Let's turn now to the book of Daniel,
Daniel chapter 1.
Daniel I believe is a book that has
special relevance for times of persecution, how a
man of God should conduct himself in times
of persecution.
And we see here in Daniel that the
restoration and the movement from Babylon, from corrupt
compromising Christendom to Jerusalem, to God's perfect will
and the new covenant church begins with one
man.
It begins with one upright man called Daniel
who is uncompromising and who prays and fasts
and is concerned about God's purposes.
He never knew what would be the result
when he started out as a young man,
but because he was faithful, he was probably
around 17 years old when the book begins
in chapter 1.
And by the time he finishes, he's about
90 years old.
He lived through the entire 70 years of
captivity.
And you find in chapter 9 that he's
praying because the 70 years are over.
And he was the man whom God used
to begin the process and it all began
through prayer.
See, the building of a pure church for
God in any place in this land or
anywhere always begins with at least one man
who has a burden of prayer and who
carries that burden before God.
Lord, I want a pure church in this
town.
Maybe God's called you to work in a
village or any place.
And if you have a burden in your
heart, Lord, I want a pure church in
this village or this town for you.
And I'm willing to pay any price.
And you carry that burden before God.
You may have to carry it for a
long, long time, many years perhaps.
And God will test your faithfulness.
But just like a mother carries a baby
in her womb, we got to carry something
before God in prayer.
And that's how Daniel carried this burden in
his heart, which finally resulted in other people,
Haggai, Zerubbabel, Joshua, Zechariah, Ezra, Nehemiah, many of
these people who finally went and built the
church.
Daniel was too old to go then, but
he was the man who started the ball
rolling.
So he's a great challenge to us in
our time.
And also he's an example for us as
to how to stand for God in a
heathen land.
Daniel was in a heathen land without compromising,
how to gather other people who will not
compromise.
Not to gather everybody, for he gathered only
three people, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which was
their Babylonian names.
They had other Jewish names, which we are
not so familiar with.
But he gathered only a few.
That was a church in Babylon, a church
of four people, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
But those four people influenced that country more
than all the other hundreds and thousands of
Jews who were there, because of one reason,
all the others compromised.
And these four did not.
Don't think that you can influence a village
or a country by numbers.
Four people who stand for God influenced a
country.
So the message that comes through all these
prophets, that it is not by numbers, it's
not by power or by might, says the
Lord, but by my spirit.
God is looking for men who are upright
and who will not compromise.
I want to show you two verses here.
One of the key words in the book
of Daniel is vision.
God needs men of vision.
It occurs a number of times, over 30
times in the book of Daniel.
But two phrases I want you to see,
which describe certain principles in Daniel's life.
First of all, the phrase, the Lord gave,
in verse two, it's referring to Nebuchadnezzar, the
Lord gave him victory.
But many times it occurs, the Lord gave
Daniel favor.
So the first truth we learn here is
again, like in Ezekiel, of the sovereignty of
God.
We saw that in the first chapter of
Ezekiel.
And here we see in the first chapter
of Daniel, the sovereign rule of God who
determines that Nebuchadnezzar should now get power over
Jerusalem and teach them a lesson.
The second verse, the second phrase is in
verse eight.
He made up his mind, Daniel, not to
defile himself.
He decided that I am not going to
compromise.
Now these are two factors that we need
to bear in mind in a time of
persecution.
One, even if a heathen king like Nebuchadnezzar,
who doesn't know God, is in control of
his situation, remember, it's the Lord who has
allowed it.
Like it says, the Lord gave him victory.
The Lord gives certain people victory in the
elections or in a war.
And we recognize the sovereignty of God in
allowing certain people to rule.
Okay, Nebuchadnezzar knew nothing about God.
And the rulers of our country may know
nothing about God also.
But in that country, God has people like
Daniel, like you and me.
And what is our calling?
To believe in the sovereignty of God that
has established this rule and to determine that
we will not defile ourselves.
We will not allow our conscience to be
defiled by any sin.
As soon as we are aware of sin,
we confess it, cleanse it away, apologize, set
things right.
We will not compromise at any cost.
We will not seek to please any man.
We will not seek to please Nebuchadnezzar.
We will not seek to please his authorities.
We will submit to them.
But we will not compromise our convictions, even
if we have to lose our head.
That is what we learn from Daniel.
And we know the story, so I don't
need to go into it in detail.
Daniel made up his mind and his first
test was in relation to food.
The first test that came to Adam and
Eve was in relation to food.
The first test that came to Jesus in
the wilderness was in relation to food.
The first temptation mentioned there.
That's very interesting.
What is it going to be your attitude
to tasty food if it means compromise of
God's principles?
