Video Transcript: Dare to be a Daniel

Dare to Be a Daniel (transcript)
By David Feddes

We're going to be reading from the book of Daniel today, from a number of different places in Daniel, and seeking to understand what it was that made Daniel the kind of person he was. What a remarkable, tremendous person who served throughout several different empires and under some very different rulers, but always understood who he was, and was a mighty man of God. Now, if you think about Daniel's life and start at the very beginning of the book of Daniel, he's immediately confronted with a very challenging question: Who am I? He is taken from his hometown, and from his family, and hauled far away. And as a teenager, he's separated from his family, probably never sees them again, and never again returns to his homeland, in his home city. He was born in Jerusalem, but now he's living in Babylon. Once he was a free person who was of a noble family, and now he's a captive. He was brought up trained in God's word, and now, Daniel has pagan teachers. His name that he was given at birth was Daniel, meaning God is my judge. And he gets renamed Belteshazzar, after the pagan god Bel. So ripped away from family, taken away from his city, turned into a slave rather than a free man and a noble, got given a pagan education and renamed Who am I? Well, I'm still Daniel, whatever anybody else calls me. I answer, first of all, to God my Judge, and not to Bel or any other idol or ruler. I still trust God's word, no matter what any pagan teacher tells me. My heart is still noble and free, wherever captivity brings me and even in old age, very old age, I still pray toward Jerusalem no matter how long I've lived in Babylon. Daniel never forgets who he is, no matter what changes, no matter how hard the circumstances are. He is still who he is. He is still a man of prayer. He's still a man of the Scriptures; the same guy he was as a teenager torn away, he remains through to old age. And we’ve had to ask that question and answer it– Who am I? Some of you have had to answer that question already. When you've gone off to college let's say or when you've moved away to a totally different area, or when you're living far from where you grew up, or when the people you hang out with are quite different from the ones you grew up with. Or when this institution where you're educated is hostile to the faith instead of supportive of it. You are confronted with that same question – Who am I? And some people decide Oh, I really never knew who I was until now. And they often become somebody totally different than Who am I?

Well, I'm a Christian. And as a Christian, I am called by Christ's name. I have that name on me. I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Holy Trinity. And I have the name Christian on me. Now, I might live and work in worldly Babylon, but I'm never fully at home here. I'm a citizen of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Listen to words of Jesus spoken to people who are living in a different Babylon under the Roman Empire. Jesus says, “Hold on to what you have. I will write on you the name of my God and the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God. And I will also write on you my new name. Jesus gives an identity and if you know Jesus, now that's going to be your identity throughout the rest of your life, and all the way into eternity. Without knowing Jesus, it's pretty easy to forget who you are, and to lose your soul. And when we speak of losing your soul, that's not just going to hell forever, although it is that. Losing your soul is losing your Identity, losing who you are, who you were designed and created to be. Daniel is somebody who remembers who he is. And so I want to challenge you today, to dare to be a Daniel.

I'm going to highlight quite a number of things from throughout the book of Daniel that characterize him. And here's just a quick preview. He knows who he is. He's in the world but not of it. He has excellence without excuses. He's gifted by God, and He glorifies God, Is guided by Scripture. He's somebody who operates with wisdom and tact, but at the same time with fearless resolve and courage. He disregards threats, he disregards promises of reward, and he just does what is right. He's always praying; he won't quit praying no matter what. He seeks mercy for his own sins. Even though when you read the book of Daniel, it's hard to say what they are because, wow, is he one of the great men of Scripture. One of the very few in Scripture that you really don't read anything bad about. But he confesses his sins. He seeks mercy, therefore, he's helped by angels. And above all, he’s a man of faith in God, and faith in the Anointed One – the coming Christ.

