 |
| clipart |
Harry Foster
Chapter V. THE LIVING GOD
"He is the living God, and steadfast for ever"
Daniel 6:26
THERE is no doubt that Daniel was a key man for God throughout the years of Israel's captivity in Babylon. God's intentions in this matter are indicated by the simple statement at the very beginning that "Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus" (1:21). [97/98] He lived on beyond that, but the point is that he lived to see the day of the return of the captives. He probably played a key role as adviser to Cyrus in this matter, for God put him up to the top and kept him there. But not all the time. This chapter opens with the startling implication that after Nebuchadnezzar's demise, Daniel entirely disappeared from public life. All the honours given to him in his promotion by Nebuchadnezzar seem to have lost their value; he was so completely forgotten that it took a divine miracle to bring him back on the scene. This chapter will explain how it all happened. That it only happened on the final night of the Chaldean empire is but one more example of the recurring truth that while God is never late, He has a way of leaving things to the very last minute. He runs it very fine.
The scene set before us in the Babylonian banquet hall is so bizarre that if any Jews were present they might well have wondered if the Lord was still alive. There was no sign of His reaction to arrant blasphemy. Where now was the King of Heaven? Where was any evidence that God is the Most High? Nebuchadnezzar's dissolute son (or grandson) was mocking Him in ways which his great ancestor would never have countenanced. It is true that Nebuchadnezzar carried away the holy vessels from the temple in Jerusalem, but he seems always to have treated them with respect. After he had learned the lesson of the burning fiery furnace, he uttered bloodthirsty threats against anyone who dared to be irreverent towards the true God.
But times had changed. Nebuchadnezzar was no more. His son, Nabonidus, was at that very time being defeated in the field by the Medo-Persian armies, and Belshazzar, the regent (either a son or a younger brother), was indulging in this gigantic drinking party while the empire disintegrated. So great was the Babylonans' sense of security within their massive city, that they contemptuously ignored the seemingly ineffective besieging troops of the Medes who in fact had been steadily working while they seemed inactive, and had now completed the field works which opened the undefended city to them. On the eve of the empire's overthrow Belshazzar, descendant of the mighty conquering Nebuchadnezzar, was indulging with his officers in drunken revelry. Times had changed in Babylon.
Times had changed for Daniel, too. He who had risen to such eminence under Nebuchadnezzar, was so effectively removed from office that Belshazzar behaved as though he had never heard of him. It was only when the old queen-mother came on the scene that Daniel's name and ability were disclosed. Obviously he had been removed from all prominence and authority in this crumbling empire. Unbelief might well have wondered if God were asleep or dead.
But no, God was alive all right. Our title for this chapter is "The Living God" (6:26). The phrase was coined by Darius the Mede, Belshazzar's successor, but it is the perfect description of the One who is not only very much alive Himself, but able to bring back life into dead situations. He alone could rescue Daniel from obscurity and put him back again into the governorship from which he had been eliminated. Whenever we think of God's exercise of life, we should bear in mind that it invariably carries with it the idea of resurrection from the dead. There is no other life available to Christians than resurrection life. The fact that He is the Living God means that His methods in all His working -- and most notably in His Son -- are based on resurrection. Daniel needed such a God; for practical purposes he had been reduced to social and political death, with no position, no power, no public reputation; he was in the depths.
His experience had some parallel with that of Nebuchadnezzar as described in chapter 4, though in Daniel's case there was not the slightest suggestion of any fault on his part. Both men were in a hopeless position, humanly speaking. Nebuchadnezzar was brought down to zero by the heavy hand of God upon him. Daniel came down to zero by divine permission, though probably he was the victim of men's envy. After seven years of suffering, Nebuchadnezzar was fully restored. After an unknown period of eclipse, Daniel was also fully restored. But the eclipse had been so total that Belshazzar only met him for the first time on this occasion (v.13), and his return to power can only be likened to a resurrection.
The title, Living God, means just this, that He has power to give life by raising from the dead. This chapter proves the point and justifies itself in forming part of the whole book by its implication of the miracle which happened to Daniel. We may be carried away by the wonder [98/99] of "the writing on the wall", but God would not use His Word just to interest us with that story of Belshazzar's shock and doom. His interests are positive and purposeful. What He needed to do was to safeguard those precious holy vessels of the temple and, even more, to restore Daniel to his place of authority until His people returned to the land. This chapter discloses how He did all this.
The effective words here are, "that night" (v.30). Once again we should notice God's perfect timing. Even while the besotted regent was blaspheming God in his cups, a hand -- indeed only part of a hand -- was stretched out to sober him up with a solemn warning. That hand could just as easily have struck him down, and if there were any Jews present, they must have wondered why it did not do so. It is true that the time for Belshazzar's end had come, but God's main purpose was to re-instate Daniel. Instead, therefore, the divine fingers wrote four cryptic words on the wall. Just that, and nothing more. It was enough, though, to terrify this boasting blasphemer. Somehow he knew that the message came from another world, even though he did not know what it said or who could explain it to him. He was so frightened that he made the offer of highest advancement, even to third rulership, to anyone who could tell him what the mystic message was. He who had been so bold in drunken blasphemy was now terrified in sober panic as he saw the fingers write. Incidentally the fact that he was only regent explains why it was that when Daniel was given top-rank promotion, he could still only be described as 'third' in the kingdom.