Esau lost the birthright because of food.
Isaac lost his spiritual vision because he loved
the tasty food that Esau brought.
There are many, many, many warnings in scripture
about people who are lovers of food missing
out on God's will.
Daniel determined, God has said this type of
meat is not to be eaten.
There are certain laws, we studied that in
Leviticus 11.
And he said, I'm not going to eat
it.
I'm not going to drink this wine.
And in the beginning, he stood alone.
There were many other Jews who were there
and Daniel stood alone.
And when verse 11, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah,
that was the old names of Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego.
When they saw one man taking a stand
for God, they got courage to join him.
Now, if Daniel had not taken a stand,
we would never have heard about Hananiah, Mishael
and Azariah.
Because, you know, among Christians, I find there
are three types of people.
One is the out and out compromisers.
That is in thousands and millions today.
And then a second group is those like
Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, who don't have the
courage to stand on their own, but who
are willing to take a stand if somebody
else takes a stand on his own.
That's the second group.
There's a much smaller, very, very few.
And then you have the third group, which
is still smaller.
It's like the outer court and the holy
place and the most holy place in the
tabernacle.
And this you may find one person here
and one person there, like Daniel, who will
take a stand even if nobody takes a
stand.
I believe in India, in many, many places,
there are a number of people like Hananiah,
Mishael and Azariah, who want to take a
stand for God, for a pure testimony for
the Lord in their locality, but who don't
have the courage to stand on their own.
They are waiting for a Daniel.
And when a Daniel comes to that village
or that town, then these people will come
together and gather around him.
And if a Daniel never comes to that
place, these people will live and die without
being a pure testimony for the Lord.
So what is the challenge in our country?
God is looking for Daniels, who determine in
their heart, I will not defile myself.
And when they take a stand, they will
draw automatically the Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
If you don't believe me, try it out.
We've seen it happen in many, many places
in this land.
God looks for a man first.
And if he cannot find a man, it'll
always be confusion.
And also we have seen in different places
in our land.
God looks for a man who does not
seek his own, who's not interested in anything
for himself, who's willing to lose his life.
Maybe a young man.
He was only 17 years old.
Think that God could choose a man who's
17 years old and make him a prophet.
Make him take a stand.
And these other people may have been older
than Daniel, but they joined him.
They recognized him as their leader.
And Daniel had that faith.
We read in verse 12, he says to
the king's authority there, you can test us
for 10 days.
I have faith.
If I eat vegetables and water, I'll be
better off than all these other people who
are eating the rich food.
He had that faith.
And it's important that God finds people who
have, who can make this confession of faith.
And at the end of 10 days, exactly
like he said, they looked, verse 15, healthier
and better than everybody else.
Now, verse 15, we see God supernaturally giving
them power for health in their body.
In verse 17, we read God blessing them
in with intelligence for their mind.
And these four men had an unusual aptitude
for learning literature and science.
And God gave them special ability, gave Daniel
special ability in understanding the meaning of visions
and dreams.
That is spirit.
So in those verses, we see God supernaturally
enabling them for body, soul, and spirit.
And I believe we need to trust God
to give us health in our body, intelligence
in our mind to understand his ways, and
spiritual vision, supernaturally by the Holy Spirit.
Now we go to chapter 2.
I'm not going to go into all the
details, just point out a few verses here
and there.
Here we read about this dream that Nebuchadnezzar
had.
And Nebuchadnezzar calls the astrologers and tells them,
tell me what is the meaning of this
dream.
And those astrologers are a picture of preachers
who have no touch with God.
They are deceivers.
They cannot interpret God's word correctly.
They cannot interpret the times correctly.
And so they say, well, only the gods
can explain all this.
Verse 11, nobody living among men can do
all this.
This is an impossible thing.
How in the world can we know what
you dreamt?
But you tell us the dream and then
we will explain it to you.
You tell us the dream.
Now you know that when somebody tells you
a dream, you can cook up any interpretation
you like and give that and pretend that
you are in touch with God.
Like a lot of preachers today, pretend to
be in touch with God.
Just take a verse and give whatever interpretation
they like to it and say, this is
what God says.
But Nebuchadnezzar was a shrewd fellow.
He says, if you fellows are really in
touch with God, you should be able to
tell the dream also.
Absolutely right.
And in a true servant of God, there's
a certain element of the supernatural.
If you are truly anointed by God, you
will never, you will have experiences in your
ministry where you go to a place where
you don't know anybody and you preach God's
word.
And it will be exactly according to the
need of some people sitting there that they
will almost think that somebody came and told
you about their problems.
See, this is the element of prophecy that
we need to have in our ministry.