That's a theme all the way through the book of Daniel; that Christ is coming. And Daniel trusts him. Daniel was in the world and not of it and that started very early in life. He and his three friends refused the King’s food, refused to participate in the feast of idols. And right off the bat in Daniel, chapter one, they were operating in Babylon. They were being educated for the king's service; they're going to be doing important things in the government. So they didn't just land somewhere in the middle of the desert far from anything else where they could simply meditate on God all day, and have nothing else going on in their life. The world was all around them. And the important activities of running a government were a part of their education, and then part of their life. And yet they remained in that setting. And they’re never controlled by it or completely shaped by it. They were in the world, but not of it. That's one of the beautiful phrases that comes through in a letter written shortly after the New Testament was written. The letter of Diognetus. And that letter speaks of Christians wearing much the same clothing as the rest of the people around them, but being very different from them. Sharing and fellowship and not just sleeping around. And it lists a whole bunch of differences in which Christians are very different from the world they're in and yet very involved in it, and are among its best citizens and its hardest workers. And, yet, they're not identical to those around them. Another thing about Daniel and his friends is they were characterized by excellence without excuses. Now, if you are looking for excuses to fail, there may be plenty. But do you really have better excuses, and more excuses than Daniel did? Have you been ripped away from everybody you knew just about, and totally torn away and settled somewhere else? Part of a very persecuted racial minority, part of a very persecuted religious minority, and given very difficult circumstances with some of the nastiest people in the whole empire out to get you and bring you down. What do we do when that happens? Well, for some of us we may decide it's just about time to host a really fabulous pity party. Oh, poor me. I am so picked on. Oh, woe is me. Life is so hard. God, how can you possibly expect me to shine in these circumstances? How could you expect me to come through and even excel when so much is against me?

But you'll find that Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego don't make excuses. Instead of just groveling in the dirt like turkeys, they soar like eagles. You read about them in chapter one. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them he found them 10 times better. Daniel, in chapter six so distinguished himself among the other officials that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. And after the whole LION'S DEN episode, it says he prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the

Persian. He was an exceptional person. Someone who despite everything against him, rose above it all. And one of the most terrible things that we can do is to think that there is no potential for us, and no opportunity to excel just because of the things that are against us. If you know God, and if you keep trusting in God and relying on him, you can have excellence. Just bag the excuses. The Bible says we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. We need to get over any kind of victim mentality that keeps pulling us down and telling us, well in my case, you really can't expect me to amount to much. You can. And the Bible encourages us again and again not to be excuse makers. Of course they were gifted by God; they didn't excel totally on their own. To these four young men, God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And to Daniel He gave this ability to understand the visions and dreams of all kinds. Nebuchadnezzar says none of the wisemen in My Kingdom can interpret my dream for me, but you Daniel can, because the spirit of the holy god is in you. He's talking kind of like an idol worshiper yet but he knows there's something about Daniel; something from the supernatural realm that gives Daniel this insight. And when Belteshazzar is having his big feast, that wicked king, and the old queen mother comes in and tells about this guy Daniel. Notice what she says. There's a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. This man Daniel was found to have a keen mind and knowledge and understanding, and also the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve difficult problems. Call for Daniel and he'll tell you what the writing means. He's a very gifted person with amazing gifts. And he knows it. That's an important thing to notice. He knows not just that he's gifted, but where the gifts came from.

And so when God gives him the ability to understand Nebuchadnezzar's dream and to interpret it, and thereby saves the life of Daniel and a whole bunch of other advisors, Daniel says, To you, O God of my father's, I give thanks, and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might and have now made known to me what we asked of you. And just a bit later, when he's called before the king after God has answered that prayer and given him the insight, the king says, Well, you know all this, you know, you must be some superduper guide to know what my dream means. And Daniel knows no wisemen, chanters, magicians or astrologers can show the kingdom mystery that the king has asked. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He's not using this supernatural ability that he's got to puff himself, or to say, I am fantastic. He says there is a God in heaven who knows this stuff. And he sometimes chooses to reveal these mysteries to people. He glorifies God and not himself for his gifts. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul says, What do you have that you were not given? And yes, it was given to you. Why do you brag as though it were not given to you. If something is something that you earned or did on your own, well maybe you can brag about it. But when you get tremendous gifts and abilities from God, then it's an occasion to say Glory to God in the highest. And not to say Glory to me in the highest.

