SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/12/2014
11:35 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: Review of Daniel Part Five
Daniel Had Insight into Human History: As I looked at the book of Daniel over the
last forty plus years from time to time I wondered why the book was not written
in chronological order, and then I also wondered why part of it was written in
Hebrew and part in Aramaic. I have come to the conclusion that the book is
divided, as far as the prophecies are concerned, into two sections, one is for
both the Jews and the Gentiles, and the other is for the Jews. I am not saying that we as Gentiles cannot
gleam truth from the part that was written for the Jews. On many of the chapters we can understand
when the chapter was written because Daniel gives us a date by telling us what
king reigned at what time, and we must remember that there were different ways
in which they counted when a king started to reign between the Jews and the
Babylonians.
In order to understand history we have to understand it
through the pages of Scripture. God
chose Israel and gave a covenant to their founder Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3,
and we can also look at the 15th chapter of Genesis for more on that
covenant between God and Abraham who was the father of Israel. God also had a covenant with Israel given at
Mt. Sinai which is seen in Exodus 20-24, and then we can look at Deut. 27-20 to
seem more of the covenant. The covenant
found in Deut. is a covenant in which God tells Israel if they do this they
will be blessed and if they don’t they will be cursed. We know that Israel did not follow this
covenant and so God sent them into the nations of the Gentiles in order for Him
to discipline them. This began in 605 BC
and went until May of 1948. We see from
the book of Ezekiel that the stage that Israel is now in is the stage when they
do not have the Spirit in them. God used
the nation of Israel to bring salvation to the world through Jesus Christ, for
Jesus stated in John 4:22 “"You worship what you do not know; we worship
what we know, for
salvation is from the Jews.’”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The visions in Daniel also taught
Daniel that the nations of the world were beastly in character, like lions,
bears, leopards, rams, and goats.
Nebuchadnezzar’s pride changed him into an animal (Dan. 4), and it is
pride that turns leaders into worse than animals as they devour one
another. In one sense, our world is improving,
and we’re grateful for every advancement in medicine, communications,
transportation, security, and comfort.
But in another sense, the nations of the world are becoming ‘cheaper and
cheaper,’ as God revealed in the visions of the great image (Dan. 2). It goes from gold to silver, from silver to
bronze, from bronze to iron, and from iron to clay! There’s not only a decrease in value, but
there’s also a decrease in strength. By
the time you get to the feet and toes of the image, there’s nothing but clay to
hold it together.”
Daniel was privileged to understand what the history of
the world would look like, and Daniel believed that God would do just as He had
showed it to him, however this was at a great price to the health and spirit of
Daniel.
Daniel Lived up to His Name: The name Daniel means “God is my judge,” and
as we have studied this wonderful book we have seen that Daniel indeed lived up
to his name. We see not sin in Daniel’s
life as recorded in the Scriptures, but that does not mean he did not sin or
was not born with a sin nature. Joseph
is the same as no sin was written about him either.
Daniel live his life through the all seeing eyes of the
Lord and it was his desire to please the Lord in his life, and I surely believe
that he did that. Daniel’s life was to
pleas the Lord and this happened even when he was before kings as we see in the
fifth chapter of Daniel and the forth chapter of Daniel and other places
too. Daniel did not fear those whom he
worked with for they believed in things that were not true, while Daniel
believed in the One True God, and this gave him great courage even when facing
death as seen in chapter six.
Dr. Wiersbe quotes a portion of a sermon that D. L. Moody
preached on from Daniel and we will close our study of Daniel with this quote
and an additional quote from Dr. Wiersbe.
“Daniel thought more of his principles than he did of
earthly honor or the esteem of men. Right
was right with him. He was going to do
right today and let the morrows take care of themselves. That firmness of purpose, in the strength of
God, was the secret of his success.”
This quote was taken from D. L. Moody’s book “Bible Characters” written
in 1888.
“One of Mr. Moody’s associates, musician Philip P. Bliss,
expressed this truth in a song that’s not used much today, but the message is certainly
needed. The chorus says:
Dare to be a Daniel! Dare to stand alone! Dare to have a purpose firm! Dare to make it
known!
Dr. Wiersbe concludes his
commentary on Daniel with the words “Be Resolute!” which is the name of his
book on Daniel.
Lord willing we will be back in the book of Jeremiah in
tomorrow’s SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Dare to be a
Daniel is the best thing that I can gleam from this last Spiritual Diary on the
book of Daniel.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Dare to be a Daniel! Dare to stand alone! Dare to have a purpose firm! Dare to make it known!
Memory verses for the week: Philippians 2:5-6 “5
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Judah” (1 Kings 15:9).
Today’s Bible
Question: “Who was the girl that danced
at Herod’s birthday party?”
Answer in our next SD. 2/12/2014 12:25 PM
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