We got to seek for it, earnestly desire
prophecy.
And Daniel, when he heard about this, we
find that he was calm.
He handled the situation, verse 14, with great
wisdom, young man, 17, 20 years old, perhaps
with great wisdom.
Do you have to make mistakes when you're
young?
Some people say, well, young people always make
mistakes.
Well, Daniel didn't.
We don't read of a single wrong thing
that Daniel did in his entire life.
He was a unique man, somewhat like Joseph,
another young man about whom almost nothing wrong
is recorded.
Daniel was another young man.
Why don't you make these young people your
examples and say, Lord, I don't have to
do the foolish things other young people do.
I want to follow the examples of these
men who lived in humility and the fear
of God.
And right from youth, they lived in uprightness.
I must say that it's very rare to
find such young people.
Most young people that I have found, even
in our own churches, do a lot of
stupid, foolish things, mainly because they don't submit
to their elders.
They think they are very clever and they
do a hundred and one foolish things, a
thousand and one foolish things, and that way
learn.
But I want to say there is a
better way.
If you learn to humble yourself and live
in the fear of God and submit to
authorities, you can learn from your youth without
doing stupid, foolish things, without saying stupid, foolish
things.
Daniel is a wonderful example of that.
And here is the dream of Daniel, the
dream that Nebuchadnezzar had.
Daniel explains it to him.
But how did he get the answer?
First of all, he had faith that God
will reveal this.
He went to God.
He urged them.
First of all, he called his friends.
Verse 17.
I believe there's a tremendous value in fellowship
in prayer.
When you face a problem which is too
difficult for you, Daniel understood the principle of
the body.
He was a new covenant man living in
old covenant times.
And he said, let me not pray about
this alone.
Let me get these three brothers and let's
pray together.
And they prayed together and he said, let's
pray to God.
Verse 18.
And ask him to show us mercy and
reveal this to us.
And they first of all began their prayer
with praise.
It's a very good habit to practice.
Verse 20.
First of all, they said, praise the Lord
for his sovereignty.
Verse 21.
He's the one who determines the course of
all events in the world.
He's the one who removes kings and he's
the one who sets others on the throne.
He's the one who gives wisdom to the
wise, knowledge to the scholars.
He's the one who reveals deep and mysterious
things.
I thank and praise you, God of my
ancestors, because you've given us wisdom and strength.
I've often told people when you find you,
you pray and you can't get through, start
praising the Lord.
Think of how great God is and you'll
find the atmosphere clears up immediately.
Learn to praise God, learn to fellowship with
other people.
And then God revealed it to him and
he went and told the king, OK, here's
the answer.
And he acknowledges in verse 30, this is
not due to my cleverness.
It's because God revealed it to me.
A humble man is the one to whom
God reveals one who's willing to give God
the glory for it.
And then in verse 31 onwards, he describes
this statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw, a statue with
a head of gold and the body of
silver and the chest and arms were silver
and the stomach and the thighs were bronze
and the legs were iron and the feet
were a combination of iron and clay.
Now, this symbolized the head of gold, symbolized
Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian Empire, which would last for
about 70 years.
And then next would come the Medo-Persian
Empire, this chest and arms of silver, which
would last for a little less than 200
years.
And then below that were the belly and
thighs of bronze, which symbolized the Grecian Empire,
which would last for, with Alexander the Great,
which would last for, and his father, which
would last for another little less than 200
years.
And then the legs of iron, which spoke
of the Roman Empire, which was in the
time of Christ, which would last for about
600 years.
And then finally, the feet of iron and
clay, which iron speaks of dictatorship, clay speaks
of democracy.
And that is speaking about the last days.
We have dictatorships in the world today, democracies
in the world today, iron and clay.
And like the feet have 10 toes, it
speaks also about 10 kingdoms that are going
to come together, possibly in Europe, headed up
by the Antichrist, which would finally precede the
coming of Jesus to the earth.
So here was a vision that God gave
to Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen king, about what's going
to happen right on till the end of
time.
And then we read in verse, another
stone would come, it says, that will shatter
these kingdoms to nothing.
Verse 30, it says a rock cut from
the mountain.
Verse 34, struck the feet and smashed the
whole statue to bits, which is a picture
of the reign of Christ.
Verse 44, the God of heaven will set
a kingdom which will never be destroyed.
So God gave Nebuchadnezzar a vision of right
up to the millennium, to the coming of
Christ and setting up his kingdom.
Now you need to understand this statue, gold,
silver, bronze and iron, to understand the next
chapter, why Nebuchadnezzar, where chapter 3, verse 1,
made a statue entirely of gold.
Do you understand the message?
The message is, I'm going to be there
till the end.