So Daniel is a man who glorified God. He's also a man who, again and again, is guided by the scriptures. His actions in chapter one, are guided by the word of God that was in force at that time to stay away from that kind of food, and to stay away from food dedicated to idols in particular. And so as one of God's holy people in Old Testament times, Daniel lived by that scripture. When the accusation comes against him by those who want to throw him in the lion's den, what do they say? They say, we'll never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God. He is a man of the Word of God. He's a man of the scriptures who is saturated in the Scriptures. And when Daniel understands things, it's not always by direct revelation from heaven through dreams, or through angels, although God did use Daniel in those extraordinary ways. But his conduct was ordinarily guided simply by the scriptures. And even sometimes his understanding of deep mysteries and what was going to happen came to him because he was such a student of the scriptures. In chapter nine, he says, I Daniel understood from the scriptures according to the Word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years. Somehow, he knew the words of Jeremiah the prophet; perhaps even how to scroll to the writings of Jeremiah the prophet along with other scriptures. And he was a man who kept studying those things. And his life was one shaped by the word of God. Now, again, it's very important to understand this because if you just read the story of Daniel in the lion's den, or if you remember it from somewhere back in your youth, and you say Boy, that was a brave guy. I really ought to work on being a brave guy of principle like Daniel. Well, yeah, good luck with that. You can make a New Year's resolution, dare to be a Daniel. Well, okay. But how do you get to be a Daniel? That's what we're talking about now. You get to be a Daniel by knowing the Word of God and soaking yourself in and immersing yourself in it, as well as these other things that we're talking about. You don't just wake up one day and say, I really would like to be a better person. You become a better person by certain means. And this is about one of the greatest of them all. Simply to know the Word of God, and to be guided by the word of God. Now, in all of that, being extraordinarily gifted, guided by the word of God, Daniel didn't fall prey to something that sometimes afflicts people who, well, I guess the words are literally, who pride themselves on being biblical, and pride themselves on being bold and people of principle. Maybe you know a few.

I know I can sometimes be one; where you're kind of obnoxious. Because you know you're right. I'm right and you are going to just listen. And you're going to take it whether you like it or not. Well, Daniel is a little different. Now sometimes, of course, it helps that if you're not tactful you could be dead at any moment. That does encourage a certain amount of tact. But nonetheless, you notice how Daniel handles things. When he's facing that test where he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile themselves and to give him a test for 10 days. And later on, when this decree goes out to kill all the guys because Nebuchadnezzar’s dream hasn't been interpreted. That decree goes out and Daniel speaks to the official with wisdom and tact it says; with wisdom and tact. He asked the King's officer, why did the king issue such a harsh decree? Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel. And at this Daniel went into the king and asked for time so that he might interpret the dream for him. He was always looking for the least obnoxious and confrontational way to do it. For some wiggle room, if you will, for some way to find space for something good to come out of it instead of just a bashing of heads, and one side or the other being wiped out. Now, again, it does encourage you to be tactful when you're the side that would be wiped out if you're not tactful. But it's also overall an excellent policy for Christians to act with wisdom and tact and not just take pride in what people of principle we are. But having said that, when you act with wisdom and tact, you do have to have fearless resolve, because if you're only tact – well, we know too many politicians who are only tact, who are always going along to get along, always compromising, always cutting corners, never standing up for what is right. And Daniel does stand for what's right. That's probably what he's most famous for. For taking a stand. He won't defile himself with the king's food early in the book. He won't quit praying when he's faced with the lion's den crowd. He goes home and three times a day prays just as he had before; because he's God's man. He knows who he is. And he's not going to give that up. And so his wisdom is combined with his courage and his fearless resolve. And part of that, too, is that you can't pay him off. You can't just use a carrot and stick approach on him and say, Well, if you do this, I'll give you lots of goodies. If you won't do it, I'll blow you up to smithereens. You can use all your promises of reward on Daniel. And you can pull out all your threats on Daniel. And he's not going to run after the promise rewards. And he's not going to shrink away from the big threats. He will simply say it like it is. And evidence of that is how again and again and again, right when he's in the face of the most powerful man on earth, he will say what needs saying.

Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. And that dream basically concerns him becoming like an animal and losing his mind. And Daniel tells him the meaning of that dream. Now, Daniel I suppose could have stopped there because that's all Nebuchadnezzar wanted – was to know what the dream means. But Daniel thought now was a good time to give a bit of advice. And he said, renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed and maybe this stuff you dreamed about won't happen to you. Now it takes some guts to tell the guy who knows everything, and has the right to decide everything that he ought to change and shape up. But Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar you better repent or it's going to happen to you. When he's in front of King Belshazzar and the writing on the wall, he says to Belshazzar you've been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The King is panicking at that message. But he doesn't know what the message is – yet. So he's asking for somebody who can interpret it. And he tells Daniel, well, I'll give you lots of gold and fancy robes. And I'll make you the third most powerful man in the kingdom. And what is Daniels response? Let your gifts be for yourself and your rewards for another. Nevertheless, I will tell you what this writing on the wall means. So again, Daniel is not going to be a spokesman for God because it pays so well, or because he's threatened with anything if he won't do it. He just says you can keep your stuff. Now again, one of the keys to that kind of attitude is he knows how long that stuff is going to last. In that particular occasion Daniel literally knew that it was not going to last the night. He knew, and in fact, it turned out he was given that gold, he was given that fancy robe, he was promoted to third in the kingdom. And by the time the night was over, the guy who promoted him was dead. Belshazzar the king was toast. And when your only rewards in life come from those who could be toasted at any moment, then you ought to take those rewards a little more seriously. When the only punishments come from those who can't destroy the soul, then you don't fear those punishments quite so much.

And that's the key to Daniel. He can stand up to Nebuchadnezzar. He can stand up to Belshazzar. Because he knows all their rewards don't last anyway. And when Darius issues a decree that nobody should pray, then it's reported that Daniel, one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you O king, or to the decree you put in writing. Now Daniel wasn't normally an obnoxious, disobedient guy. He was the most faithful of all the king's workers. But when the king issues a decree contrary to God, then he's going to obey God rather than man. And if you want to be a Daniel, you have to be somebody who can't be bought off by the rewards, who can't be scared off by the threats. And some of us may be more vulnerable to one than the other. Some of us are hard to buy off because you can't just dangle goodies in front of us. But we may be timid and we can get scared off. Others may be bold, and we're never going to be scared off. But the devil knows that we're maybe a little easier to buy off. There are some people for whom the pleasures of this world will lure them to a place where no sword or gun could drive them. There are folks who if they faced direct persecution, and were told at the point of a gun, deny your faith, they would say Never! And when some little trinket comes along, or some little image on the internet, or some little corner they need to cut in order to make a little more money, they'll do it. They can be bought off by the rewards even if we can't be scared off by the threats. And so each of us needs to examine ourselves in light of what our particular weaknesses and vulnerabilities are. And then focus more and more both on the greatness of God on the one hand, and the weakness and worthlessness of the threats and rewards of the powers that be of this world.

