Mr. Ed Smith
Sermon Transcript
February 17, 2001
The Uncompromising Daniel
As
you go through The Bible, you begin to find God supplies the man or men at the
right time, for the right purpose, to bring about his purpose and plan. As you
look into The Bible after God, of course, had selected Abraham to be the one
through whom he would increase the progeny and bring on what would become the
house of Israel or the people of Israel, and then through Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, whom we refer to as the fathers, then we find that Jacob, of course,
had twelve sons, and one of those sons, the next to the last one, the first
born of Rachel, Joseph was used in a mighty way to preserve Israel.
You know the story.
They were going to kill. His brothers, at least ten of the brothers, the older
ones, Judah said no, I've got a better plan--let's sell him. So he was sold
into Egypt, and it was there in Egypt he found favor with Potiphar, and of course,
after going through some trying times, when he would not compromise his faith,
his belief in God, his obedience to God, his loyalty to God, he was put into
prison because Potiphar's wife enticed him, and he wound up in prison. It was
there he interpreted the dreams of the baker and the butler, and the baker's
head was cut off, and the butler was restored to his butlership and began to
serve the Pharaoh.
You remember Pharaoh
had the dream, which of course, only somebody other than a man could interpret,
and so the butler said, hey, there's a man down in prison that had asked me
to remember him, and I'm sorry to say I forgot him until this need came on,
and the need came on for somebody to interpret what Pharaoh had dreamed. That
was it would be, as Joseph interpreted, seven fat years, good years. So let's
store up all that we can because there will come seven lean years, and it was
during that time that, actually, Joseph acting as Prime Minister of Egypt, Pharaoh
began to own all of Egypt, but Joseph died and all of them died, and in due
time, there rose a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, and you know the rest of the
story. They went into servitude and bondage, and out of there God provided a
man, Moses, to lead them out of bondage through the trials, and the forty years
of wandering to their own land, set them up as a nation.
You jump ahead
about three hundred or four hundred years or so, and you begin to find that
they now were coming under a system of kings because they refused, rejected
God as King, and then from there through the Kings and Chronicles, you find
a long period of a good king, a bad king, a good king, and a bad king, until
finally it got so bad, despite the warnings of the prophets, Israel forsook
God, the Sabbath, and went into idolatry and was captured, went into captivity,
under Shalmanezar the King of Assyria in 721 B.C.
Jump forward a hundred years, and you will find the setting for the sermon this afternoon. God had warned them, Israel went into captivity because of their disobedience and idolatry, and he said Judah is doing the same thing, even worse, and so Jeremiah was warning, Judah will go into captivity, and despite the warnings, they kept right on, even though Jeremiah wound up in jail, and he kept prophesying, he wrote a letter to the king; he said this is what is going to happen, the king tore it up, shredded the letter and disregarded it to his own hurt because it was under the time of Jehoiakim, that Jerusalem was overrun by Nebuchadnezzar and captives were taken to Babylon.
Now let's see
the setting here, and of course, that would take hours to go through that, you
could go back through some of the history. Alfred Edersheim does a super job
on giving you some of the history that took place through some of the men that
developed into Nebopolasser, who was the first king of Babylon in about 625
B.C. Nebopolasser's son was Nebuchadnezzar. We are very familiar with Nebuchadnezzar,
and it will come into inter-play with two men. Nebuchadnezzar for about forty-four
of those years, in that ninety year stretch of time, and Daniel, who actually
had an important role to play for about ninety years, sometimes more, sometimes
less. Sometimes we lose sight of him, but then the story picks up again, and
he had a great impact upon the Babylonian Empire, as well as the beginning of
the Medes and the Persians and what happened when Judah was allowed to go home,
back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city.
If you look into
the book of Daniel the first chapter, we will just see just a little bit of
an overview of what the setting is. In about 618-619, somewhere in there, B.C.,
619 we'll call it, there was a young baby boy born, he was named Daniel, "I-E-L,"
"E-L," "A-E-L," those all mean God does this or that or
the other. So we find all kinds of names, Michael, later we'll find. Zedekiah,
Jephaniah, Zechariah, all the "I-A-H," "A-E-L" or "I-A-L,"
all designate God is doing something with that man. In other words, it has something
to do with his role, his relationship with God.
It was about 605
B.C….
Daniel
1:1. "In the third
year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar…"
who was the son of Nebopolasser, who was the first king of Babylon, "…came
to Jerusalem and besieged it" about 605 B.C.
Verse
2. And the Lord gave
Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the articles of the house
of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god..."
This is the land of Chaldea in Babylon. "…and he brought the articles
into the treasure house of his god."