There's not going to be any silver, there's
not going to be any bronze, there's not
going to be any iron, it's going to
be gold all the way through.
Like they used to say in those days
to the king, O king, live forever.
That was the way they used to greet
the people.
And this chap was so stupid, he thought
he's going to live forever till Jesus comes
again.
This is a picture of man's haughtiness.
And chapter 3, verse 1, you read about
this statue that Nebuchadnezzar made, not of gold,
silver and bronze, but totally of gold.
And he got everybody to worship it.
Now it's obvious that Daniel was not in
town in those days.
At that particular time when this happened, he
was away somewhere.
And these three people, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,
were alone there.
All the other Jews compromised.
And I believe God left Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego alone at that time, in order to
test them and in order to strengthen them.
You know, it's not good for us when
we always have a man of God like
Daniel there.
Sometimes it's good if he's not there, so
that we can learn to lean upon God
ourselves.
You know, we find comfort when a godly
man is always there.
But the danger of having that godly man
always there is that you tend to lean
upon him and you don't lean upon the
Lord.
The danger of having a fantastic Bible teacher
always with you is that you'll never study
the Bible yourself.
So it's good that you don't have a
fantastic Bible teacher with you all the time.
It's good that you don't have a godly
man with you all the time, because that
will drive you to God.
That will drive you to dependence on the
Holy Spirit to teach you His word.
That will drive you to dependence on the
Holy Spirit to strengthen you to face this
trial.
So God in His sovereignty permitted Daniel not
to be there at this time.
And then Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego passed the
test.
Nebuchadnezzar was furious and said, if you don't,
verse 19, if you don't bow down, I'm
going to heat the furnace seven times.
And they still didn't bow down.
I can imagine that the other Jews would
have come to them and said, listen, just
compromise a little bit.
We got to adjust.
We got to learn to live in these
difficult times.
Just nod your head a little bit.
Even that will do.
And they said, no.
Maybe they even suggested, why don't you bow
down?
Then you can always go to God afterwards
and say, Lord, please forgive me for that
sin.
You know, the clever way which people think
of, we can sin and then afterwards go
and ask God to forgive us.
We can sign a false certificate and gain
something and then ask God to forgive us.
There are people I know who've done that.
You know, they were converted from scheduled castes
to Christians, and now they know that they
can't get that vacancy as a scheduled caste,
but they will still write, I'm scheduled caste
to get that job.
And after they get the job, they say,
well, Lord, I'm really sorry for doing that.
Please forgive me.
And they think they're very clever because they
got the job and they also pleased God.
But if you got a job by telling
a lie, are you in the place where
God wants you to be?
You're going to have problems.
And I know people like that who had
problems.
You can never get into the place God
has allotted for you by telling a lie.
No, you have to say, listen, I'm not
going to bow down to your idols.
I'm not going to compromise.
I'm not going to tell a lie.
It may be a very small thing, but
I'm not going to tell a lie.
And if I'm going to lose something because
of that, fine, I'm willing to lose it.
That's the quality of disciples we should produce.
Not only we should be ourselves, that's the
quality of disciples we should produce.
Daniel was like that himself, and he taught
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to be like that.
Don't you see that in Babylon, it was
better to have four people like that than
400 compromisers who just bowed down to idols
and ate whatever the king gave and also
said that they believed in God.
This is the tragedy in India today.
We have a pathetic testimony among Christians who
fight with each other, who tell lies and
who are not upright and many things like
that.
And God longs for Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego, Hanani, Meshach and Azariah, who will stand
for him without compromise in a day of
compromise.
And we see their total contempt of death.
They're not afraid of dying.
They say, we don't know whether God will
deliver us, they say, but if God delivers
us well and good, if he doesn't, we're
still not going to bow down to your
idol.
And what was the result?
When they're thrown into the furnace, only the
ropes got burned.
That's a wonderful picture that when Satan harasses
us, what does he burn out from us?
He burns the things that bind us.
He cannot burn anything valuable.
When we are put in the fire, what
are the things that get burnt?
The things that bind us get burnt and
we come out free.
So was the fire good or bad?
It was good.
If a fire has succeeded in freeing you
from attachment to earthly things, most of us
are like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, tied with
ropes to earthly things.
And then God puts us into a fire,
some difficult trial and the attachment to earthly
things goes.
The ropes are burnt and we come out
free.
Thank God for the fires.
Thank God for the trials.
That's what we learned from their passage.
And I believe the greatest miracle here in
this chapter three.
If I were to ask you, what is
the greatest miracle here in chapter three?
You'd say, well, they went into the fire
and came out.
To me, the greatest miracle is when everybody
bowed down, three people did not bow down.
