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Chapter 6
DANIEL and the DEALING
of the DEITY
The Sufferings, the
Miracles and
the Sovereign Strategy of God
MIRACLE
AND MEANING
Daniel is
perhaps more often thought of in terms of the lions’ den and his three friends
incarcerated, for their part, in a furnace, than most other things. However,
this is worse than simplistic, and far below the superficial. For a
commencement, the form of One like the Son of God, as
also seen in Daniel 10, is notable in the furnace experience. Omitting that, is like omitting engines from a take-off flight
experience.
To
continue, the shutting of the mouths of animals – that is, the temporary
removal of their desire to kill is not unheard of, even in nature. The case of
one Christian who could – when it was called for in the wild - stroke a leopard has been mentioned
earlier; and though this was to the uttermost exceptional, remarkable and even
moving, involving tremendous self-control and many other things, it can happen.
So too has the case of a lioness SEEKING out a tender young animal, more
normally prey, to succour it, has been noted.
This is in
no slightest way to minimize the miracle. It is one thing to act discreetly in
a jungle setting with poise, however extraordinary the perception and the
practice; it is another to be THROWN into a DEN of creatures used to their
prey. It is one thing to escape in the quietness of motion and experience with
the wild, it is another to be delivered in the commotion of being cast into a
pit of lions and recovering one’s footing before being devoured, and then to
spend the night in such company. The point we are therefore making is this: it
is too easily thoughtlessly sneered, Ah! a
miracle, as if this means taking leave of your senses.
Birth is a
miracle in this, that its highly specialised paraphernalia
of womb and umbilical cord, change to breathing with lungs, removal of food
attachment, at the technical level, especially the minute level which enables
all these things so that those whose field is computing can begin to gape with
amazement at the intricacy of the programming and the staggering addition of
life: all this is a work of a specialist. Yet again, without this specialist
there would and could be neither matter nor mind, spirit nor their trilogy
combination (cf. SMR, TMR, Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Earth Spasm… Ch.
1, Spiritual Refreshings … Chs. 6, 13, 16). Books
do not write themselves, code does not compose itself for the very simple
reason that the reality of such requisition lies deep in the interstices of
what comprehends code and disposes its directives.
Yet the
term ‘miracle’ is not normally used for the staggering conceptual compositions
and practical installations of the Creator. Therefore we merely move towards it
in seeing that there are semi-permanent interpositions of the Creator, which
are the scaffolding for our souls in this world, and there are less continuous
provisions. It is all of one piece, the one like a house, the other like a
tent.
As to the
‘tents’, there should be not tension about this. It is merely a lesser act in
this, that it is not housed in a continuity. Of
course, the fact that God bothers to intrude action into a semi-permanent
series of situations and provisions, architectures and additives, this is
impressive. It is impactive and remarkable; but it is
not different from the less dramatic, except for its episodic character and the
fascinating thought – WHY did He so act
in this special case ?
That is the real question.
It is only the constant din of thoughtless if not vacuous
conformity to secular culture – aided to be sure by the diabolical aspirations
of the ultimate terrorist, the devil – which makes man fail to realise that a miracle is quite an ordinary thing IN ITS
ESSENCE, and is extraordinary only in its RATE of action. It is not often seen,
comparably with the procedures of the semi-permanent. On the other hand, it is not seldom seen. If it were not for miracles, there is no
doubt in this author’s mind, in view of countless facts of one’s past life,
that one would not be functionally intact on this earth, nor could one be
writing at this moment! Yet, it is to be admitted, however many they may be,
that they are not the normal procedure at the PHYSICAL level.
If they
were, then the settled course for the athletes of action on the earth, mankind,
and the secure laboratory for the testing of the same, the scene for the scenarios
of history would be so mobile as to be perhaps all but confusing; but God is
not the God of confusion, but of order. However, though one may purchase a
diesel car so that, despite its various limitations, it might last a long time
and minimise, comparatively, its wear and tear, yet
this does not at all mean that it is strange or exotic if a mechanic ever works
on it!