Now they stayed
there, basically, for a while then moved over to the treasure house, and they
won't come into play, until we come down several years later, decades later,
and we'll find these treasures, these articles that he took out of the house
of God, they come into play again in the book of Daniel.
Verse
3. "Then the king
instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring some of the children
of Israel and some of the king's descendants and some of the nobles."
Now what they're going to do, basically, is what Hitler did in the prior or pre-World War II days, when Adolph Hitler began to come to power in the early 30s, he began the Hitler youth program and that was to take all of the young, bright children and put them into the Hitler youth core to brain wash them into believing that they were the master race, that Hitler's Reich or his rule of Nazism is the only way, it's God's way, and they were even taught how to spy on their parents and spot out Jews and report people and so on. It was to take the youth and more or less mastermind them or give them a mind change to do the bidding of the feur. And so they were taught the old zeighile, defeuderspricten, and follow him. I was there, Nuremberg was one of the areas where the Hitler youth program was very prolific.
Verse
4. Now it says these "…young men
in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking…" That was, they
were a good fine, physical specimen of a young fellow. "…gifted
in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand who had ability
to serve in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the language and literature
of the Chaldeans."
In other words, I know they've been brought up in the Hebrew faith, the Hebrew
religion, the Hebrew language, but we're going to brainwash them into believing
that's the bad way. The good way is the Chaldean way, and so we will teach them
the literature and the language, the learning, the sciences of the Chaldeans.
Now how do you think that Daniel, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, or Hananiah, Mishael,
and Azariah, how do you think they got to be such, say, wise young men at age
fourteen? As best we can tell, Daniel was about fourteen when he was taken captive
in 605. He was born somewhere around 618, I should say, and 605, he would have
about fourteen.
He was going to go through three years of training. That would have brought
him up to about seventeen or eighteen. Now how many of you here, fellows, girls,
young boys, girls, how many of you are fourteen? Any of you? Yes, raise your
hands up, several there. Thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen? Any in that age group?
Okay. That was the age of Daniel when he was taken away from his parents, they
may have been killed, no one knows. We don't anything about his parentage. We
do know that he was from the house, the royal house, of Zedekiah. Whether Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-Nego were just friends, cousins, part of the family, we don't
know. I'd like to think maybe they were cousins, or certainly, good friends
because they were going to be spending a lot of time together.
How do you think they got to be so smart, so wise? They had parents who spent
time with them. They had either parents or tutors who taught them the word of
God, the scriptures that they knew and all that had happened from the time of
the beginning of man up through, actually what happened when the kings disobey
they go into captivity and so on. All of these things they learned as a youth.
Do you remember it was Paul who said in II Timothy 1:5,
when he wrote to Timothy, and said, I would love to see you, my heart longs
for you Timothy because I hear of…
II Timothy 1:5. "…the genuine faith
that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice,
and I am persuaded is in you also."
That faith that the mother and grandmother instilled within young Timothy.
You remember it was Paul's parents who sent him to Gamaliel, he grew up at the
feet of Gamaliel and learned the law, that's why when the proper time came,
God could choose a man like Paul to take now the message to the gentiles, he
was that one.
So when he says here they were good looking, they were gifted in wisdom, that
didn't automatically happen. They weren't born that way. They had to have that
early training, which, of course, is a lesson for us. We need to spend time
with our children or our grandchildren, instill within them the way of God and
show them that only God's way works. The way of the world, the way of the fast,
quick, easy good time is only short- lived, and it does take some training.
I heard a lesson the other day, or a word the other day, from a fellow who was
talking about this business executive, and he was in his office, and he was
writing out all of the appointments that he had to keep, and this he had to
do, and that he had to do, all of the important people that he had to meet,
and so on. His little boy came into the office there at the house, and he sat
there by his dad, and he changed from foot to foot, and the dad just totally
ignored his son, he just kept on writing, and he said, Dad! What are you doing?
Oh, he said, son I've got a list here, I'm making a list of all of the important
people that I need to see. The little boy thought for a moment, he said, Daddy,
am I on that list? The man was crushed. He said, you know, I think you should
go to the top of the list. I need to spend some time with you son, and I've
been neglecting you all these years, trying to be making money and doing a lot
of other things. He needed time with his son, with his daughter. This is something
that these young fellows had.
Verse 5. "And the king appointed for them
a daily provision of the king's delicacies and of the wine which he drank, and
three years of training for them, so that at the end of that time they might
serve before the king. "
To save time, to move along, I will tell you what happened…
The first thing you know Daniel is brought into what we could call a compromising
crisis or decision. He had been brought up to believe, Leviticus 11 says there
are certain things you eat, certain things you don't eat, and from the king's
table brought not only unclean objects, so far as dietary rules are concerned,
but probably things that had been offered in sacrifice to his god, Baal or Dagon,
or one of the other god's. The wine, young boys at fourteen didn't need wine,
so he refused. He said to Ashpanez, now he had been brought in, it says, verse
9…
Verse 9. "Now God had brought Daniel into
the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs."
