My Morning Meal

Wrapping up Daniel this morning. You gotta like this guy. As a young man witnessed the destruction of his nation . . . was taken from his family (if they had survived) to a foreign land . . . and there determined not to defile himself with the ways of the new land he was ordered to learn about and participate in. The hand of God was on him from the beginning . . . special gifting . . . special calling . . . resulting in a meteoric rise to the top. A seat in the government . . . and not just through one administration, but through decades under various rulers . . . and yet always in touch and submitted to THE RULER. And as I read this final vision given to Daniel, it’s not the prophecy revealed that catches my attention . . . but rather how the prophet is addressed.

And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you” . . . And he said, “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.”   (Daniel 10:11, 19 ESV)

Man greatly loved . . . that was Daniel. And the sense here is not “greatly loved” in that God had always loved Him as evidenced by the manner in which God had worked in and through him . . . but that God was crazy in love with this man because of how Daniel had allowed God to work through him. The idea of the word “greatly loved” is that of being delighted with . . . of being regarded of value and beauty . . . of being precious to someone (NLT) . . . of being highly esteemed (NIV).

Daniel had gone through it all . . . had spoken what need to be spoken . . . had stood fast when standing fast was required . . . had endured what needed to be endured . . . such that king after king recognized that Daniel’s God was the God above all gods . . . that Daniel’s God was the establisher of thrones and the Sovereign over every rule. Talk about living to the glory of God . . . and as such he was a man greatly loved by God.

You know, my tendency so often is to take the great characters like Daniel and project myself into their lives . . . to set them up as examples for how I should live. But I was challenged recently to see these great servants of God in the Old Testament as being foreshadows of the greater Servant, Jesus. Jesus is the greater Moses . . . Jesus is the greater David . . . and I’m thinking this morning of how Jesus is the greater Daniel.

Sent from heaven’s glories to earth’s darkness to be light. Divested of the “clothing” of His heavenly home and instead robed in flesh . . . the Creator taking on the form of the creation . . . and in essence submitting Himself as a servant. In the world, but determined not to be of the world . . . amidst the defilement but with spot . . . eating with publicans and sinners yet never participating in the way of publicans and sinners. Walking the dusty paths of earth yet never detached from heaven . . . just as Daniel prayed three times a day, so the Son of Man would find time alone to commune with the Father. Standing before the thrones of those with earthly power . . . revealing truth . . . yet thrown in the lion’s den. But unlike Daniel, He did not emerge without a scratch . . . instead He bore the stripes for my sin . . . He endured the suffering to atone for my shame . . . He suffered death that I might not fear it. And though He suffered, yet, like Daniel who emerged from the lions den, my Savior rose from the grave . . . left behind the grave clothes . . . was resurrected in glorious power.

My Lord and Savior, Jesus the Son of God, is a man greatly loved . . . by the Father . . . and by this sinner saved through wondrous grace.

To Him be glory alone . . . amen?

Kind of surprised me. I would have thought the term would have been found more often in the Scriptures. Found 13 times in the New Testament, only 15 times in all of the Old Testament. This morning I encountered it twice as I continued my reading in the book of Daniel. Get out the blue colored pencil . . . underline it . . . my God is THE LIVING GOD!

Not quite sure why it jumped off the page as I was reading Daniel 6 . . . perhaps because of the contrast to the gods being worshiped in Daniel 5. In chapter 5 the worshipper is King Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man on earth. He puts on a big party . . . invites a thousand people . . . and the only thing bigger than the feast he’s hosting is his ego. He starts in on the wine and then gets an idea, “Bring me the vessels of gold and of silver that my dad took from the temple in Jerusalem . . . it’s fitting that I should be drinking from the cups made for the God of Israel.” And so he drinks from the consecrated vessels . . . and he passes them around to his lords, his wives, and his concubines to drink from. And as they drink from the holy cups made to be used in service before the holy God, they instead “praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone” (5:4). Or as Paul might say, “they worshiped and served created things instead of the the Creator” (Rom. 1:25 NLT).

Real live people praising inanimate objects. Kind of has a way of boosting the old self-esteem when you can hold the god of gold in your hands . . . when you can command the god of silver to be used to satisfy the intoxicating desires of your over-inflated sense of self-worth. When your god is something you can control, it makes you bigger than the god. But Belshazzar is called out by “the Most High God” who “rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom He will” (5:21) . . . “the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways” (5:23). In lifting up the god of gold, this brash king was lifting up himself “against the Lord of heaven” (5:23) . . . the living God . . . bad move!