Permanence is only relative to the PURPOSE of the
permanence, and the action of intervention is only strange if one thinks in a
magical sort of way, instead of simply realising that
God – and man follows Him in this – makes some things comparatively permanent
in their settings and situations, some less so, and some creations and
situations are matters of intervention expressly, though by no means
continually. Further, in the interpersonal realm, we read Psalm 145:18-19 and
Mark 11:23-24, so that there is even further provision for the call, as of a
lamb to the shepherd, which reaches within the gates of the celestial, to call
forth a response.
That is a permanent structural incorporation in the
covenant, assuredly; but all His ways are foreknown (Isaiah 46:10, Ephesians
Thus you make a bridge, such as that over the
Again, if there is some collision at some level of its
altitude, this may require immediate intervention to protect the continuity of
the whole.
So in life: there may be some things which require continual
oversight, though so crafted is the structure called man, and so remarkable the
capacities of his spirit for inter-communion with God, that this is more likely
to be a spiritual matter than physical. Nevertheless, an accident, or a gross
wearing in some part, or some disorder, such as occurred in this author’s eye
condition some years ago, miraculously repaired, may make action, in this case
DIVINE action, necessary on pain of loss.
If then an engineer arrives at
The human being is a construction. It is not so VERY
permanent. It can cease operation if someone grabs a windpipe, via the outer
flesh, for a few minutes. Nevertheless it can go on with remarkable facility
for 70 or 80 years, and currently the thought of some who are now 80 years old, doing strong things is not so unusual. This author at
73-74 was writing (admittedly with exceedingly much divine assistance in spirit
and mind, and help in body) some one million words per year.
Yet all
this capacity or capacitation, can be rubbed out with one stroke. ONE defect can end the
operation of the physical whole. A small condition can develop,
a heart attack can leave the body, just now expressing the healthy humour of the active resident of this earth, in a moment,
on the floor, in a few more, dead. The spirit departs, but the body is dead.
The pianist is to meet the grand master of music, but the piano is fallen (cf.
SMR pp. 316Dff., It Bubbles… Ch. 9, Little Things Ch.
5).
Less dramatic things like arthritis can bring motion to an
almost paralysed still. How quickly does the
His semi-permanent structure is vulnerable to such a point,
that its normal continuance for 70 or more years is the more obvious testimony
to the supra-genius of its construction. It is light-weight, heavy duty and
moves in its three dimensions with a facility that leaves one frankly staggered
as one sees its artistic marvels, its literary depositions, its symbolic
masterpieces and … its tenacious obscurantism in this generation, in much of
its thought. In such mode,
totalitarianism, humanism, secularism and evolutionism work like
so many rust factors on the iron of man’s matrix. In the grip of such plagues,
many become dead and men do not realise it: this was
the comment on religious, meaning- muddle and error which Christ made of some
(Luke
There is a life of the mind, of the spirit, and these two
closely cohere, and of the body. Death is not merely NON-operation, but a
dysfunction in any realm, so total that the entire purpose of the structure or
facility is now a gaunt substitute for function. It is a husk. It is there; but
there is no longer any seed.
This then
brings us to a further facet in miracles. There is a realm of the human spirit
which is consciously present to most of us, in which the baleful, baneful,
besotted, brilliant, clear, the heady, the happy is so conspicuous that the
results of these things at the mere level of efficiency of thought and action,
is rather obvious and often reflected on psychologically, medically or
mentally. That is merely the fashion of the matrix as it moves. However there
is far more than this. There is the interchange with the minds and spirits of
others, and then that with the Maker of the matrix and spirit which uses it.
When this is an alien relationship, this has two immediate results (cf.
Ephesians
First,
there is a LOSS of divine correlation in terms of happy comradeship and the
implements of spiritual power for spiritual task, which of course will often
involve the mental and the physical as well, as implements and procedural
postings. That is, the knowledge of God is missing, and it is not merely
factual, but personal, and results of this can be procedural and even processive as He acts in His own ways. That on the other
hand, may lead to divine impacts and involvements well before the end, and
these too form a kind of interposition (cf. Jeremiah 31:18-22, Isaiah 48:16ff., with their abundant pathos, the former with a hope
for the end).