God had brought Daniel into favor and good will of the chief of the eunuchs.
And so he went to him and with tact and with respect he said, sir, we don't
want to eat what the king has provided. We don't want to drink what the king
would have us drink, and of course, the chief of the eunuchs said to him, verse
10…
Verse 10. "…I fear my lord the king,
who has appointed your food and drink. For why should he see your faces looking
worse than the young men who are your age? Then you would endanger my head before
the king."
In other words, if the king comes and finds you, you know, not looking quite
as good as the other young fellows, my head will roll because I have been told
this is what they're to eat.
Verse 11-13. "So Daniel said to the steward
whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah,
please test your servants for ten days, and let them give us vegetables to eat
and water to drink. Then let our appearance be examined…"
So Daniel in a
polite and courteous way, but very, very much assured that he was not going
to eat, and…
Verse 14. "So he consented with them in this matter, and
tested them ten days. And at the end of ten days their features appeared better
and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's
delicacies.
Not only God had given Daniel favor so that he could get this request granted,
but he also saw to it that the food they were eating was more nourishing than
all of the rich and spicy things that the king could have given, and so Daniel
who brought to this compromising mode, says no, I won't compromise.
So if you want a title for the sermon today: "Daniel,
The Man Who Would Not Compromise"
The uncompromising Daniel who would stay true to his God and true to the law
of God no matter what the test might be, no matter who he may have to stand
up to, and we're going to find as we take a look along through a few chapters
here, what he did have to face, and so the end of the story was that they brought
him before the king.
Verse 19-20. "Then the king interviewed
them…" saw they were very healthy and good looking and just exactly
what he wanted "…and among them all none was found like Daniel,
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; therefore they served before the king. And in
all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them,
he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were
in all his realm."
Verse
21 is a big key.
Verse
21. "Thus Daniel continued until the first year of King Cyrus."
About ninety year
stretch. Although it can't be proven, and you certainly believe that Daniel
was a big, had a big impact on King Cyrus, the Persian king to let the Jews
go home to Jerusalem and rebuild the city under Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel.
Now we begin to
get into some other matters in the book of Daniel. As we read the book of Daniel,
we might think, well, immediately after they proved the tests, then all of a
sudden, this happened or that happened. There were some periods of time that
took place between there. Now whether it was still in their training or afterward,
if you read it second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, it was during their three
years of training that Nebuchadnezzar had this dream, and Daniel was used to
interpret it. Some feel it was not until their time was over, and he had interviewed
him and so on, that he had the dream, but nonetheless, it was somewhere while
Daniel was still about seventeen, eighteen years of age. He is going to come
right before the king of Babylon, and unveil some very prophesies that would
begin at that time, through a period called the times of gentiles, would last
until the coming of Jesus Christ.
So Daniel, so
the scholars say, is one of the most important prophetic books, though it's
not strictly prophetic, it is not only historical, it's certainly something
that is very theological or religious in nature, but it does have some very
important detailed prophesies, which, of course, we wouldn't have time to go
into that at all today, and that's not the purpose of the sermon.
The purpose of
the sermon is to show us, Daniel, a young man just like some of our youth here
today, who grew into manhood, and grew into middle age, beyond middle age, to
become an old man. In fact, I will jump ahead and tell you that when Daniel
was thrown into the lion's den, how old do you think he was? You know how old
Daniel was when he was thrown into the lion's den? In my mind, I always just
kind of thought he was thirty, forty, you know, young man. No, no, he was about
eighty years of age, an old man, when he was thrown into the lion's den, and
that comes later.
Here we find Nebuchadnezzar
had a dream. To summarize, he called the astrologers, soothsayers, and chanters,
magicians, and anything that had anyway of going into the occult or into the
unseen and be able to tell them what his dream was in the first place, and then
what it meant in the second place, and you remember they begged for time, he
said, well, give us time, and finally, they had to resort to, hey, nobody's
ever asked this, a king has never asked this. Not only have I forgotten the
dream, you don't even know the dream, and how could we interpret it if we don't
know it, and finally, the king decreed that if you will not tell me, your heads
will roll, your heads will be lopped off, and your house will be made a dung
hill, and so finally, the king gave the decree, and they began to kill them.
Daniel 2:13. "So the decree went out, and they began killing the wise men; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them."
