August 29, 2014
Happy birthday to my birthday buddies here at Morton UMC: Connie Klein and Henry Potts! Not only is today my birthday, but today we begin the prophet that I read aloud to our first born on his birth day. We named him Daniel, so I thought it only appropriate to read the prophet Daniel into his newborn psyche. Now a 34-year old, our son Daniel has his own prophetic call as both a pastor and preacher of the truth. Join Becky and I in praying for him and his family as he is in his second year at Asbury Theological Seminary. It’s time for...
Daniel 1-3
Some scoff at the prophecies and narratives of Daniel and regard them as fictional. This is based on the assumption that long-range predictive prophecy and supernatural events are impossible. But we know better, don’t we: “Nothing is impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37)
The theme of Daniel is God’s sovereignty.
In chapter 1 we learn that God can take four young eunuchs in exile and servitude, and raise them to positions of leadership in the land of their captors! And, in the process, they need not defile themselves as Jews! Remember the Daniel Diet? (vv. 12-14)
In chapter 2 we find the undisputed tyrant of the ancient world, Nebuchadnezzar, at sixes and sevens over a dream. He wants an interpretation, but he won’t tell his magicians the dream. In a rage, he decides to execute them all, including Daniel and his friends. They pray, God gives Daniel knowledge of both the dream and its interpretation, and all ends well. The dream itself demonstrates God’s sovereignty over the empires of human beings, and outlines, in picture form, the next three empires after Babylon! God is sovereign over history!
In chapter 3, Daniel’s three friends are thrown into the fiery furnace, because they refuse to worship the emperor. Not only does God protect them from the flames, God (or the Son of God) enters the furnace with them!
Don’t you just love Daniel?
Your fellow pilgrim through the Prophets,
Pastor Gary
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