The Bible says that before God, all the rulers of this world are nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing. And we need to have that same perspective on the threats and rewards in this world. He's always praying, he’s not just a man who's listening to the Word of God, but he's in communication with God. Just a few examples from the book of Daniel chapter two, when the decree goes out that everybody is going to be wiped out unless the king's dream can be interpreted, all of the Stargazers, astrologers and what have you of the kingdom immediately say, well King, nobody can do that. No way. What does Daniel do? Daniel went to his house, and made the matter known to his companions Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery. He says, Guys, we got problems. We need to pray. And we need to pray right now. And we need to pray hard. That's what they do. And God answers that prayer. When he's faced with his enemies in the lion's den administration, well, three days three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed giving thanks to God. And here's the key phrase – just as he had done before. This was his lifetime habit. He was always praying. He prayed without ceasing. It was a built in pattern of his life and he wouldn't quit. In chapter nine he understands the prophecy that God is going to bring his people back to the land after 70 years in captivity, because that's what God had told Jeremiah. And what does he do? He doesn't just say, well, Good, glad to hear it. He says, I turned to the Lord God, and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. Why do all that? God has already said he's going to do it? Why would you pray? Who needs to ask him for what he's already said he's going to do? Well, for some reason that is what prayer is. It's knowing what God says he's going to do and then taking hold of it – through prayer – and through earnest prayer and fasting. And so Daniel understands prayer not to be some shot in the dark, begging wildly for what you have no reason to expect. But he knows what God has promised. And his prayers are just earnest claiming what God has promised. And here again, let me remind you, don't just take Dare to be a Daniel as a nice resolution to work on. But understand what it is that makes him who he is. It was that lifetime of prayer that made him the kind of old man who could stand up to anything. Remember maybe the story of Polycarp, who was also a very old man, and who was hauled into a Roman arena, and threatened with being burned. And Polycarp said, well 86 years I've served him, and I'm not gonna quit now. He's been faithful to me all these years. I'm not quitting now. And in his case, he was burned by the Roman officials for his faith. But he was a man who for his whole life, had been a person of faith and prayer. And so when the trial came he could stand firm. You don't stand that trial and come through if your whole life has been spent out of fellowship with God.

And he's helped by angels. He says, My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions. And angels played a big part in the book of Daniel, not just in rescuing him from lions but as you read on in the book there's a particular Angel whose name you might recognize. Gabriel. He says, while I was still in prayer, in chapter nine, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision came to me in swift flight. And Gabriel, this angel who announces the future to Daniel will make other appearances later on. He will announce the birth of John the Baptist to the old priest Zechariah. And he will announce to Mary that this virgin girl will conceive and give birth to the Savior of the world. But Daniel is helped by this angel Gabriel. Then in chapter 10 he says again, one having the appearance of a man, that's an angel, touched me and strengthened me. And he said, Oh, man, greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you. Be strong and of good courage. And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my Lord speak for you have strengthened me. Again, this is not just ancient history for Daniel. The Bible says that the Lord puts his angels in charge concerning those who fear him. The angel encamps around those who fear him. And we can count on this help from angels. And God tells us about these angels to bolster our courage and our confidence.

Now, having said all that, it is hard to believe that there's anything wrong with Daniel. You read the book of Daniel and you cannot find, at least I can't find, anything he ever did wrong. Now, that doesn't mean he never did anything wrong. Because the Bible selectively reports what we need to know for God's purposes of revealing and we know from Chapter nine of Daniel, that Daniel by no means said, Lord, I am perfect. I have done everything right. I am a spiritual superstar. Read the whole chapter nine of Daniel and you find quite a different picture. Daniel identifies himself as a sinner, and his people as sinners. And he says our only hope is if you're going to have mercy on us. Here are just a few words from that prayer. He says, We have sinned and done wrong, and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commands and rules. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets. We do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your mercy. Not because of our righteousness but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear. O Lord forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act, delay not for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. Notice what he's doing. He's appealing to God's name. And God had revealed his name as I am who I am – the Lord, the Merciful and Compassionate One. And he says, For the sake of that Name, for the sake of Your Mercy, and your Compassion. Not because of who I am or anybody else. We are sinners. We have acted wickedly. We've ignored your voice. But please, forgive and show mercy and take action. To put it in a nutshell, Daniel was a man of grace. He depended totally on God's grace and on God's determination to act for his own namesake, as the God of mercy and love and not based on his own qualifications. When I say Dare to be a Daniel, if you think you can do that by Okay, I'm going to try to become the greatest spiritual superstar in the world and become the best guy who ever lived. Forget it. This was a man of grace, and he was full of the grace of God. As we sometimes read in the New Testament, Stephen and others, they were full of the Holy Spirit and faith. That's what made them who they were. But they were sinners, seeking mercy. And they found mercy, they found power and help from the Lord. And ultimately it was faith in God. And what kind of God does Daniel have faith in? I just want to highlight three things that are major, major themes of the God of Daniel. The Living God revealed in the book of Daniel.