Cue Darius the Mede . . . successor to Belshazzar the dead. You don’t get the sense that Darius has too much ego . . . just not enough smarts. He’s tricked into throwing his highest held official, Daniel, into a den of lions. This Daniel who Darius knew to be “faithful, and no error or fault was found in him” (6:4) . . . this Daniel who God knew to be faithful as he had served under three pagan kings in a foreign land in a way that was true to the King of his homeland . . . this Daniel who was condemned to die because he relentlessly sought, faithfully trusted, and continually served the living God.

And the morning after the night before when he has Daniel deposited with the carnivores, Darius rushes to the lions and den and in anguish cries out, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” You know the answer . . . Yup!

But what gets me is Darius’ recognition of the nature of Daniel’s God . . . that He is a living God!

Gold and silver make lousy gods. But the living God is the God who delivers from destruction. He is not a god that we can manipulate at will to satisfy our cravings, but He is the Sovereign God . . . omniscient . . . omnipresent . . . omnipotent. He is the King of all kings . . . He is the Lord of all lords.

. . . for He is the living God,
             enduring forever;
     His kingdom shall never be destroyed,
             and His dominion shall be to the end.
    He delivers and rescues;
    He works signs and wonders
             in heaven and on earth . . . (Daniel 6:26b-27a ESV)

To Him be all glory . . . forever and ever . . . amen!

Never fails to happen . . . there is always a joy and excitement about hitting the book of Daniel . . . like when the kids come home from Christmas . . . it’s familiar territory to them . . . they like finding things decorated and in place as they’ve always been . . . but there’s a freshness, a wide-eyed re-encounter that puts a bit of electricity in the house. The themes in these opening chapters of Daniel are familiar, touchstones that have been used to ground my life for years . . . like purposing in my heart to not defile myself with the kings food (1:8) . . . like being reminded that Daniel’s favor with men and his meteoric rise to the top of the class was less about him and all about God’s divine hand upon His life (1:9, 17) . . . like being repeatedly told that God is the God of heaven (2:18, 19, 28, 37, 44) . . . and finally, of being reminded that my God is the Revealer of Mysteries (2:28, 47).

A Revealer of Mysteries. The One who can make known the unknown. He who can take the hidden thing and bring it to light. That’s our God.

Usually what captures me about this thought is that, by His grace, I have been the recipient of such revelation of mystery. Through the Word of God . . . by the illumination of the Spirit of God . . . I have been allowed some level of understanding into the mysteries of God. True enough . . . but funny how I tend to think about me. This morning my thoughts tend to be more about Him, the Revealer.

What has my awe-o-meter kicking over to the right hand side is that He is the God who knows the mysteries. He is the Revealer because, in many cases He is the Author. He is the Revealer because, in all cases, He is the One who knows everything . . . my God is omniscient . . . the God of heaven is all-knowing. And there’s something about that alone which inspires worship . . . and brings about peace.

Sure, I like to know “what’s behind the curtain.” I want to be brought into the inner circle. I, as much as the next guy, like to have things figured out. But, as I sit hovering over this story of a king with a bad dream, a bad attitude, and a sad bunch of magicians, enchanters, and sorcerers, I’m grabbed less by the revelation then I am by the Revealer. That He knows . . . that His realm of understanding and insight so dwarfs that of kings and prophets and this guy sitting in this chair . . . that He is the Possessor of all truth and Knower of all secrets. He is . . . the Revealer!

Amazing God!

So this morning, though there are many mysteries I might like to have made known to me, I rest in that I know the Revealer of Mysteries. Whether He chooses to allow me to “interpret the dream” or not, it’s enough to know that He knows . . . and to trust in Him even when I don’t know . . . and to rest in Him who will reveal mysteries according to His will . . . and in line with His perfect timing . . . and all for His glory. Amen?

“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
      to Whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
      He removes kings and sets up kings;
He gives wisdom to the wise
      and knowledge to those who have understanding;
He reveals deep and hidden things;
He knows what is in the darkness,
      and the light dwells with Him.
To you, O God of my fathers,
      I give thanks and praise . . . (Daniel 2:20-23a ESV)