That's the miracle.
I saw a picture once of this big
statue, 90 feet high.
And all these people, whole thousands of them
with their face to the ground and three
people standing up.
Years ago, I saw it and I said,
Lord, make me like that.
When everybody is compromising, I stand out as
different, even if they shoot me for it.
Pray that prayer and God will make you
like that.
Keep that picture in your mind always.
In chapter four, we read verse six and
seven.
Again, he had a dream that frightened him
and he called again the wise men.
About 32 years earlier, he had that other
dream and he knew the wise men couldn't
help him.
Only Daniel could help him, but he still
goes back to the wise men.
And of course, they couldn't help him.
And Daniel explains the dream, how God is
going to judge him.
This tree is also a picture of you,
but because of your pride, God is going
to cut you down.
But the interesting thing is that he did
not listen.
Daniel told him, verse 27, King Nebuchadnezzar, please
listen to me.
This dream is a warning to you that
you should stop sinning and do what is
right.
Break from your wicked past.
Be merciful to poor people.
And perhaps this dream may not be fulfilled.
Judgment will not come.
But Nebuchadnezzar didn't listen.
One year later, verse 29, he was walking
on the roof of his palace, Babylon.
You see the stream of Babylon in Jerusalem,
right from the time of Cain.
You see it here.
What is the essential force with which Babylon
is built?
You see that in verse 30.
By man, through man, to man.
I have built this with my wisdom, by
my power, and for my glory.
When a church is built with human wisdom,
by human power, and for a man's glory,
that is Babylon, even if its doctrines are
all evangelical.
When a work, a Christian work, is done
by human cleverness, and by human power and
ability, and by the power of money, and
for man's glory, whatever the doctrine, it is
Babylon.
The true work of God is done according
to God's plans, which comes as a result
of waiting on God in prayer.
And it is done in the power of
the Holy Spirit, with supernatural help from above.
Whether there's money or no money doesn't matter.
It's a part of the Holy Spirit, and
it is done 100% for the glory
of God.
Please remember this all your life, and it
will save you from wasting your time building
with wood, hay, and straw.
God warned him three times.
We read in verse 31, and he did
not listen, and so he was punished, and
he became like a madman, eating grass like
a cow, verse 32.
And finally, when he repented, he was changed
again.
And when he repented, see here's a man
in Daniel chapter 2, we read God had
warned Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel chapter 3, Daniel chapter 4,
three times God had warned him, and he
didn't listen.
And finally God punished him, and he spent
seven periods of time, we read in verse
32.
And then he repented, and when he repented,
he made one of the most fantastic statements
about the sovereignty of God, found anywhere in
the Bible, in verse 34 and 35.
And this is what makes me believe that
Nebuchadnezzar is probably in heaven today.
Isn't that interesting?
Solomon is in hell, and Nebuchadnezzar is in
heaven.
Because he says, Lord, I acknowledge now that
your rule is everlasting, your kingdom is eternal,
all the people of the earth are nothing
compared to God.
He has the power to do exactly as
he pleases, not only among the angels of
heaven, but among all those who live on
the earth.
No one can stop him, no one can
challenge him, no one can say to him,
what are you doing?
Now, if he lived according to that faith
till the end of his life, I believe
he'd have entered God's kingdom.
When his sanity returned to him, so did
his honor and glory and kingdom.
Now, verse 37, I praise and glorify and
honor the king of heaven, and I acknowledge
that all those who are proud, God is
able to humble.
And then we read of Nebuchadnezzar's dead and
Belshazzar is another king who rules in chapter
five, and there we read about this feast
at which they found these letters coming on
the wall.
It was the end of the Babylonian Empire.
Just by way of in passing, let me
mention there are only two places in the
Bible where it says God actually wrote something.
One is the Ten Commandments and the other
is these words here.
It's very significant.
And nobody could interpret this.
And then they said, well, again, the king's
wise men, they said, there is a man
here who can, the queen mother heard it,
verse 10, and said, there is a man
in your kingdom who could explain these things
in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, call him.
And Daniel came and Daniel was brought there
and he said, I don't want your gifts.
When Daniel, this man said, I'll give you
purple robes of honor and I'll, verse 16,
I'll give you a gold chain and I'll
make you the third highest ruler in the
kingdom.
Daniel answered the king, listen to these words
in verse 17, keep your gifts to yourself
or give them to someone else.
Like Elisha told Naaman, you know, a true
man of God is revealed by his attitude
to gifts.
What is your attitude to gifts?
Particularly when ungodly people like Belshazzar want to
give you large gifts because you did something
for them in the name of Jesus.
That's where you test a true man of
God.