One is that He is the ruler. Chapter four, verse 17, says the most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men, and gives them to anyone He wishes. That's a big theme of Daniel. God puts some people in power and knocks others out of power. Back to that question of Who I am and what's going on. Daniels' country had been seized and its king dethroned. And how did that happen? Well, the very first few lines of the book of Daniel says, The Lord did it. And Daniel knew it. Daniel knew that it was not some big accident that some bad stuff had happened to Judah and Jerusalem. The Lord did it for his own reasons to discipline his people. The Lord could bring down Daniel's homeland. The Lord could turn Nebuchadnezzar into a raving lunatic. The Lord could throw Belshazzar from the throne of Babylon into hell in one night. The Lord is the ruler. And when he looks into the future, Daniel sees these visions of the great coming world empires. The empire of Nebuchadnezzar. The empire of the Persians. The empire of Alexander the Great. The Empire of the Romans. And seeing all that, what does Daniel say? The Lord rules all of it.

He's not just a ruler, he's a revealer. You see that again and again. And Daniel, in the early parts of Daniel, there are those dreams. And then even more in the last half of the book of Daniel, are the dreams that God gives about the future – the visions of what is coming. Chapter two, verse 28, says, There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. That sums it all up. He's a revealer. He doesn't keep everything hidden. He shows something of himself, not everything. But he shows a lot. He's a revealing God who has chosen not to remain hidden.

And not only a ruler and a revealer, but a rescuer. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, The God we serve is able to save us. Daniel said, My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions. He is a God who rules and reveals and rescues. He's a savior God and Daniel knows that kind of God – a Ruler, a Revealer, a Rescuer. And so when he's got to do hard things in the presence of these mighty kings, he's encouraged to do it by the fact that God rules. And Daniel knows which Kingdom is going to last. He's had that vision of the rock cut without hands, that wipes out the statue representing all the great world empires. He knows this God who rules and he knows that his kingdom lasts, and that no other kingdom lasts. And he is awed by God, and not by kings. Daniel has seen the mightiest and one of the smartest and best administrators and generals in the world, one of the great geniuses of world history, turned into a guy who thinks he's a cow. Just like that. And he's seen God just wipe out a man's mind. And then later on, when he's been humbled, give that man his mind back again. He did that to the king. He has seen a man in the midst of a big party, reduced to his knees knocking and his face white with fear because God sends one little hand to write a couple of words on a wall. That's all God needs to do with the most proud, tough, arrogant king in the world is send his hand and write a couple of words on a wall saying, You've been weighed, you came up short; you're gone.

Daniel had seen all that. So is it any wonder why when it came to the challenge of the lions den, he wasn't scared of an emperor. He'd seen the greatest and the most powerful brought down again and again and again. And he was awed, not by any politician, not by any ruler, but only by God Himself. And Daniel didn't just know God, in general, as this great Ruler, and Revealer and Rescuer, but more and more God gave Daniel visions of Somebody. Somebody who's coming. And this one who comes is, is this Rock. This one who comes is going to provide atonement for sin. He's described as someone like a son of man, who's in the throne, and he's gonna have something to do with judging the world and with resurrection, and with where people spend eternity.