Secondly,
there is a DISTANCING of the likelihood of divine interposition, direct
miracle, in the sense of caring for one’s household (cf. Psalm 1:6).
Thirdly,
there is a confusion likely to arise - as with those who deaf, never hear, when
finer points of musical appreciation arise (new limits occur) - about the modes
of operation of the Almighty in man. This is intended in no sense to delimit
these, for that is forbidden and foolish both (Psalm 78:41).
It is
however to APPREHEND in measure, that there are – if not gradations, for the
thing is spiritual, then – measures and functions of a vast variety. The Lord
might merely STIMULATE one to apprehend something, or STIR one to act, or
AROUSE thought or ENABLE physical endurance, or ILLUMINATE with direct vision
of things obscure, or cast a sort of lightning of apprehension into a dull
area, fashion thought or expose as a simple thing, a vast array which had
seemed perhaps rather a muddle; He may stir the body to new heights, enable the
apparently broken, or give a keenness both of mind and of spirit which is a
kind of health, on the one hand, and yet a steering and oaring of the boat of
life, on the other.
DEFINITION
FOR THE OCCASION
Where
precisely in all this, then, is the MIRACLE! For definitional clarity, it might
be best to suggest some criterion.
v
If
there is the normal comradeship to which the Christian has access
v
(and
Robert Bruce, famous statesman but more precisely Presbyterian Minister in
Scotland in the 16th century and its opportunities and vagaries is a
good example of this cf. Ephesians 1:17-19, Micah 3:8, Isaiah 6, II Timothy
4:8, II Corinthians 1:3-4,9-11, Jeremiah 20:11, Acts 8:26ff., Ephesians 3:16,
Matthew 28:19-20),
v
and
since this has results in power and performance,
v
when does what specifically is to be called ‘miracle’ arise ?
The facts
are clear; but the terminology may need some refinement. IF ANY supernatural
involvement with the spirit or mind or body of a man/woman/child is to be
termed a ‘miracle’, then this writer has miracles virtually daily. That however
would be to distinguish the normal (in spiritual life as a Christian) into the
unusual, and hence could cause confusion.
Hence we
would use the term ‘miracle’, for the
purposes here of clarity, of what is not just the action of the divine Creator
and Redeemer in the life of the Christian, or for that matter the maintenance
in normal terms of various equipments made for the world or for man, the former
adding a (relatively) unusual but still spiritually normative dimension for
those who walk with the Lord. The term ‘miracle’ then, for clarity, could be reserved for what, whether in the Christian or
the non-Christian, for those with the habitual comradeship of the Lord in terms
of covenant received, or without it, constitutes
a DIRECT ACTION which is in no sense normative, whether for the one or the
other.
MIRACLES
AND HISTORY: CO-EXISTENCE BUT NOT CONVERGENCE
In the
case, then of Daniel, which is being considered, the lion case is a miracle.
Its timing, its conditions, its case, the precise purpose of the lions and
their den, their expectation and so on, together no doubt with the level of
hunger induced in order to increase their destructive efficiency, all these
things constitute this a miracle. He lived through the night, rewarding the
anxious king with his God-praising presence; for the sovereign had spent a
restless night, afraid of losing a man of God so outstanding, because of the
subtle intrigue of the courtiers in their envy, for which they paid with death.
Yet even
here, let us try to see the context of Daniel’s life, for although miracle this
is, stunning it is not. The Lord has simply AMPLIFIED the DEGREE of PHYSICAL
action, beyond the norm: He has not here started what does not happen at all.
It is necessary to realise that the sort of renewal
noted in Isaiah 40:27-31 is itself miraculous, except in our current
definition; that it is if not constant, yet frequent, so that it would be
marginally miraculous, being nearer to a renewal
course. Yet in terms of supernatural intervention, however available, it is in any
usual sense, certainly miraculous.
Let us then
remind ourselves of this provision for the children of God:
Ø “Why do you say, O Jacob,
o
And speak, O Israel:
o
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
o
And my just claim is passed over by my God”?