That's where you find an Elisha and a
Daniel stand out as different from all other
people and say, no, thank you.
Keep your gifts to yourself.
I don't want them.
I'll still bless you.
I'll still give you the word, but I
don't want your gifts.
Please keep that in mind.
Many, many people have destroyed themselves by receiving
gifts from people whom they should not have
received it from.
It's right to receive it from God's people
if they give it to you voluntarily, if
they are better off financially than you are.
But it's not right to receive money from
people who are worse off financially than you
are, even if they are believers or if
they are unbelievers.
And then Daniel explains the dream to him.
He reads the writing.
First of all, he gives a message to
Belshazzar.
He said, you know all that happened, verse
22, but you have not humbled yourself.
You have defied God by taking the cups
from the temple to drink.
See, Daniel was a fearless prophet and he
warned the king of this danger.
And then he reads these words in verse
25, many, many tickled parson and interprets it.
We saw that the first instance of speaking
in tongues is in Balaam's donkey.
And here is the first instance of interpretation
of tongues also in the old testament, where
this unknown language was interpreted by Daniel.
Many means numbered.
God has numbered the days of your reign.
Tickle means you're weighed.
Parson means divided.
And I believe that is God's word to
Babylonian religious systems today.
What is that?
God has numbered your days is going to
come to an end.
You have been weighed by God and there's
nothing heavy in you.
Everything is so light, nothing of eternal weight
in you.
It's all worldliness and therefore your kingdom is
divided.
In chapter six, we come to the time
of Darius.
In that very night, we read in verse
30 of chapter five, Babylon was destroyed and
Darius the mead took over the kingdom at
the age of 62.
Now, Darius, the mead also appointed Daniel, we
read in verse two, to be administrators.
Even though Daniel was a prime minister in
the previous kingdom, he made him prime minister
of his kingdom too.
It's amazing testimony Daniel had.
Now, Daniel was over 80 years old and
he was still the same uncompromising man that
he always was.
And you know the story here how there
were evil people who were trying to destroy
Daniel.
It's very relevant for the time in which
we live today.
Evil people try to destroy God's servants, the
church.
And so these administrators and princes, it's so
similar to what's happening in government situations today.
They go to the king or today to
the government and try to pass a law.
A law that is primarily directed against God's
people.
And the king and the government passes the
law that you should not convert people to
Christ or whatever it is.
You should not pray to any other God.
And if you do, you'll be thrown into
jail or whatever it is.
Here it was being thrown to the lions.
It's a very similar situation to what's happening
today.
And Daniel learned, just like we learned from
the newspapers, that the law has been signed.
The government has passed this law.
What do you do then?
The law is you must not pray to
anybody else.
That was the law here.
In our time, it may be something else.
The principle is the same.
As soon as Daniel learned this law, he
went home and knelt down and prayed.
He fears God more than any earthly king.
His principle is the same as the apostles.
We ought to obey God, Acts 529, rather
than men.
We ought to obey God rather than men.
So the very thing which the law says
you should not do, he goes and does.
He said, this law is not going to
stop me from praying to God.
I'm going to do it.
And the interesting thing is he always used
to pray with his windows open towards Jerusalem.
This day, he could have thought, well, let
me close it today.
But he doesn't.
He keeps it open and prays.
Let everybody see that I'm praying.
Let everybody know I'm a Christian.
I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Whatever laws you may pass, it doesn't make
a difference to me.
What an example for us in our time.
And he prayed not just once a day,
three times a day, just as he had
always done.
And these officials were just waiting.
They're looking.
They knew this fellow always prays near the
window.
They caught him and they reported it to
the government.
And the king said, yeah, that's the law
of the Medes and the Persians.
It cannot be revoked.
And when the king heard it was Daniel,
he liked Daniel and he tried to save
him.
And he spent the rest of the day,
verse 14, trying to save Daniel, but he
couldn't do it.
In the evening, those evil people said, well,
the king is the law of the Medes
and the Persians.
You can't do anything about it.
Throw Daniel into the den of lions.
And when he was thrown in there, he
came out untouched.
There are people around waiting to harm us.
To me today, God may allow physical lions
to eat us up.
God may allow physical fire to burn us,
unlike in the book of Daniel, where the
fire and the lions could not touch God's
servants.
The history of the church reveals that thousands
of Christians and millions of Christians have been
killed.
In the early days, they were actually thrown
to the lions and the lions ate them
up.
And they were burnt at the stake and
the fire burnt them up.
But there was one lion that could not
touch them.
And that was Satan.
So to me, these lions are a picture
of Satan.
That Satan cannot touch me, even if these
physical lions eat me up.
The fire of hell cannot touch me, even
if these physical fires on earth burn up
my body.
