebuchadnezzar erected,  thinking of the image in his dream. Because he was told that he represented the head of gold, that he was the great king of earth, pridefully, he lifted himself up and caused an image to be erected on the plain. It was a huge image, as tall as some of our rockets that we send into outer space, and a whole crowd was gathered on the plain, with Daniel’s three young friends among them.

All were ordered to bow down and worship the image. In order to encourage them, a great furnace was built at the other end of the plain, and they were told that if they don't bow down, that is where they would end up.  That’s a lot of pressure for a young person to bear, and they had some additional inducements as well. There is a band -- and what a band! The instrument’s names are given to us here and we don't even know what some of them are…  When the band played -- the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every other kind of instruments -- everybody falls down and worships. All except the three young men.

When they are brought before Nebuchadnezzar, he orderd them to fall down. Then they say these wonderful words, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter." (3:16) They are not being impertinent. They mean that they do not need to take any time to think over their answer. "We don't need to take any counsel. We know what to say."

"If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not..." (Daniel 3:17b-3:18a RSV)

Those are words of faith: "But if not." "Our God is able to, but we don't know the mind of God. His thoughts are greater than our thoughts. His ways are different than ours. It may be that he won't do it. But even if he doesn't,"

"...be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods nor worship the golden image which you have set up." (Daniel 3:18b RSV)

They were young men who had learned that there are some things more important than life. It is better to be dead and obedient to God than alive and disobedient to him. It is far more profitable to the individual concerned to walk with God, at the cost of life, itself, than to be disobedient to what God has said. God greatly honored Shadrack, Meshcack and  Abednego for their faithfulness…..As a result, they come out of the furnace without even the smell of fire upon them.  What an amazing story this is, it blows my mind to realize that the God who caused that fire to burn had everything under control///

(There was a lot of excitement in watching the Indianapolis Colts, led by Head Coach Tony Dungy, win their trip to the Super Bowl in 2007.
A TV sports interviewer asked the coach how great it was to be one of the first “African-American” head coaches to take his team to a Super Bowl. Coach Dungy responded immediately with: “Yes, that’s good, but what is really great and awesome, is how God worked this out for us; it’s just amazing how He made this all come together!”

Right after the Colts went on to win the Super Bowl in Feb. 2007, a true story originally posted on the Colts website, was circulated by email. It’s an article from the previous year, Feb., 2006, about a talk Dungy gave at a breakfast held in Detroit, by Athletes in Action, on the eve of that year’s Super Bowl.

During that appearance Dungy talked publicly for the first time about the suicide of his son James.
It is a very touching story about this great man, and the essence of his purpose in life.

DETROIT, Mich. - They were there for breakfast, and to honor the New York Jets running back Curtis Martin.
It was Martin, on that Saturday morning, who received the Athletes in Action Bart Starr Award, but the hundreds who gathered in the fourth-floor ballroom, at the Marriott Renaissance in Detroit, Mich., on the morning before Super Bowl XL were clearly, more touched, by what the featured speaker, Coach Dungy had to say.....
Two hours into the breakfast, emcee Brent Jones introduced Dungy, who was welcomed with a lengthy standing ovation. Dungy thanked the crowd, shared an anecdote about Martin, then told the crowd he was going to speak for about 15 minutes.

“It’s great to be here,” Dungy told the crowd, then adding with a laugh, “I just wish that I was here to speak because we’re actually in the game, not just as the invited speaker…
“My goal is to have our team here one day, seated at a couple of these tables….   we have a special group of young men, a great group of Christian guys. It’d be wonderful to have them here so you could see their hearts and what they’re all about. We haven’t made it all the way yet, , but we’re still hoping one day that we will.”
He told them he was going to talk about lessons he had learned from his three sons. The crowd fell silent. Then Dungy spoke.

And although this was a breakfast - and although at many such events, speakers speak over the clinking of glasses and murmurs from semi-interested listeners - for most of the 15 minutes the room was silent except for Dungy’s voice.
He spoke of his middle son, Eric, who, he said, shares his competitiveness and who is focused on sports “to where it’s almost a problem.” 

He spoke of his youngest son, Jordan, who has a rare congenital condition, which causes him not to feel pain.
“He feels things, but he doesn’t get the sensation of pain,” Dungy said. The lessons learned from Jordan, in the past 5 years, since we’ve had him,Tony Dungy said, are many.
“No pain, sounds like it’s a good thing, when you first hear it, but I promise you it’s not,” Dungy said. “ We’ve learned that some hurts are really necessary for kids. It’s important for kids to find out the difference between what’s good and what’s harmful.”