Verse 14-15. "Then with counsel…"
notice this verse 14 "…with counsel
and wisdom Daniel answered Arioch, the captain of the king's guard, who had
gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon; he answered and said to Arioch the
king's captain, "Why is the decree from the king so urgent?" Then
Arioch made the decision known to Daniel.
In all likelihood, Arioch, captain
of the guard, was standing right there because one of his roles is to protect
his master the king, he saw all of this, he heard that, he heard the whining,
the excusing of the magicians, soothsayers, and so on, and so he told him, these
men couldn't tell the king the dream or the interpretation.
Verse 16.
"So Daniel went in and asked the king…" so it appears
to me that it was after their training, and the king had interviewed him, that
now he has access back to the king, and so he "…went and asked
the king to give him time…"
The others had been granted time.
Give me just a little bit of time, and he wasn't going to do as they did, and
they got their heads together and cried out to their gods, and they tried everything,
and it wouldn't work.
Verse 16.
"So Daniel went in and asked the king to give him time, that he might tell
the king the interpretation."
He was assured that it would work.
Verse 17.
"Then Daniel went…"
Now notice how many times it says "went." Daniel went in, then Daniel
went home, and then he went to his companions
Verse 17-18.
"…Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, that they might
seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning this secret, so that Daniel and
his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon."
They deserve to perish, but we don't deserve to perish with them.
Verse 19. "Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night
vision. So Daniel blessed the God of heaven."
And it talks about all of the great
things in verse 23, the latter part…
Verse 23-24.
"…For You have made known to us the king's demand. Therefore Daniel
went…" He went right, straight to Arioch, and says, "…take
me to the king."
Arioch took him to the king, verse
25…
Verse 25.
"I have found a man of the captives of Judah, who will make known to
the king the interpretation."
Get a bit of flattery and self-aggrandizement here. I found a man who could
do this, no, Daniel was the man who went home, God revealed it to him, and he
went to Arioch, and said, hey, take me to the king.
Verse 26. "The king answered and said
to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar…"
Which, of course, god's…Bel's a man or the protector of Bel, Bel the god.
Verse 26.
"Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen, and its
interpretation?"
And then Daniel, began to say, hey these men can't tell you, verse 27-28…
Verse 28. "But there is a God in heaven…"
Notice the confidence of this man
Daniel…
Verse 28. "There is a God in heaven who
reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in
the latter days."
Now if you come on, he said, verse 30…
Verse 30. "But as for me, this secret
has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but
for our sakes who make known the interpretation to the king, and that you may
know the thoughts of your heart."
And then he goes through and tells him about this great image, head of gold,
arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, and legs of iron, and the feet of
iron and clay. You remember all of this, you know all of this, but notice verse
44…
Verse 44. "And in the days of these kings…"
the ten toes, representing ten different kingdoms, "…in the days
of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom…" this
is the kingdom of God, it's going to be set up, "…which shall never
be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break
in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever."
You remember in Revelation
11:15, that it says…
Revelation 11:15.
"The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of
His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!"
And he will smash, Jesus Christ will
smash all of the opposing powers, and then he went onto to say…
Verse 45. "…cut out of the mountain
without hands…" and it says, "…the great God has
made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain,
and its interpretation is sure."
What do you think Nebuchadnezzar's
reaction would be to this? Not only did he tell me the dream verbatim, iota,
every detail of this, but now he tells me what it all means, and it says…
Verse 46.
"Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, prostrate before Daniel, and
commanded that they should present an offering and incense to him."
Verse 47.
"The king answered Daniel and said, Truly…" Notice!
"…your God…" not my god, his god couldn't do anything,
but "your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer
of secrets, since you could reveal this secret."
Verse 48-49.
"Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts; and he made
him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief administrator over all
the wise men of Babylon. Also Daniel petitioned the king, and he set Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-Nego over the affairs of the province of Babylon…"
and so they were appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon "…but
Daniel sat in the gate of the king."
Keep that in mind. In other words, he had a special, say, relationship, and
management and ruler ship over Babylon with the king, he sat in the gate.
Now chapter 3 doesn't just pick and immediately thereafter this happens. No,
it's actually about now, after this, twenty years elapse. Now, remember in the
vision or the dream I should say, Daniel had told him, after you, will arise
another kingdom inferior to you. He had about twenty years to maul that over
in his mind, Nebuchadnezzar. He said, I don't think so. I don't think so. There
is not going to something after me with arms of silver, belly and thighs of
brass, and iron and all of this, so he made a big statue, a big image of gold,
ninety feet high, nine feet across, and set it up in great plain where masses
of people could come to a big rally, just like Hitler did in Nuremberg where
they had it there in what we call Soldier's Field or the parade grounds where
masses hysterically would march the gooch step march and shout, hail Hitler.