So that is our position today as Christians.
We do not allow anything of hell, anything
of hatred, anything of bitterness to ever come
into our heart.
We stand for God, uncompromising.
In all the sufferings we go through, we
do not allow any of the spirit of
hell to touch us.
We will be able to say this prince
of the world comes and he's got nothing
in me.
He cannot touch me at all.
And then he came out and he was
a testimony to that new generation.
So God allows certain trials to come into
our life in order to make us a
testimony to this land.
You know that in our country recently, this
brother Graham Staines was burnt.
And I believe that the testimony of his
widow was such a unique testimony to the
spirit of Christ, to this whole country.
Such as this country has probably not seen
in another person in such a wonderful way.
There God allows certain things to happen to
show forth what Christianity is really like.
And God allowed this trial in Daniel's time,
in Shadrach's time.
And God may allow a trial in your
life.
The purpose is that you will manifest the
spirit of Christ in that trial.
If you are taken to court, determined to
speak the truth, determined not to hate anyone,
never to hate anyone.
And if one day we have to lay
down our lives for the gospel, let's lay
it down with our heads lifted up and
praising the Lord.
Because we confess that God is on the
throne.
The first six chapters are historical in Daniel.
The remaining six chapters are more prophecies about
the future.
In chapter seven and eight, we have Daniel
being given a vision of future world kingdoms.
Just like Nebuchadnezzar.
And the interesting thing you see in chapter
seven also is the same four kingdoms.
Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome.
And the final world empire.
But one big difference.
Nebuchadnezzar saw them as precious metals.
Gold, silver, bronze and iron.
Daniel sees them as God sees them as
wild beasts.
A lot of earthly kingdoms, people on earth
look at them as precious metals, place of
honor to be a president, prime minister, ruler
of a kingdom.
But God sees these same kingdoms in an
entirely different light.
And when Daniel is given a vision, he
doesn't see them as gold, silver and bronze.
He sees them as wild beasts.
And they're all wild beasts.
All the kingdoms of the earth.
Because the world is under the control of
the devil.
And the interesting thing I want you to
see here is that so much of detail
in these prophecies in chapter seven, chapter eleven
were exactly fulfilled in the coming years.
If you read secular history, you find this
is exactly like that.
In chapter seven verse four, you find that
Nebuchadnezzar's wings were pulled off.
Chapter seven, verse five, you read about Medo
-Persia, the second beast.
It looked like a bear.
And then chapter seven, verse six, the one
looked like a leopard.
It had four wings and four heads.
That's when Alexander the Great died, his kingdom
was divided into four.
History tells us that.
And chapter seven, verse seven, we read about
that final kingdom with ten horns coming up
and towards the end of time.
Towards the end of this chapter, we read
about God sitting on his throne.
In verse thirteen onwards, with millions and millions
of angels worshipping him.
And he asks the angels about this fourth
beast and he's told that this is going
to be towards the end of time.
The Roman Empire that's finally going to end
up with the ten kingdom empire at the
end of time.
In chapter eight, there's a little more detail
again about these kingdoms and what we read.
Remember, Daniel is an old man now.
He's about eighty seven years old and he's
still having visions and dreams just like he
had when he was a young man.
He's walking faithfully with God.
And here he has a vision of the
Grecian Empire in verses five to eight.
And it says in verse eight, the goat
became very powerful.
This is exactly what happened to the empire
of Greece, became very powerful, became a world
ruler, unlike Babylon and Medo-Persia.
But at the height of its power, when
Alexander the Great thought he had conquered everything,
when he was around thirty three years old,
the horn was suddenly broken off.
Alexander's death.
And when he died, four prominent horns came
up.
And those are Alexander's four generals who divided
the kingdom among themselves.
And it goes on to describe them and
the one referred to in verse twenty three.
At the end of their rule, when their
sin is in sight, a fierce king, a
master of intrigue, will rise to power.
This was a king who ruled Syria, one
of Alexander's generals descendants called Antiochus Epiphanes.
And he's a picture of the Antichrist.
Now, chapter nine, we read of Daniel praying
for his people.
This is the movement that started in Babylon.
Daniel's prayer started the ball rolling, the movement
from Babylon to Jerusalem.
It's a wonderful prayer.
He's eighty seven years old at least, and
he's still studying God's word.
He's still fasting and praying.
And verse three, just like he did in
his younger days.
It's wonderful to see a man of God
year after year after year after year after
year, 70 years and still just as much
on fire as he was in his teenage
years, studying the word just as much as
in his younger days, fasting and praying just
as much as in his younger days and
still a servant of the people like he
was in his younger days.
Wonderful example in Daniel, a unique servant of
God in the scriptures.