Jordan, Dungy said, loves cookies. “Cookies are good,” Dungy said, “but in Jordan’s mind, if they’re good out on the plate, they’re even better in the oven. He will go right in the oven when my wife’s not looking, reach in, take the rack out, take the pan out, burn his hands and eat the cookies and burn his tongue and never feel it. He doesn’t know that’s bad for him.”
Jordan, Dungy said, “has no fear of anything, so we constantly have to watch him.”. “Some of the age-old guestions that we human beings, ask ourselves, all the time is, ‘Why does the Lord allow pain in our life? Why do bad things happen to good people? If God is a God of love, why does he allow these hurtful things to happen?”“ The lesson that we’ve learned from Jordan, that answers this question, Dungy said, is simple….

Dungy said “We’ve learned that a lot of times, because of that pain, that little temporary pain, you learn what’s harmful. You learn to fear the right things. You learn what’s right from wrong…you learn what to touch and what not to touch….
“Pain sometimes lets us know we have a condition that needs to be healed. Pain inside, sometimes lets us know, that spiritually, we’re not quite right and we need to be healed, and that God will send that healing agent right to the spot. “Sometimes, pain is the only way that will turn us, as His children, back to the Father.”

Then, finally, he spoke of James, his oldest son, who had died, three days before Christmas, in 2005. Dungy spoke eloquently and steadily, of the lessons learned and of the positives, taken, from the heartbreaking experience.
“It was tough, and it was very, very painful, but as painful as it was, there were some good things that came out of it,” Dungy said.

Dungy had spoken, at the funeral, of regretting not hugging James the last time he saw him, on the Thanksgiving, right before he died. He said, “I met a guy, the next day after the funeral,” Dungy said. “He said, ‘I was there. I heard you talking. I took off work today. I called my son. I told him I was taking him to the movies. We’re going to spend some time and go to dinner.’ That was a real, real blessing to me.”
Dungy said he has gotten many letters since James’ death relaying similar messages. “People heard what I said and said, ‘Hey, you brought me a little closer to my son,’ or, ‘You brought me a little closer to my daughter,”“ Dungy said. “That is a tremendous blessing.”

Dungy also said some of James’ organs were donated through donors programs.
“We got a letter back two weeks ago, that said that two people had received his corneas, and now they can see,” Dungy said. “That’s been a tremendous blessing.”

Dungy also said he received a letter from a girl from his own church, in Tampa. She had known James, for many years, Dungy said. She had been at the funeral because she knew James.
“When I saw what happened at his funeral, and the way your family behaved, and the celebration of life that it was, and how it was handled…. that was the first time that I realized, that there had to be a God,” Dungy said the girl wrote. “I accepted Christ into my life, and my life’s been different since that day.” Added Dungy, “That was an awesome blessing, so all of those things kind of made me realize what God’s love is all about.”

Dungy also said, that he is asked often, how he was able to return to the Colts, so quickly after James’ death. James died on December 22, and Dungy returned to the team one week later. Dungy said that the answer was another simple one.
“People ask me, ‘How did you recover so quickly?”“ Dungy said. “I’m not totally recovered. I don’t know that I ever will be. It’s still very, very painful, but I was able to come back because of something one of my good Christian friends said to me after the funeral.

“He said, ‘You know James accepted Christ into his heart, so you know he’s in heaven, right?’ I said, ‘Right, I know that.’ He said, ‘So, with all you know about heaven, if you had the power to bring him back now, would you?’ When I thought about it, I said, ‘No, I wouldn’t. I would not want him back with what I know about heaven.’
“That’s what helped me through the grieving process. Because of Christ’s spirit in me, I had that confidence, that James is there, at peace with the Lord, and I have the peace of mind, in the midst of something that’s very, very painful, to know that I would rather have him there with Jesus, even though we miss him, than here, in this sin-sick world , with us.
then he went on to say…“That’s my prayer today, that everyone in this room would know the same thing….that’ its better to be in the Lord’s will in danger, than to be out of His will and safe…”)

Then, in chapter 4, there is the wonderful conversion of Nebuchadnezzar. Did you know that, this whole chapter is the testimony and faith journey, of the greatest king that ever lived, the greatest tyrant that ever ruled? It is the story of how God broke the pride of his heart, humiliated him, humbled him, allowed him to indulge and exercise his pride, until it resulted, in what always results when men live in pride -- madness…. He went out and ate grass in the field for seven years. His throne was preserved, but he acted like an animal. This is what always happens to person when he chooses to walk out of fellowship with the living God. He becomes like an animal….he lives our his baser nature, with no thought for anyone or anything else.

When the king came to his senses, he told how his reason was restored to him by the grace of God, and his closing words in this chapter, are a great testimony of his faith, of how God humbled him and brought him back:

In 4:37 he says, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are right and his ways re just; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase. 

It was God who brought the great Nebuchadnezzar to this place, but it was  Daniel and his friends; four young men, that God used to be His voice and His feet….to win the heart of the greatest king, of the greatest empire the world has yet seen, to Himself…. 