And so he put it in the plain Abdura, and the king sent word to all of the rulers
from the top, to the administrators, the governors, the counsel, from top man
down to the last to come together. And he said…
Daniel 3:4. "…To you it is commanded,
O people, nations, and languages, That at what time ye hear the sound of the
cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye
fall down and worship the golden image…"
And so it happened, and it brought on the big fan fair and Hollywood could really
make a tremendous dramatization of this. The big music and the band struck up,
and they all fell and did obeisance. Kind of like some of the religions bow
and kiss the dirt--they bowed and did obeisance to the golden image, but not
the three Jewish lads, Hananiah, Mishael, or Azariah. They wouldn't, and so
therefore, the confidantes of the king, said Uh huh! We can now get rid of these
guys that have been put over us.
Verse 8 says that…
"…certain of Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews. They spake
and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live for ever. Thou, O king, hast
made a decree…"
But…
Verse 12.
"There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province
of Babylon…"
In other words, our bosses, and they won't do that, they won't obey you, they
won't bow down to you, and so…"
Verse 13.
" Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-Nego. Then they brought these men before the king."
And he says…
Verse 14.
"…Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, do not ye serve
my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?"
Now he had a whole image of gold.
You remember in the dream it had gold, silver, brass, iron; his was all gold,
meaning his will last forever, nobody will ever replace me.
He said…
Verse 14.
"…Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, do not ye serve
my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?"
Now if you are ready to do the time and hear the sound of all this music and
bow down, then okay, but if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately
in the midst of a burning fiery furnace and who's this God? Who's this God!?
Verse 15-16.
"…who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-Nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we
are not careful…" In other words, it's needles, it's pointless
for "…us to answer thee in this matter."
Verse 17.
"If it be so, our God whom we serve is able…" is able! "…to
deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine
hand, O king."
We believe that, but if it's within
the will and providence of God that he does it. In our prayers we ask God for
certain answers. What if the answer doesn't come? Do we turn our back on God?
No, the three young men said, even if God doesn't answer with a yes, and he
says a no, and you've got to go to death as a martyr…
Verse 18.
"But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy
gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
This absolutely set Nebuchadnezzar
berserk. He commanded the oven to be heated seven times over, got some of his
strong men to bind up these men and their tunics and all their good regalia,
because they did come in the presence of the king, and they were all dressed,
bound them threw them in to a kind of a conical shaped furnace, which has a
small opening at the top, and they could drop undesirables or kindling or anything
in it, and the side, it had a big door that could be swung open. That's where
they stoke the coals and so on. They were thrown into this. Then the king came
close enough, now notice the ones who threw them in perished, the flames, the
heat killed them. They went in bound. The only thing that the fire did was loosed
their hands. The door was thrown open, the king looked in, he said…
Verse 24-25.
"…Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They
answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see
four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and
theform of the fourth
is like the Son of God."
The power and spirit of God protecting
these men from the flames, and then it says…
Verse 26-28.
"Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace,
and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, ye servants of the most
high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego,
came forth of the midst of the fire. And the princes, governors, and captains,
and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose
bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither
were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar
spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego..."
And his made this decree…
Verse 30.
"Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, in the province
of Babylon."
Now the reason I give you that is
to show you not only was Daniel an uncompromising man, within these three young
compatriots of his, his friends, they would not compromise either. Not with
the word of God. Not with the law of God. Not with obedience and faith to their
God.
Now we come to chapter four, and
it's basically Nebuchadnezzar reviewing all of the things that had happened,
and then he saw a vision of a tree. The tree grew great and up into the heavens,
the birds nested in the limbs of it, and the beasts got under it for shade and
shelter, and again, Daniel came in, he heard the dream, and verse 19 of chapter
4…
Daniel 4:19.
"Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar…"
In other words that was the Babylonian
name, he didn't take it, he still stayed with Daniel.
Verse 19.
"…was astonied for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. The
king spake, and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or the interpretation
thereof, trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be
to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies."
And then he went onto tell him that
with all the greatness and all the power, you're going to be humbled, you're
going to be brought down, just as the tree was lopped down, and a band put around
it, but it's roots were left to the earth. He said, you're going to be cut down.
Your kingdom, of course, it's going to become shaky, but it will remain in tact,
but you're going have to learn the lesson for seven years, you're going to just
grovel in the grass like an animal. They say there are some tablets, some cuneiform,
and some cylindricals that do appear that Nebuchadnezzar did go into a state
of they didn't know what happened to him, but a state of insanity.
Verse 34. "And at the end of the days
I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned
unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth
for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from
generation to generation."
Boy, he had learned his lesson, he could be humbled. They say that Nebuchadnezzar
probably was one of the most, though hotheaded and a short fuse, was very considerate
and very approachable by people with a need.