Ø “Have you not known?
o
Have you not heard?
o
The everlasting God, the Lord,
o
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
o
Neither faints nor is weary.
o
His understanding is unsearchable.
Ø “He gives power to the
weak,
o
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
Ø “Even the youths shall
faint and be weary,
o
And the young men shall utterly fall,
Ø But those who wait on the
Lord
o
Shall renew their strength;
o
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
o
They shall run and not be weary,
Ø
They shall walk and not faint.”
This, from
one’s own experience, is quite distinct from normal psychological review,
distancing from a scene in order the better to comprehend it, facilitation in
some way, invigoration through review of purposes or aims and so on. It is an
enabling that is concrete in kind, absolute in disposition, spiritual in lustre and quality, mental and physical in result, that
leads to all that is needed, and then more, so that one is like a car, not
merely greased, oiled and fitted with new air filter, but given a new engine.
It is transformatory rather than ameliorative.
It is of
the quality that relates naturally to the supernatural, quietly to the Maker
and efficaciously to the task which HE HAS IN MIND; for that is one of the
apparent conditions in which this occurs. YOU have a task which HE has given
you; and in the process, THIS is the provision. There are things to be done,
results to be achieved, things to be changed, events
to be secured. Before they seemed but dim hopes; now they are arrow-attracting
targets.
Of course,
this is not to demean the personal, for the Lord made the personal, but the
person who is obeying God, as Peter told the rebellious religionists of his day,
to Him the Spirit of God is given (Acts 5:31). It is not that the servants of
the Lord who may be for a time disobedient (like Jonah) are not helped; but
there is a certain constraint between ‘coach’ and ‘athlete’ which is palpable
in such a case!
Miraculous
as these things undoubtedly are, in any usual sense, we are excluding them here
lest the singular character of the miraculous be terminologically submerged in
the matters before us.
For Daniel
in the lions’ den, this then was both a miracle, and an
escalation to unusual heights of the normal experience as he walked with the
Lord. It is equipped on the one hand, with a measure of continuity in that the
Lord is so habitually active in one’s life, but on the other, this is a realm
of action which by its very nature, is select, original and distinctive. It
thus doubly qualifies as miracle, both on the one definition and the other; but
not as in quality weird, strange or outlandish. It is a kiss instead of a hug.
In this country, we do not socially kiss so very often, but may hug more
frequently!
DANIEL’S
FRIENDS
So too is
the case with Daniel’s friends. Their disposition with Daniel, was intense,
cordial with the Lord, expectant of action by Him as the case might require,
one of fervent loyalty the God of Israel, to the living God, and their
self-discipline and diligence was not the less notable because Daniel himself
was so extraordinarily zealous and practical, wise and apprehending in the
Lord, as if tutored direct, which in no small measure he was.
Their trial
was different from that of Daniel. For them, it was a simple case of the mad
paranoia of a monarch leading to a few steps, as so often seen in the last
hundred years of our own times, so that he might be the better appreciated. The
Red Book of Mao, the Green Book of Hussein, the power over Nature (which of
course did not materialise for the materialist) of
Stalin (cf. SMR p. 883), the disrupted
havens of earthly heavens (cf. SMR pp. 971,
*13), instituted by force, and distinguishable by acute suffering, the master
race of Hitler, the master mace of continually anti-verified humanism and its
portentous pretensions (cf. SMR pp. 1008-1011):
all this carnal confusion is second nature culturally today.
It is
abysmal in folly and irrational in type. So was Nebuchadnezzar who became a
type for the end of such things… except that in his case, it may be that it
finally came, through corrosion and corruption, to contrition.
With the
young Jews, it was not a case of a Little Red Book, for his Nebs, but a golden
statue to which all should bow. That was quite enough, but the case was most
blessedly simple. The peoples (ALL peoples of course, so grand)
were to fall down and WORSHIP the golden image, as so many do today,
sacrificing all for the notable financial security and wiles that lead to their
(temporary) survival and that (temporary, transient or vacant) of their dynasty
to come, if it escapes drugs and those mature delinquencies which are their own
gods, without power or glory. In such ways, they often seek to forward the
establishment of the disestablished, and life for the
dead.