If you keep examples like this before your
eyes, you can be one like that yourself.
And he prayed and he doesn't criticize other
people.
He doesn't say, Lord, these fellows are all
terrible backsliders.
He says, Lord, you're a great and awesome
God.
But verse five, we have sinned.
We have rebelled.
We have refused to listen to your messages.
Lord, you are right.
But our faces were seven is covered with
shame.
This is true of all of us.
Oh, Lord, we have sinned.
See, he identifies himself.
Lord, it is we, not they.
We.
That's the type of prayer God answers.
Lord, we Christians have dishonored your name in
this land.
We have let you down.
We have not been the testimony for Christ
that India has needed to see.
We have failed.
Lord, send us a revival.
Lord, you're right.
But our faces are covered with shame.
Be merciful and forgive us.
We have sinned against you.
See, a godly man prays like that.
And then God gives him a vision and
tells him that verse 24, 490 years are
set apart for my purposes.
And out of that 483 years, we're going
to be completed from the time that Jerusalem
begins to be rebuilt.
That is in verse 25, we read seven
sets of seven plus 62 sets of seven.
That means 483 years will pass from the
time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem
until the anointed one comes.
And that's exactly what happened.
In 445 BC, the command went forth to
rebuild Jerusalem.
And 483 years later, in 29 AD, Jesus
came to Jerusalem and was crucified.
So if you understood prophecy in the time
of Daniel, you could know exactly when Christ
was going to come.
Quite amazing.
Now there's a period of seven years left
out.
And that seven-year period is going to
be the end of time.
It's still to come when the Antichrist will
rule this earth, when Christians will face tremendous
persecution and tribulation all over the world, will
be hated by all people all over the
world.
And then at the end of it, Christ
will come.
Chapter 10 speaks about a struggle in the
heavenlies.
Daniel is praying and there's a great struggle
going on there.
He prays.
It was another type of fast that he
had this time.
He didn't completely abstain from food.
He did not eat rich food, simple food.
And he says, then this angel came to
meet Daniel and said, I was trying to
come, but for 21 days, verse 13, the
spirit of the prince of Persia stopped me.
Some evil spirit in the heavenlies was restraining.
But from the time that Daniel began to
pray, verse 12, from the very first day
you began to pray, your request was heard.
It took 21 days for the answer to
come.
God doesn't answer our prayers immediately.
But I want to say one thing about
this chapter.
Please remember that this happened before Calvary's cross,
before the demons and Satan were defeated on
Calvary.
So I don't believe that I need 21
days today to cast out a demon.
Jesus never took 21 days to cast out
any demon.
The demons were all defeated on Calvary's cross.
We today operate from a completely different position
than Daniel did.
Daniel was pre-Calvary.
We are post-Calvary.
And the devil has been defeated today.
He was defeated on Calvary's cross.
So we have the right to put him
under our feet now to resist him, the
effects of his work.
We may take time to see it being
rectified, but we can put the devil under
our feet right from day one in Jesus
name.
And then in chapter 11, we read of
the history of the rest of the empire
there, the time of Alexander.
Again, Alexander the Great is mentioned in verse
3 about a mighty king who will rise.
About Antiochus Epiphanes in verse 21, who's a
type of the Antichrist, a despicable man.
And a lot of things in that last
section are applicable to the last days as
well.
And so if you read it in relation
to the last days, here's a wonderful verse.
Verse 32, the last part.
The people who know God in the last
days will be strong.
And in the last days, verse 33, those
who are wise will give instruction to many
people.
But many of these teachers will die by
the fire and sword.
They'll be jailed and robbed.
There'll be a lot of persecutions.
Some who are wise will fall victim to
persecution, 45.
And they will be refined and cleansed and
made pure through the persecution.
And then it goes on to describe the
king.
And then in chapter 12, that's the Antichrist
is referring to the reign of the Antichrist.
In chapter 12, it says there are going
to be two resurrections in verse 2.
Finally, some to everlasting life, some to shame.
And it says, Daniel, verse 9, go your
way.
In the end, you will stand in the
place that's appointed for you.
But meanwhile, remember this, verse 3, those who
are wise will finally shine as bright as
the sky.
And those who turn many people to righteousness
will shine like the stars forever.
Do you want to shine like a star
forever and ever and ever and ever in
eternity?
Turn people to righteousness today.
Turn people to a godly life.
Spend your life turning others to godliness.
Go your way, verse 13.
You will rest.
And at the end of the days, you
will rise again to receive the reward the
Lord has set aside for you.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the example of
this wonderful man, the visions he had, the
stand that he took, help us to follow
in his footsteps in our land in this
time.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.