Now some more time goes by. It says
Belshazzar, and you would think it was Nebuchadnezzar's son, it wasn't at all.
In the Aramaic language, and all of this from Daniel 2:4 up to Daniel 7 is in
Aramaic, which was the official language of the land. In that Aramaic language,
there is no such thing as a grandfather. It just means your ancestor, your predecessor.
So when we are talking about Belshazzar, that's not Nebuchadnezzar's son, it's
his grandson. He had other sons, Merodach, and then a son in law who was Nergal-Sharezer,
and then another son who is Nebopalina, and so they were rulers who then followed
on beyond Nebuchadnezzar.
One of those grandson's was Belshazzar,
and actually, Belshazzar is now going to bring on something else that will involve
Daniel. Again, long story short, you can read the entire thing as you read through
these, but basically what happened, they were now feasting, he called a great
feast, a great banquet, a drunken brawl, a drunken stupor they got into drinking
wine in the presence of the thousands, and while he was tasting the wine, Belshazzar…
Daniel 5:2.
"Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and
silver vessels…"
Uh oh, now here they come into play.
It was Nebuchadnezzar, his grandfather, who had taken them from Jerusalem, 605
B.C. over and put them in the treasure house there in Babylon, and so here they
are in Babylon, and he said bring forth the golden vessels. He said, I'll show
you this God and his articles are nothing.
Verse 3-6.
"Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple
of the house of God which was at Jerusalem…" by Nebuchadnezzar
his grandfather "…and the king, and his princes, his wives, and
his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold,
and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came
forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the
plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand
that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled
him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against
another."
In other words, you would say, I
was so scared, my knees were knocking. That's what's happening here with Belshazzar.
Now Belshazzar thinks he's very secure, get the scenery? He's in Babylon. Babylon,
the city of Babylon, has a wall around the city that is fourteen miles on each
side, square--fifty-six miles around Babylon. The walls were three hundred and
seventy-one feet high. They were eighty-seven feet wide. Six chariots abreast
could run around the wall, around the city of Babylon. So here he is in his
palace in Babylon, a big giant wall around him, inside there was a mote, which
you could not get into the inner wall, except through a draw bridge, which would
go over the mote, and the river Euphrates came right through the city of Babylon.
And so he in all of his confidence
thought, nobody can touch me, nobody. I'm safe and secure from anybody. No enemy
could get at me, and so he was daring to taunt God and drink out of the golden
vessels that only the priests could drink out of in the holy place, and the
hand writing on the wall wrote out the message, and so Daniel was brought in,
well, actually, he was going to kill all of the soothsayers again because they
couldn't tell him what this "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN" meant.
And so the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar,
the queen mother, who was the mother of, or would be his grandmother came and
said, hey, wait a minute, I remember a guy who told my father, Nebuchadnezzar,
his dream, and the tree, and all of these things back when, call him. Now she
said, there is a man in the kingdom in whom is the spirit of God, this is Daniel
5:11, and he will tell you, he just like you, king Nebuchadnezzar,
your, actually, your progeny, your ancestor, your predecessor, and in as much
as in an excellent spirit bring him in, verse 13...
Verse 13.
"Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said
unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity
of Judah…"
He didn't even know Daniel, so this
tells us now, Daniel was not in any position of ruler ship at this particular
point in time because they had, of course, gone through several transitional
changes, and evidently, Daniel did not have a place of responsibility, and actually,
was unknown to Belshazzar, but they brought him in, and he said, are you the
one…
Verse 14.
"I have heard of you, that the Spirit of God is in you…"
And the wise men, none of them could
tell me what it meant, but he said, if you will tell me, verse 16, then I'll
give you all kinds of gifts…
Verse 16.
"…and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom."
Now the reason that he could be third
ruler in the kingdom was, Belshazzar's father was still alive, he was actually
the king, and he had gone outside of the city to try to engage and defeat the
Persian army and couldn't and went into hiding. Here's Belshazzar, who is a
kind of co-regent or a co-king now, said I can make you third in the kingdom.
I'm just second in command, you can only be third in command, that's why he
said you'll be third in the kingdom.
And he said if you do that, I'll
give you all of these things. And Daniel said, you keep the gifts for yourself,
but then he reminds him, well, what all he'd done for Nebuchadnezzar and so
on and so on, and he said, look, as we begin to read in verse 23 at the ending
of it, he said…
Verse 23.
"…you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood
and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath
in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified."
Do you realize that applies to every
last one of us sitting here this afternoon. Our lives are in God's hands. Our
breath is in his hands, as you heard in the first message, take the breath away,
and the life for us ends, bring that life back and life will begin again, as
you heard in the sermon on the resurrection.