Worship ?
of gold ? What madness is this! Ah! but
the case of the King here is that of an IMAGE of gold, a crafted thing, a
representative thing, a contrived and created thing, like man, but without
spirit or DNA. It is of course the worship of what the STATE directs which is
in question, and that implies the worship first of all of the State or its King
or both (Louis XIV ‘solving’ any dilemma in this by allegedly declaring, “L’Etat, c’est moi!” How personal a
king!
How can man
be worshipped whether in his bee-hive of state, or his ant-hill of industry ? Ridiculous, there is nothing there! Daniel’s
friends had no intellectual, spiritual or moral problem. The thing royally
commanded COULD not be done, any more than can one find any square root to
minus 1. You can imagine it, but it isn’t there. It is a contradiction in
terms. So is the worship of man, not of God.
The King
sought to be kindly. They had not fallen down to worship, was it this that he
told by report ? Very well, then came his response. In
the spiritual insanity of his mode and his mood, he advised them in haste to do
as required in the next opportunity, to fall down and worship the image; but if
not, then the full weight of State power would be disposed against them in the
format of a fiery furnace of escalating temperature.
Their
answer is all but as much miracle, as the result. It has savour,
is sufficient and terse. After all, to what are they replying
? Did not the king expressly state or indicate that there was no god who
could deliver them!
This made
it relatively easy (in principle but not for practice)! It was that delicious
and quite delightful case where it is expressly STATED or clearly implied that
there is NO GOD who can deliver from this. Here is a beautiful situation! A god
who is not there is to be worshipped to supply the rank and rancid surrealism
of a man and his State; and it is asserted that the God who is there is not so,
and so cannot act. Glorious opportunity! These parallel propositions, like a
railway line, allow for fast travel.
The situation
and the challenge is seized by the three friends of
Daniel with relish.
Let us read
it:
Ø “O Nebuchadnezzar, we
have no need to answer you in this matter.
Ø “If that is the
case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery
furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.
Ø “But if not, let it be
known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods,
nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
Now it is
not that God will assuredly preserve them from death, who
allowed and indeed planned the sure death of His own Son in order to express
His love for mankind in terms practical and through redemption thus composed,
clad with effective power. The divine dynamic there was not to escape pain, nor
even death, but
to use it, overcome it, and produce and proclaim liberty from its source, in
the name of the One who suffered, the Christ.
As we have
just finished seeing in the book of Job, for suffering, there are many purposes
and depths! However, that GOD can turn even death to the advantage of life, has long been clear. From divinely imparted wisdom,
according to God’s own word, only good can come. They refuse the threat. They
will not bow. There is no need to answer
in this matter! There is a beauty like that fragrance of daphne, in that declaration to the king! It is not merely
pious, not constrained with fear, not apprehensive, not a
mere form. It is immediate, sanctified, sure and steadfast, governed not
by obstinacy but by insight, not by self-will but by divine directive.
The refusal
is wonderful; but in one aspect, it is the lesser of the matter. It is the WAY
in which they refused it which is glorious. Let us therefore examine it more closely.
THE
ANSWER THAT SINGS
“O
Nebuchadnezzar,” they
cry, with that nice personal approach to the man behind the sovereignty, for
that is all he is, “we have no need to answer you in this matter.” They
are young, but we do not have here to hear excuses of immaturity and the like.
The case is too foolish to need deep thought, and the affront to God is too
obvious to require from such men with such a sustained and substantial
testimony as theirs (they had been elevated to high position in the State following
Daniel’s dream interpretation through the express and recognised
power of God, as in Daniel 2:46-48), to give a reason. They merely therefore
DECLARE NO!
They
proceeded for clarity a little. “If that is the case,
our God whom we serve is able to deliver us form the burning fiery furnace …,” they retorted. As to power, there is no problem:
that of God is infinite, nor does He die as men do (Revelation 1:18-19, Psalm
90:2, 102:26-27 cf. SMR Ch. 1, Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ,
Ch. 8). There is no terminus to His rule, nor is any
translocation of forces relevant. HE IS ABLE.
