When Daniel found out about the king’s threat, he went to see the king on his own and offered to solve the enigma -even though nobody had initially thought of him- and the secret was revealed to him during the night. Let me pause again to say this:
· God's people continue to be ignored, overlooked and despised. It's really weird that nobody thought of Daniel and his friends when chapter 1 tells us that in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters of his kingdom (vs. 20). So, what happened? The Church is still people’s last resort. God is the last to Whom we turn when we are in trouble. As Nathanael said to Philip, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Jn 1:46. The world does not mind us because for them, nothing good can come out of the Church.
· God truly reveals hidden things. Unfortunately, we Christians are the ones who do not believe that He can reveal them to us. God can speak to you about your country, city, area, workplace, family, children and about your future, so that you will not perish with the others – Daniel’s first concern was for God to speak so him and his friends would not share the disastrous fate of the other wise men. God says: “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and inscrutable things which you do not know… Nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (Jer 33.3, Mat 10.26). You can know these things, if you wish. I am obviously not talking of spiritual voyeurism. God is not going to reveal to you what your neighbours are eating or their undies, just for the pleasure of showing: this is witchcraft. God reveals things for salvation (ours or our loved ones) and for His glory. A few days ago, my daughter came to me with a situation which was troubling her. There was this classmate of hers who seemed to have a serious problem, but the girl would not speak about it. So, my daughter wanted to know what she could do to help. I told her to pray for GOD to reveal what was wrong to her. I told her to expect an answer via any of these means: a dream, a vision, a sudden intuitive knowledge of the situation, a circumstance (like her finding herself ‘by chance’ somewhere where she can see or hear about the problem) or GOD could also touch the girl’s heart so she would open up to her. She quickly mumbled a few words in her mind and moved onto something else. It was Friday. On Monday afternoon, after the lessons, the girl joined her as she was walking to the music room and spontaneously started pouring out to her, sharing overwhelming issues. My daughter offered to pray for her which the girl gladly accepted. She could not believe someone actually cared. GOD SPEAKS. He is still in the business of revealing hidden things when the motive for knowing them is pure.
Before revealing the king's dream and its interpretation, unlike Elijah who had 450 prophets of Baal put to death, Daniel requested not to destroy the Babylonian wise men (2:24). He could have jumped on the occasion to wipe all these hellhounds who were seducing the king and the people off, but he did not. We like asking God to kill our enemies way too much. We forget that we will always have physical and/or spiritual enemies as long as we live. Destroy two and here are three others: it is an endless fight. Let’s just remember that God’s will is not for the wicked to perish, but to turn back to Him (Ez 18:23, 1Tim 2:4) and let’s be merciful like our Heavenly Father is. By killing them, we deprive them of any possibility to repent.
To be continued…
Have a wonderful week and may God bless you with wisdom!
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