Once again they went through the now familiar pattern of calling in all Babylon's wise men, and once again God's servant had to wait patiently till the last. Nebuchadnezzar had had to learn humility: Daniel knew it but had to practice it. There was such a hysterical panic in the palace that the king's mother broke into the disorderly scene with the reminder that Nebuchadnezzar's previous 'master of magicians' was still available and was the very man they were looking for. So last of all, the neglected and unrecognised servant of the Lord was brought in and given the opportunity to speak for Him. It is my firm belief that any gifted man of God with a message does not need to force himself forward and rely on the influence of others, but will be given his chance to minister if he keeps humble before God and available to Him. That is what Daniel did, and his experience confirms me in my conviction.
His humility was outstanding. If Nebuchadnezzar had felt some justification for feeling proud of himself (4:30), how much more might Daniel have harboured pride in his heart. Before him the mighty emperor had prostrated himself, and in his honour it had been commanded that they should offer an "oblation and sweet odours" (2:46). His had been the honour of receiving Nebuchadnezzar's commendation: "You are able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in you" (4:18). He had had the high privilege of indicating to the king how he might experience God's delivering mercy, even though he had to wait a long time before his hearer responded to his exhortation. We know, however, that Daniel was free from any conceit: he retained his lowliness as well as his integrity. When later we listen to his prayers, we will appreciate the depth and reality of his beautiful humility.
When the call came quite unexpectedly, then, his spirit was so pure that he was ready to answer it, and his walk with God so close that he did not need a lot of time and exercise to be able to communicate God's message. He was not looking for promotion. His first reaction was to reject the gifts and rewards offered by the king (v.17). But he was in touch with God. What could natural reasoning make of the three words, Numbered, Weighed and Divided? Only divine inspiration made it possible for Daniel to give the interpretation of the sinister message.
But before he gave this, Daniel was bold enough to tell Belshazzar what he and everybody else well knew, and that was the truth about himself. In Babylon pride was on the throne once more. In spite of the sensational experience of his father about which he was fully informed, he had made himself the ring-leader of a dissolute revolt against the very King of Heaven who had so signally proved His power (v.23). This time Daniel made no plea for repentance and gave no offer of forgiveness. The words had been written. The moment of reckoning had arrived. The Hand had pronounced the sentence. The solemn interpretation followed, with its emphasis by repetition of the [99/100] first word about the kingdom being numbered and brought to an end. We look now to see how it worked out.
It is a matter of secular history that the bloodless capture of Babylon opened the way for the new Medo-Persian empire, already prophesied in chapter 2. It appears that while Belshazzar was junketing with his nobles, trembling at the supernatural writing and then trying to smother his conscience by heaping honours on Daniel, a small band of enemy soldiers penetrated into the city by a subterfuge and changed the government overnight. There was no fighting, except a scuffle in the palace, and it is recorded that only Belshazzar was actually killed. If, in fact, he was the only man to die when the city and empire were conquered, then the divine warning is made all the more solemn by its personal directness. God does not need to waste His time in the constant performance of spectacular miracles; "all things are His servants" (Psalm 119:91).
Daniel's book shows us that heaven is not to be trifled with. Nebuchadnezzar disregarded God's warning to him through Daniel, and he paid dearly for seven years for his obstinacy. This son of his, who had been terrified at the uncanny appearance of the divine fingers and the warning words, seems to have tried to pass it off by promoting Daniel, but he soon found that there is no armour against the judgements of God. Heedless of the verdict pronounced upon him, completely deceived as to its totality and imminence, Belshazzar kept his word about rewarding Daniel because he felt that it somehow glorified him, and then presumably returned to his carousing. God gives no details of his sordid end. It is of no importance. What is important, though, is that in spite of everything, without knowing it and without any credit for it, Belshazzar's last act had been to safeguard the interests of God by committing authority to Daniel. Our God is indeed the Living God and steadfast for ever!
When we considered chapter 4 we were given a clear understanding why it was written. It warns us all and it inspires us all. In chapter 5, however, there is little in the arresting story of Belshazzar's downfall to give any spiritual help to God's people. We therefore look beyond him, to seek to discover the inner significance of the chapter, and as we do so we are confronted with a wonderful and inspiring disclosure of God's ability to protect and care for the vessels of His service. In this case they were two-fold, the golden vessels of the temple and the human vessel of His testimony in Babylon.
It was essential that those vessels that had been carried away from the temple by Nebuchadnezzar should be safely returned at the end of the seventy years by Cyrus. The latter knew nothing of them, and would not have cared had he known. But God knew. God looked forward to the day when Cyrus's treasurer, Mithredath, would take them from the pagan museum in Babylon and hand them over to a prince of Judah to be replaced in God's house in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:8). Belshazzar desecrated the vessels by using them in his drunken carousal, and they so easily might have been mixed up with all the other heathen goblets, but no doubt one of Daniel's first actions on being promoted to rulership was to collect them and store them against the day when they should be restored "every one to his place" (Ezra 6:5) in that re-built temple about which he later so fervently prayed. The Living God can be trusted to care for what is His, and to exert resurrection power in the process if that be necessary.
And what shall we say of the human vessel? In the wise providence of God, Daniel was destined to prominence and authority in the new empire so that he could steer the counsels of Cyrus towards the release of the captives at the end of the allotted years. From the first God had determined that Daniel should continue through those seventy years (1:21) and the intervening chapters have shown us how He worked to bring His servant to the place of rulership. For some reason all this had been lost. What happened between chapters 4 and 5 we do not know, but by the time chapter 5 opens he was a nonentity. By the end or the chapter, though, we find that the Living God had brought him back, as if by resurrection, and had made sure that his authority was fully restored.
----------------
No comments:
Post a Comment