And Daniel's visions, our Christmas visions, are Jesus visions. The God of heaven, it says in chapter two, verse 44, will set out the kingdom that will never be destroyed. It will crush all those kingdoms, and bring them to an end. When this picture of all the great world empires smashed by a stone comes along, and it happens during that fourth empire, the iron one symbolizing the empire of Rome, Daniel is given the ability by God to tell when and in which empire, the Lord's great kingdom is going to begin growing and growing and growing to fill the whole earth. Daniel, chapter nine, speaks of finishing the transgression. To put an end to sin.
To atone for iniquity. To bring in everlasting righteousness. And he says this is going to come 70 sevens after the temple has been rebuilt, and then re-dedicated. And I won't get into all the complexities, but if you do the math, you get pretty well on Good Friday. The Anointed One shall be cut off. Again, Daniel's not just believing in a higher power or in a god somewhere out there. He has increasingly clear glimmerings of the coming Messiah. And he sees the Son of man. I saw in the night visions, chapter seven, verse 13 and 14, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a Son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom; that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. When we celebrate Christmas, we're not just celebrating a baby in a manger. When Jesus used the words Son of man to describe Himself, he wasn't just being a really humble guy saying, Yeah, I'm just human like the rest of you. In one sense, that's true. He is a son of man. He is human like the rest of us and did humble himself greatly. But when he uses the title Son of Man, He is the Son of Man who comes to the Ancient of Days, and is presented before him and receives dominion and power and glory over all things. That's why you sing glory to God in the highest, because the Son of Man is God in the highest, the Son of the ancient days.

You may wonder what in the world some of these books in the Bible have to do with Christmas? You better start asking what does Christmas have to do with the Son of Man, with the King of Glory. We do not celebrate Christmas just to look at cute baby pictures of Jesus. You know, if you're celebrating the President's birthday, you don't just drag out the President's baby album. You can do that if you want. But you may want to pay attention to who that person is now. And Jesus has come into the presence of the Ancient of Days, and received dominion and power and glory. And Daniel chapter 12 speaks of that great resurrection that's coming, of a time of distress at the end of the age that's never been before. But then also people being raised, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. And he says those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. In Philippians chapter two, it speaks of Jesus coming down and giving up His power and dying and then receiving the name that's above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. And then it says, and you need to shine like stars in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. When you live in light of the coming of Jesus, then you begin to shine like stars. There was a beautiful star that once shown above the place where Jesus was as a baby. But now Jesus has a whole bunch of stars that are meant to shine and to direct people to the Savior. And you're one of them. So, we need to pay attention to all these things.

To dare to be a Daniel, know who you are. You're in this world, we are not of it. Pursue excellence without excuses. Know what those gifts of God are. If you belong to God at all you've got gifts. It's just a matter of knowing what they are, and maximizing them and reaching your full potential in the Lord. Glorify God with your life and your gifts, be guided by scripture, use wisdom and tact at the same time, don't give up on your principles. Don't let the threats or the rewards of the world sway you. Instead, be a person who prays without ceasing, where prayer is a daily pattern of your life. And as you do all that, don't be weighed down by the burden of “ oh, I can never live up to that.” Instead be a person who's always seeking mercy and forgiveness, and living in the power of God's grace. And being picked up again and again and again by Him. Be someone who knows that God's angels are with you, and live by faith in God, and in His Anointed One, Jesus Christ. Jesus himself was almost quoting from the book of Daniel when he spoke about Himself, and he said, God has given him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will come forth, those who have done good and will rise to live; those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. Almost taken verbatim from the book of Daniel. He's going to be given authority to judge because He is the Son of Man. And there is going to be this great resurrection of the evil and the just. The book of Daniel is not mainly about Daniel. It's mainly about the One Daniel saw coming. And He has come and He is coming again.

PRAYER

Lord, we praise You for sending your son, the son of God, the Son of Man, the Ruler of all things. And we thank You, Lord Jesus, for making atonement for sin, for establishing righteousness and giving all who believe their right standing with God. We thank you for your promises of future resurrection and eternal life with you. We pray, Lord, that you will help us to live by faith in you always, as the God who sent your one and only son to live among us, as the God who rules and reveals and rescues. And Lord, may your rules and your revelation and your rescue fill our hearts with joy at all times. And we pray, Lord, that as more and more happens in us by your Holy Spirit, that the character of a man like Daniel and the impact of a man like Daniel may more and more take shape in us, as the God of Daniel is our God too. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.