Chapter 5 is the story of the handwriting on the wall, the familiar story of King Belshazzar. Note the luxury and licentiousness and the lust of that kingdom -- a degenerating, deteriorating kingdom -- yet in the midst of it Daniel, having lived through three empires, was still prime minister. God used him to interpret the meaning of the strange figure of the hand, that appeared, and wrote up on the wall: the judgment of God upon that wicked king and his people. This bears out the thesis of this book -- that God is at work in the affairs of men, and any person who sees beyond the things that are seen, to the things that are unseen, and obeys what is right, will find that God is with them, supporting them and strengthening them, all along the way, and bringing them out of all difficulties, by His mercy and grace, to the praise of his glory.

Chapter 6 is about Daniel and the lions' den and it’s the same exact story, just a different wicked king, in love with himself and ignoring God… Darius threw Daniel into the lions' den, but God sent his angel to shut the lions' mouths. Daniel was brought out of the den, alive and well and unscathed, delivered by the hand of God, because the God who caused those lions to roar, had everything under control…

Chapter 7 begins the prophetic section, starting with the vision of the four beasts. It is interesting that these four beasts cover the same period of time as the four divisions of the image that Nebuchadnezzar had seen in chapter 2. That image had a head of gold, symbolizing the Babylonian kingdom; shoulders of silver, for Media-Persia; the trunk of brass symbolizing the Grecian empire, and then the two legs of iron representing the two divisions of the Roman Empire; and terminating at last in a broken kingdom, characterized by feet of mingled iron and clay. This great prophetic passage outlined history from Daniel's day, clear past our own day, to the end of time and the return of Jesus, to rule the earth forever…. As Daniel watched, he saw a stone cut out, without a hand, strike the image to its feet, utterly demolishing it, and then he watched it grow to be a great mountain to fill the earth. Clearly this is a picture of the kingdom of God and the return of the Lord Jesus.

In chapter 7, then, the four beasts represent specific kingdoms, or nations but from God's persective….they are nothing but beasts growling and fighting and quarreling with each other. A lot of the symbols of modern nations are representations of birds or of beasts of prey. The US is symbolized by an eagle, which is a bird of prey. The British Empire is a lion. Russia is a bear. The prophet saw these nations struggling together, culminating in the powerful reign, of a single individual, over the whole of this Western world.

Then in chapter 8 we see the movement of Western history. The ram and the he-goat come together, and this is a picture, as we are told later in chapter 11, of the conquest by Alexander the Great and the rise of the kingdom of the Seleucids in Syria as opposed to the Ptolemies in Egypt. These two families occupied the center of history for centuries after that -- the struggle between Syria and Egypt, with little Israel caught in the middle. The battle still rages back and forth, and today, Israel is the most fought-over country in all of history. More battles have occurred in the land of Israel, than in any other spot on the face of the earth, and it is in that very same area where the last great battle -- the battle of Armageddon -- is yet to be fought.

In the midst of this, in chapter 9, is Daniel's wonderful prayer as he pours his heart out to God. The answer to his prayer, in the last section of the chapter, is one of the most remarkable prophecies in all the Bible: the prophecy of the seventy weeks. This is the timetable of prophecy concerning the nation Israel. It gives us the principle that is called "the great parenthesis" -- God has interrupted his program for Israel and has inserted between the first coming and the second coming of the Lord Jesus, the present age that we live in…..the age of the Gentiles, where we are the appointed missionaries, to tell people about Jesus and His salvation offer…

This indeterminate period, which has now spanned more than 2000 years, comes between the sixty-ninth week of years, and the seventieth ,of the prophecy. 

The seventieth week, a week of seven years, is yet to be fulfilled for Israel. As we read of this, we can see that this is what the book of Revelation and other prophetic passages, call "the great tribulation," or the time of Jacob's trouble. It lies ahead….. we can’t know when it’s coming, we just need to know that it is and to be ready, by telling everybody we know about Jesus, and our own accounts short and caught up, as we go about the Father’s business…

Then chapter 10 presents the things unseen, which are behind the things that are seen. This is another great revelation of God's sovereign work, in the affairs of men and is the explanation for the events of history, which cause the things that happen today? We just need to know that, God is always at work and by revealing that to Daniel, He’s revealing it to us too,….that fact should give us great comfort….

Chapter 11 is one of the most remarkable chapters in the Bible because it records prophecy that, for the most part, has been fulfilled in detail. It foretells the struggle between the king of Syria and the king of Egypt which took place after Daniel's day. It has been prophetically and historically fulfilled. These historic events are described in great detail and cover two or three hundred years of history. You can see that the prophecies here have been worked out exactly in the pattern of history. Among other outstanding individuals, Cleopatra appears in this chapter, prophetically foretold.