That
established in front of the self-proclaiming idiocies of the State and its
sovereign on that occasion, they proceed “ …and He will
deliver us form your hand, O king.” This is now a practical fact. They
WILL be delivered from the power of the king. As with Paul’s ascription to God
in Philippians 1:20-21 and in II Timothy 4:18, his earnest expectation of
deliverance from evil, whether it be by life or by death is comparatively
indifferent: so here is it so, except of
course God wants them to live to testify for Him any longer.
One way or
the other, there will be no crushing of their spirits, no sustainable
distortion of their words, no doubt about where they stand, with whom or why.
Let the State power roll on to its dastardly limits! Even today, as in
But what of
those Islamic countries where submission is the fiasco of the State, when
religions have it in its power, any indeed such as this religion
? What of the deaths, murders, imprisonments and the like, for one word
which is DEEMED detrimental to Muhammad or whatever associations may be
prescribed by the State! It is one and the same: a creation of man, an idol
without warrant or background, a thing of force is substituted for the living
God, and as it has been instituted, by force, so it is to be maintained.
Yet what
has this to do with the truth, or the lives of men! (cf. More Marvels … Ch. 4). The terrorists extend the process from internal to
a State, to external to the world, to use force instead of truth, and violence
instead of virtue, to extinguish instead of create, though the mere attestation
of force, the power to move matter at a certain
acceleration is entirely irrelevant to truth.
Does a
larger sports car engine in some way sanctify the driver when he crashes into
some other car which from behind, he has been menacing ?
Daniel’s
friends were unimpressed with force.
However, they realised that in the DIVINE
STRATEGY, God having given certainty regarding their deliverance, whether as
with Paul by life or by death, just as they served ONLY Him with worship and
final mastery in their lives: there was the possibility He might elect death.
In that case, it would make no difference: God is God and they were His, so
that the refusal is untainted by such outcomes.
Thus they
continued: “But if not, let it be known to you, O
king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which
you have set up” – Daniel
Whatever the terrestrial outcome (and men die in the end, till Christ
come), the incineration of their bodies or otherwise, they still will not
acknowledge what is not, or worship what is a mirage. How could they! “We have no need to answer you in this matter …”
One is
reminded in this case of a person of another race in this country, whose wife
was reportedly asked if she would like him to steal someone’s car battery in
order the better to meet financial needs.
“I am not even going to answer that!”
she replied, or words to this effect. Since the man concerned was quite capable
of becoming both drunk and violent, and the culture tended to be submersive of women, that was no
small answer.
That too is
evidently what Nebuchadnezzar thought.
Not mere male dominance but royal rule and state worship, all were at
stake. The furnace was given an almost incendiary combustion level, for its
surrounds, so that those casting the three young men into the fire died.
PARALLELS
AND PORTENTS
It is important
however to realise that shrouded though this may be
in drama, and expectant as the reader may be of some description of a
mini-Auschwitz, of an incendiarism both horrific and
remorseless, this is merely an extension of everyday life for these men. Their
will and their way was with God. Daily this or that
decision, loss, affront, confrontation had to be met as they served the
invisible but intensely powerful king, in the adventures of a divine love and
faithfulness, the object of which was certainly not mere survival on this earth
for a little while longer, any more than the object of a captain is that his
men stay on the field as long as possible.
This ‘game’
involves truth and the pardon of God, the good news of divine comradeship on a
covenantal basis, involving the sacrifice of the Messiah (as Daniel touched on
it also in 9:23ff.); and the continuation for a little longer of a given
servant on this earth, on the basis that the rules should be broken, this was
not a criterion of service or situation alike.