But he said now, here's what it means,
"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN," which merely means, as he interpreted
it…
Verse 26-28.
"…God has numbered your kingdom…you have been weighed in the
balances…your kingdom has been divided…"
And now it will be given to another, and Belshazzar gave the command they should
cloth Daniel and so on and he be third ruler in the kingdom and that very night,
Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain.
Now, let me tell you a little personal story. I never read this or hear about
it that I don't think of when I was pastoring in west Texas. This is back in
'67, '66, '67, '68. My wife said one night she awakened, I had raised up on
my elbow, and I was scratching on the wall. The next morning she told me, she
said, what were you scratching on the wall about? I said, Oh, well, I tell you
what, it was revealed to me in a dream, your days in west Texas are numbered.
Another will take your place, and of course, that was Larry Salyer, and you're
going to go a place you know nothing of whether you like it or not. Sure enough
in a few days I got a call from Rod Meredith telling me you're going north,
you're going to Cincinnati. I knew nothing about Cincinnati. I knew I didn't
want to go any further north than where I was in west Texas because it gets
cold up here, I thought, doesn't get cold here, does it Minnesota, but not here,
and so I then began to realize the handwriting on the wall meant what…what
it meant for me personally, so I think of that, when I read that it makes me
think of west Texas days.
Verse 30. "That very night Belshazzar, king
of the Chaldeans, was slain."
How do you think that happened? Behind
this wall three hundred and seventy-one feet high, eighty-seven feet across,
then there's a mote with only drawbridges as the way to get in. There's another
wall there that is guarded by centuries or guards continually, and you can't
get in. And then he, of course, is guarded by personal guards inside that, and
there are two hundred and fifty towers around with centuries in there, watching
what's going on.
King Cyrus, who was then General Cyrus of the Persian army, conceived a way
to get inside Babylon and conquer the king and take over the kingdom and the
Medo-Persian reign began. He went up to the north of the Euphrates and there
was some swamp land up there. He positioned some soldiers right at the beginning
of the wall where the Euphrates River went under the wall, and then some other
soldier down at the other side where it came out from under the wall. He said,
when you see the water stop flowing as it enters in, and you see none coming
out where it was coming out, that's the time to go through, the river bed will
be inside, and we can get right to the king, Belshazzar, and that's what happened.
He dug a channel and diverted the
water of the Euphrates into some swamp, marshland, and the waters stopped and
the Euphrates. They went into this impregnable soul, Belshazzar thought fortress,
and history says not a spear was thrown. It took them by such shock; they got
inside, and they took, and that night, as the scripture says, Belshazzar, king
of the Chaldeans, was slain. And then Darius, the Mede, received the kingdom,
being about sixty-two years old.
Now thus far, we have found that
Daniel was not afraid to go in and appear before the king and tell him exactly
what's going to happen. He
would not only not compromise his beliefs, but he was willing to tell him right
out front what God is going to do to you. Now there's going to be something
happened.
Now Darius only reigned for two years;
he was a sickly man, and he died two years later, and Cyrus came to reign, and
remember Daniel was going to go right on into the reign of Persia.
Now what happened during Darius'
short time? You know the story. If you talk about Daniel, there are two things
that usually even a little child can tell you, if they've been to, you know,
Sabbath school, Sunday school or anything. What do you think when you think
of Daniel? Oh, I remember that fiery furnace and Shadrach, Meshak, and Abed-Nego,
and they even got a song about it, and I remember Daniel and the lion's den.
That's what happened.
The sixth chapter takes you into
this account the whole story and here again, a plot is conceived against Daniel
on a way to get rid of him. See now Darius made him, as he set up his governmental
structure, the kingdom, he set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps,
in other words, governors over their provinces, to be over the whole kingdom
or they were, of course, like we'd say a president, not a president, but a captain
over the company or whatever, and over these three governors of whom Daniel
was one, and even the king, thought of making him the chief one over that, which,
of course, he came to be because this Daniel, verse 3,
remember Daniel now is eighty years old, he's lived a long time, he's like one
of my favorite scriptures of The Bible over there in Psalm
37:25, where David said…
Psalm 37:25.
"I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken,
Nor his descendants begging bread."
So Daniel at eighty still was a man
who would not compromise. And you know what happened? They came to King Darius
with trickery and talked him into making a decree that anybody would ask a petition
of any god, of anyone, outside of Darius the Mede, he would be thrown
into the lion's den. The minute Daniel heard this, he went home, went into the
upper room, the windows were open toward Jerusalem, and he got down on his knees,
and three times a day he continued to pray to his God. They said, don't pray.
