COMMENTS
I didn’t
feel well this morning and was unable to attend church. After watching a couple of church services on
TV (Charles Stanley and his son Andy, who comes on immediately after Charles in
my area), I found myself strongly desiring to just spend some time with the
Lord studying His Word. I’m in Community
Bible Study so I’m in the Bible regularly; but today I wanted a just
me-and-God, unstructured, God-inspired time with Him. I started in Isaiah (because that’s what we’ll
be studying in CBS next year) but then felt the Lord calling me to read the
book of Daniel. When I follow the Lord’s
prompting, He ALWAYS speaks. AWESOME!
NOTES
My Bible has
an “Introduction” at the beginning of each book, so I decided to start by
reading that. It reminded me that Daniel
and his friends had been taken hostage when Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem
in 605 B.C. You may not be interested in
the history, but I found that an important point as I read. Daniel wasn’t in Babylon on vacation, and he
wasn’t there because he had accepted a “wonderful employment opportunity”. He was taken there against his will. And look what God did with a willing heart in
undesirable circumstances!
The first
thing I noted was that the king wanted “young men without any physical defect,
handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to
understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace” (Daniel 1:4). The Lord had made Daniel so that he fit King
Nebuchadnezzar’s physical qualifications, but Daniel had also taken care of the
body the Lord gave him. He was, also,
intelligent, knowledgeable about what was going on around him, had common sense
and wisdom, and had the qualifications needed to serve the king (whatever those
were). God had given Daniel exactly what
was needed to put him in the position where God could use him.
Secondly, I
see in Daniel 1:9, that God caused the guy in charge of Daniel to really like
him! So the official was inclined to
favorably listen to Daniel’s request for a different diet. Daniel did not take advantage of this,
however. He recognized the genuine fear
the man had about the king “having his head” if Daniel started looking “poorly”
in comparison with the other young men in training. So Daniel just asked for a trial period,
submitting the outcome to the official and knowing that God had his back. Of course, at the end of the test Daniel and
his companions were healthier than the others so the guard changed the diet for
everyone!
The third
thing I noticed was that Daniel always spoke to those in authority “with wisdom
and tact” (Daniel 2:14). That was how he
spoke to the official in the second point above; that is how he spoke to the
guard who had come to kill him and his friends (Daniel 2:14-15); that is how he
spoke to the king when he went to tell him his dream (about the statue) and its
interpretation (Daniel 2:29-45), and that is how he spoke to the king when he
interpreted his second dream (about the tree) (Daniel 4:19-27). He even addressed him as “my lord the king” (Daniel
4:24), showing appropriate respect for his position.
The final
thing I will mention is that, in spite of the fact that Daniel was taken
against his will and, in human terms, had every right to resent and hate the
Babylonians, Daniel cared for and was deeply concerned for his captors. In fact, the interpretation of the second
dream was a bad one for King Nebuchadnezzar.
Daniel could have been cheering inside; but instead, he started the
interpretation with these words: “My
lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your
adversaries!” (Daniel 4:19). He was
genuinely concerned and had great compassion for what was about to befall the
king! His desire was that he would
change and perhaps avoid the punishment that had been foretold. Read Daniel’s words in Daniel 4:27: “Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my
advice: Renounce your sins by doing what
is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will
continue.”