Hence as
these men are cast into the fire, with this record and this contest, it is not
entirely unlike the Mt Carmel experience of Elijah (I Kings 18:20ff.). It is
epochal, and it is being wrought on the bodies of men who were faithful among the
many exiles taken forcibly to
Would it be
so, in this
case ? It was an open question, but what was sure was this, that their
testimony and frank faithfulness to the living, active and abundantly validated
God, exceedingly verified in His utterance, even to the point of the then
current predicament of the Jews themselves in Babylon, absent from their own
land as warned they would be, for 70 years (Jeremiah 25): this would be
effective. It was so with those who were slain by the Auca
Indians, and made the more so when Elizabeth Elliot,
the wife of one, went back with pardon for the murderers of her husband in her
heart, to help many to find the Lord, for they were amazed at such a response!
With
Daniel’s friends, God acted. He did far more. He made use of the situation to
reveal the actual presence of the fourth man, or one who looked like the Son of
God (Daniel
How
precisely verified in this epochal situation was Isaiah 64:5! How joyfully
ardent their demeanour, how arduously perfect was
their deliverance!
THE DIVINE STRATEGY ATTESTED
The king’s
response came in vigorous terms. It included the idea of bringing demolition to
the house of any breaching his decree. What was the force of his edict ? Woe betide any who would
dare speak a word against the God of these young men! This was perhaps nearly
as undiscerning as his assault on their persons! It made a secular rule out of
a spiritual reality. However, to the extent it gave protection to freedom of
expression, so daunted in Victoria, and perhaps in some danger in this State as
in many another as men trade, alas, what is more important for what is less,
and make man, though unmeasured, the
measure of all things: it did well.
When
therefore later, Daniel was also delivered from the lion’s den, is there a
feeling of a miraculous highway ? Not
at all. These are TWO instances, the dream a THIRD, for a period of
seventy years. Further, although there is a fourth, in the case of Belshazzar, Daniel was in no danger in that case, and it
only led to more testimony and more honour. A fifth
vision came as in Daniel 10. That is no incredible number; but the strategy of
it all is vast.
After all,
this did not only concern four young men, for they were representatives of the
best talent of Israel, squandered when it had its own independence, in the case
of many misused lives, but here sanctified as the people suffered their divine
rebuke. When the God of Israel IN THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES was verbally demeaned,
and made to appear subservient in reality to the ludicrous protestations of the
State on its own behalf, the State which God Himself had appointed to
discipline Israel (Jeremiah 38:17ff.): then as at Mt Carmel, God might well
decide to act.
Further, He
had promised to be as ‘a little sanctuary’ to
How long of
course, it is till Christ returns is unknown. Those who recall The
Sound of Music may remember the performer who, just before the escape
of the von Trapps, was bowing seemingly interminably
to right and left, after receiving a minor prize. While she did, they escaped
from behind the concert hall. What of this world as its destiny creeps up like
an assassin ? but in fact
like judgment! Time is escaping now, and how long the finale will take before
the curtains fall is STATEDLY unpredictable (Acts 1:7ff.), and that for no
strange reason (Matthew 24:29ff.), since the faithful are to be found operative
in integrity, not coached, crammed, primed for merely superficial performance
concerning a known date.
The signals
however are in place, the flags of communication are flapping meaningfully in
the wind, for those who care to consult the symbols and interpret their message
(Answers
to Questions Ch. 5). The time is “near” (Luke
Our point
however remains, that then as now, Israel, in both cases following profound
disobedience to the Lord whose they were as a nation (cf. Joshua 24), has been
used to demonstrate the power of God. It is not easy to do this when the people
are themselves, as a whole, disobedient; and school teachers
can reflect on the difficulty of bringing out a good result from a poor
student. However with God all things are possible, and so very possible that He
even divulges to mankind, much of His divine strategy before events, the more
impressively to maintain them before men when they happen (cf. Isaiah 48).
The case
with the three young wisdom cadets in
It is
profoundly pleasant to see depicted an aged Daniel (as in Daniel 10), a little
after the famed and predicted (Isaiah 44-45) liberation message of Cyrus of
Persia, one which allowed the Jews to return to their land, the 70 years duly
completed as announced prophetically in advance’ He is seen sitting on the bank
of a river. To him, arrested by grace, vision is again granted.