Daniel says, I will pray. I won't compromise in prayer. I won't compromise in
obedience to my God, and of course, they caught him, brought the message to
Darius. Darius was heartsick because he knew they'd tricked him. They brought
Daniel before him, and he said, Daniel this God whom you trust will take care
of you. Darius was hoping against hope that the God who'd been with him for
these seventy or seventy, well, we'll say sixty-five years, since you were about
fifteen, fourteen, fifteen, will still yet see him through it.
You know what happened? They bound
him, they put him into this pit where the lions were in this den, rolled a big
stone on it, sealed it with wax, and the king signed it with his signet ring,
and so did the other henchman, the second ones who made the accusation. What
happened? The king went home, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, he didn't,
he didn't want any music, he didn't want anything. He was terribly sorry that
he let himself be tricked into such a diabolical act against a man who he'd
befriended all of these men that he had served these sixty-five years.
The next morning, King Darius came,
he could hardly wait. When they rolled back the stone, he said…
Verse 20.
"Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually,
been able to deliver you from the lions?"
Are you there? I am sure his heart
beat a little better, his breathing ceased to normalcy when Daniel said…
Verse 22.
"My God sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths…"
I am here, and he came out, and the
king, of course, was so infuriated at what these men had done, he took them
and their wives, threw them into the den of lions, and the lions broker their
bones before they ever hit the bottom of the pit.
Now you can say, they had fed them
a big meal, and the lions weren't hungry the night before. I say, God caused
them to have a good case of lockjaw, couldn't eat Daniel if they wanted to and
out of that, Daniel, of course, was brought forth and prayers and King Darius
wrote this great decree from verse 25 on through, and it says…
Verse 28.
"So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Cyrus the Persian."
It is believed that Daniel had a
big impact on King Cyrus, issuing the decree that the wandering Jews could go
home and rebuild Judah, I mean Jerusalem, the wall around it, the temple, and
restore the worship of their God.
In conclusion, look at chapter 12.
Chapter 7 on through 11 are detailed prophesies and those are messages for another
time. Let's go to the latter end of it, you know, remember in Job, it says,
the latter end of Job was better than the beginning and so it was with Daniel.
Daniel 12:1-2.
"At that time Michael shall stand up, The great prince who stands watch
over the sons of your people; And there shall be a time of trouble, Such as
never was since there was a nation, Even to that time. And at that time your
people shall be delivered, Every one who is found written in the book. And many
of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…"
As you heard Mr. Eddington say, hey,
they're not in heaven, come down, or somewhere off in nirvana or some happy
hunting ground. They're right there in the ground awaiting that time. He says…
Verse 2.
"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some
to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt."
Daniel and Revelation go hand in
hand. One of them fills in details the other one doesn't. You couldn't understand
Revelation fully without understanding Daniel, and vice versa. You can't understand
Daniel in its entirety without having the book of Revelation as its companion.
It says, they are kind of like bookends with all the other prophets in between,
they give you exactly the beginning to the end, and God's prophetic scene, but
he said, Daniel…
Verse 4.
"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."
And then he saw certain things, he
said, verse 8…
Verse 8-10.
"Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, "My lord, what
shall be the end of these things? And he said, "Go your way, Daniel, for
the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified,
made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked
shall understand…"
That's why most of this world does
not understand what we've been looking at right here in our Bible this afternoon.
Verse 10.
"…but the wise shall understand."
Who is wise? It says wisdom is the
beginning of instruction and beginning of knowledge and a good understanding
of all those who do his commandments. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. That's why Daniel feared his God and was faithful to his God.
Notice verse 13.
A couple of dates given there, we won't try to even to attempt to go to that
because I think it's still maybe some of the things sealed until the time of
the end, but notice verse 13, notice what Daniel is told. Wouldn't you like
to have this said to you at the end of your life? You Daniel, who at about ninety
years of age, at least, who had been serving God for at least those eighty,
seventy-five, eighty years or more, he said…
Verse 13.
"But you, go your way till the end…"
Now where's he going to go? He says…
Verse 13.
"…for you shall rest…"
The Moffatt translation, I think
another one or two, but you read the Moffatt translation and it's telling exactly
the sequence of what happens…
Verse 13.
"…go your way, for you shall rest in the grave and then arise to your
inheritance at the end of the days."
You read Hebrews
11 and it talks about all of the heroes of faith, and it said these
all died in faith without having received the promise, God having provided something
better that all of those men, even Daniel included and he said, you said, the
prophets, they also will be there. He said that they without us should not yet
be perfected.
What a man, Daniel, who would not compromise with the law of God, with the word
of God, with his allegiance and his obedience to God. May the spirit of God
guide us, motivate us, to be more like a Daniel.