When you come to the thirty-sixth verse of the eleventh chapter, a noteworthy break occurs. It is introduced by the previous verse, in which the angel says to Daniel:

"...and some of those who are wise shall fall, to refine and to cleanse them and to make them white, until the time of the end, for it is yet for the time appointed." (Daniel 11:35 RSV)

Here begins a passage that deals with that seventieth week of Daniel that is yet to be fulfilled -- the time of  the last days, the ultimate arrangement of earth's kingdoms just before the return of Jesus Christ. 

This remarkable passage predicts an invasion of Palestine and a counter -- invasion from Egypt in the south, and then the meeting of two great armies in the land of Israel and the ultimate destruction of those armies there on the mountains of Israel. This is also clearly described in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth chapters of Ezekiel and the second chapter of Joel. 

The beginning of chapter 12 introduces the greatest event of history yet to be fulfilled: the coming again of Jesus Christ. Jesus isn’t called by name, but this is what Daniel hears:

"At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people [Israel]. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book." (Daniel 12:1 RSV)

This is followed by a resurrection:

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2 RSV)

And the final judgment of God:

"And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever." (Daniel 12:3 RSV)

Then Daniel is given a sign of when this will occur:

"But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase." (Daniel 12:4 RSV)

Many Bible scholars understand this to be an indication that as we near that time, transportation and knowledge will rapidly increase just as they have in our own time.

One last thing about this final chapter is important. Daniel asks certain questions of the angel who has revealed this to him, and then he is given to understand two great principles that are at work in human life. You and I often hear people discussing what is happening in the world, with newspaper commentators and others constantly pouring into our ears reports of terrible things. People often say, "What is happening? Is the world getting worse and worse or is it getting better and better?"

On one hand you will hear people describe things in such a way that you are bound to say, "Well, the world is getting worse and worse." Then someone replies, "No it isn't. Look at this, and this, and this. I believe the world is getting better. We are progressing." Now the book of Daniel makes it very clear that we never will understand God's word and God's work until we believe both of those principles. For in the tenth verse of chapter 12 Daniel is told:

"Many shall purify themselves, and make themselves white, and be refined, good will get better]; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand[but evil will get worse]; but those who are wise shall understand." (Daniel 12:10 RSV)

Jesus said that the good seed has been sown, but the enemy has come and sown tares among the wheat. "Let both grow together," he says, "until the harvest." (Matthew. 13:30) I think this is certainly true in history. Today evil is worse than it has ever been. It is more subtle, more devilish, more satanic, more difficult to detect than it ever has been before in human history. But good is better than it has ever been before. Good is more powerful. Its effect in human society in relationship to the evil around it is far greater than it ever has been before.

These two principles are at work in human society, but nscripture clearly says, that neither one will overpower the other. Good is not going to become so triumphant that evil finally disappears. Nor is evil going to be so powerful that good finally disappears. Both are going to come into a headlong conflict, and the Bible records that at that precise moment in history, God will intervene again,  in human affairs, and there will be a final clash of these two great principles working in human society, and good will win forever…

Daniel 12:12 says ,"Blessed is he who waits and comes to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days. But go your way until the end; and you shall rest, and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days." 

Here are prophetic words by Helmut Thielicke, the professor director of Hamburg University in Germany,

We men may do what we will. Nebuchadnezzar may come (and Genghis Khan and Mao Tse-tung) yet none of them can break God's plans, but rather must fulfill them -- even against their will. Even though what we hear now is in mournful, minor tones, what is being played is still God's symphony and it will be played out to the end. The individual tones may think that they know what is what. They may want to assert themselves and swing out on their own, yet they have all been composed into a score in which God alone is in command and in which everything, when it is heard from heaven's vantage point, has its place in God's succession of tones that end in his final chord. The rich of this world are in the process of going but the kingdom of God is in the process of coming. Don't ever think that anybody will ever be able to break away from serving him, though he renounce God ten times over. Even in the extreme perversion of authority, as in the tyranny of a totalitarian state, men are compelled despite themselves to preserve a remnant of God's order. They can never consistently succeed in devilizing and ruining his world. God says, "I who have the power of the whole world of space, should I not be able to encompass your little life, hear your questions and your groans and unravel the tangled skein of your threats?"

Praise God who is in control of all things…

Our Father, thank you for this reminder from the book of Daniel that you are a living God at work in the affairs of men; that we need not fear even though terrors reign on earth and men hide themselves for fear of them. You are in control of all, and he who walks with you will overcome. He who obeys you -- not only in the great and glorious moments of victory, but also in the quiet hour when no one sees -- is faithful to you, and shall at last triumphantly overcome as Daniel did and stand in his place in the last days. We thank you for this promise. Help us to walk in the strength of it. In Christ's name, Amen……