The whole
history had already unfolded, to the extent that the Jews were driven out of
their land, the young men had grown old in the service of God in this strange
land, a kingdom had gone as predicted (Daniel 5), both on the spot and far earlier
in Isaiah (13), the dreams of the king had been interpreted. Further, history
to come had thus been focussed at the highest level
of attention, before a whole court, when the vision exposed the nature of
kingdoms to come, and this had been expended in detail as in Daniel 7 and 9.
Now, as Daniel sits there, the degradation of Nebuchadnezzar is over, and his
restoration with a ringing testimony to God on his lips (Daniel 4:34ff.): it is
all past.
TWILIGHT
AND ETERNAL LIGHT
On the river
bank he sits and is given now a vast canvas of history. This quiet event
following the day of Darius when Daniel predicted the (now fulfilled) death
date of the Messiah (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), as in Daniel 9:24-27, yes and the dereliction He
was to suffer, is before us. But why was the Messiah so to suffer (Daniel
Daniel at
this time has been fasting for three weeks. It is now in the day of Cyrus, a
while after the first consignment of Jews have returned, that this elder
statesman and prophet of the Lord is told of God’s own love for him, and given
an overview of history of the most amazing kind, accurate as ever, precise and
ultimate, leading to the very resurrection (Daniel 10-12). This has been
pondered in detail in Highway of Holiness Ch. 10, with other perspective overviews.
The end of
this account, in Ch. 12 includes the famed predictions of the excessive travel
and the vast increments of knowledge to be characteristic of the final stage of
the Age, before the resurrection.
In all
these ways, one sees precisely the frequency of the supernatural divulgements
to Daniel (though these are not so frequent as to make the 70 year period in
the slightest degree alien to normal historical venues), the intensity of the
divine solicitude, the care of God over His people, the ruthlessness of man
without God or without the living God. With this cardinal omission, man is seen
proceeding down the line of revealed history, in the vision of Danniel. What is he doing en masse, en bloc ?
He is merely following the cultural accretions of his own mind and sullenly
dignifying them with the name of their Creator.
But what of
the action and intrusion of God, on various occasions, relative to Daniel:
these are not so seldom found as to make the matter an oddity, nor yet so often
as to make courage and constancy, patience and purity a mere additive.
Here then
is the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, the power of God and the
knowledge of God all combined, this time, not in Paul but in Daniel. The
similarities are profound. In each case, you have someone called, consecrated
and zealous; tested, tried and
threatened with death, exposed; and just as Paul was left for dead after being
stoned (Acts 14:19-20), so Daniel was left, as far as the mere connivers were
concerned, for death by violence. They were guileful terrorists of their own
day, and they fell at the wrath of the King, when God intervened to deliver
Daniel. None delivered them, and they
had evidently sold their souls for nothing but shame, a poor exchange, and a
dim one in the presence of light which instead of sharing, they envied! (Cf. The
YOU, God
said to Daniel (
You will
observe that INTIMACY of the knowledge of God, whether in guidance as for
Philip (Acts 8), spiritual sustenance as for Paul (II Cor.
1, 12), for reinforcement as for David (Psalm 30,35),
assurance (Psalm 16, II Timothy
Then, as
for the much displaced world of today, all this is strongly immersed in a day
of suffering, yet not one without deliverance, nor yet is the deliverance
without meaning or portent, impact or teaching, to help those who do not
believe to find the way, and those who do to rejoice the more! The power in the
frankly miraculous for God’s people is not so much mere power, as an extension
of a continual oasis, in the occasional dimensions of a geyser. The principle
is there: and it is the same.
God is
personal, and moves in all these various ways; so that not only are all the
books of the Bible of one message, one mind, one set of symbols, one set of
meanings for those symbols, one way of salvation since the Fall; but this is
itself a type of more.
God Himself
is One, not only in number, as one Being, but constant in His faithfulness; for
whether it be suffering or miracle, deliverance or drama, the knowledge of Him
is to be embraced by all these things in their way, as He dispenses, now an
examination, now a test, now a grim drama, now a great light, now a testing
seething clime, and now a peace which passes all understanding which comes like
the evening, in its own habitual glory, the joy of the setting sun glinting on
the rivers of His reality as one prepares to end the day.