An Address To Young Men.
(Read Daniel 1-6)
I NEVER forget that the night I was converted I got an invitation to go the next evening to a prayer meeting. That was a splendid start. If you have to do with young converts, give them a nice, warm, affectionate shake of the hand, and say, “Let us pray together, and let us praise the Lord together.” It is wonderful how it works.
Why is it, nowadays, we hear people talking of not much blessing? I will tell you why. There is not much prayer. There is not so much individual and collective waiting upon God as the occasion demands. There is not the expectation of blessing.
I do want to stir your minds up, my beloved friends, over this matter, for I learn a great lesson here from Daniel. He goes to God in prayer to have revealed to him a most momentous thing, and it was revealed to him. When it is revealed, he gives God thanks, but, delightful to see, he brings his brethren in. There was nothing at all of self in Daniel. It was real fellowship. “Thou hast made known unto us the king’s matter.”
Then Daniel comes in to the king, and reveals to him what nobody else could reveal. He unfolds to Nebuchadnezzar his dream of the image of gold, &c., which stood before him in his vision, and which is a remarkable panoramic view of the history of the world, and of the four monarchies―the Babylonish, Medio-Persian, Grecian, and Roman, that have dominated it. These empires have all gone today. I do not doubt but that the fourth―the Roman empire―will be revived again. Scripture tells us as much. In its last phase, that of ten kingdoms, it is illustrated by the ten toes of the great image, toes, we are told, of mingled iron and clay―the former symbolizing that which is firm and rigid, militarism, no doubt, the latter, mere Socialism. We can easily see today how Socialism and all that kind of thing is working.
The end of other empires will be exactly the same as it was with the empire of Rome. When Rome was at its full height, people were engrossed with pleasure, money-making and the like, and they lost what marked them as a martial nation, and they were overthrown. Today you will find it is the same thing. What has marked the young men of today, very, very largely? It is pleasure, and the acquisition of money so that it may be spent in pleasure.
Daniel sees the end of all this. He sees a stone, cut out without hands, falling upon the feet of the image, and destroying it. That symbolizes the coming back of our Lord Jesus Christ as Son of Man to this earth in power, might, majesty, and glory. The Roman empire will come up again by and by, but it will have this remarkable feature. There will be the recognition of an imperial head, while, at the same time, there will be ten kingdoms (Rev. 13. and 17). This much Scripture tells us. Hence the value of reading the Scriptures, and knowing their meaning.
Prophecy casts light on things to come. You need not meddle with politics one bit, because a Christian belongs to heaven. It is a great thing to see that a Christian belongs to heaven. He has to go through the world, but he walks with the light of heaven illuminating for him all that is around, as well as the future.
The result of Daniel’s unfolding the dream is this, that “the king made him a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors of all the wise men of Babylon” (ch. 2:48). The king saw that he was a man of wisdom and knowledge, and could be relied upon. He was God’s man in Babylon. “Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon.” He did not forget his brethren in the day of his prosperity. “But Daniel sat in the gate of the king” (vs. 49). He was raised to what we should term the Bench. He was made a sort of Lord Chancellor, to give judgment in the place of the king, the most important position, perhaps, that he could occupy at that time.
We pass briefly over chapter 3, which does not give you Daniel’s history. You find his companions―these three young men―were, however, greatly influenced by him. Here is a very great lesson, my dear young fellows. You do not know what influence you have on the people round about you.
Look at the influence Daniel had on these three men. His personal influence on them was this; it made them firm, and when Nebuchadnezzar, in his impiety and folly, put up a great image of gold, and under threat of a fiery furnace commanded all to worship it, what did these three young fellows say? They said to the king, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us.... But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou halt set up” (vs. 18). I think that is splendid. Look at it, these men with the fiery furnace facing them. What would be the harm of bowing down to worship?
It is the king’s command, too. But the king’s command involved the denial of what was due to Jehovah, and that they could not give up, if it was to cost them their lives to maintain it.
It is remarkable to see the result. The three were cast into the furnace, which only burnt off their bonds, however. Nebuchadnezzar the king is astonished and says, “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?... Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (vs. 25). What was the effect of this splendid, devotedness? They get the company of Christ.
If you want the company of Christ, you will have to be firm. You cannot have His company, if you are going to let slip that which is very precious to His heart. God in His wonderful grace preserved them. The only thing the fire really did was to burn off their bonds, and set them free. We have to take care lest we get weak, and lose our moral fiber, our spiritual grit, which the Holy Ghost alone can produce in us.
In chapter 4 Daniel records Nebuchadnezzar’s story of his conversion. Have you recorded yours yet?
In chapter 5 Daniel is able to unfold certain things to Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, and at the close of this fifth chapter again he is exalted, getting the third place in the kingdom. You may say, “Why the third place?” Belshazzar, inside of Babylon was reigning as joint-king, while his father was fighting the Medes outside the city, and the drunken king’s promise was, “that the man who could read the writing on the wall, should be the third ruler in the kingdom” (vs. 7). Daniel read it, and the king fulfilled his promise. In fact, he was made Prime Minister. Belshazzar was infidel, but nevertheless he proclaimed the tidings that Daniel was the third, and he was. It was not very long that he occupied his position, because the kingdom passed away that night.
But look at the next chapter, and you will find that somehow or other Darius, the Median king, came to understand about Daniel. Who was this man that was made Prime Minister in the very moment of the death of Belshazzar? Again you will see he was God’s man in Babylon. “It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; and over these three presidents, of whom Daniel was first, that the princes might give accounts to them, and the king should have no damage.... Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was found in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm” (vss. 1-3). Daniel’s excellent spirit was the secret of this further promotion.
Well, what follows? He got hated. If you are going to be faithful to God you may expect to be hated. Your Master was hated and rejected by the world, and men of the world will do their best to trip you up. Look at Daniel in his new post. We read, “Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him” (ch. 6:4). It is a fine thing if you are in an office or a place of trust, and are surrounded by godless men, if they are able to say this, “You can find no fault with his conduct. He is the best worker in the whole place.” Are you God’s man, where you work?
Then these men, to gain their end―Daniel’s downfall―appeal to Darius’s vanity, and really say in effect, “O king, make a law that nobody shall be prayed to for thirty days except yourself.” Darius consents, and shows us what utter apostasy is.
Now look at Daniel. “When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed, and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime” (ch. 6:10). What effect had Darius’s decree upon Daniel? Not a feather’s weight. He was not driven to his knees in a difficulty. When the difficulty came it found the man of God in this condition of power. Observe, too, that he had his windows open. Now you know the Eastern houses were built low upon the ground. He was not afraid of being seen. He flung open his windows. I tell you what I think some of us might have done. We would have shut the windows, or drawn down the blinds.
But Daniel knew the Scriptures (see 2 Chron. 6:36-3936If they sin against thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near; 37Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly; 38If they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whither they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name: 39Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people which have sinned against thee. (2 Chronicles 6:36‑39)). He had learned in his book that when God’s people were captives in the land of the enemy, if they turned towards Jerusalem, and looked towards Jerusalem, and prayed towards Jerusalem, God would hear and answer. Notice this man in the face of an edict that consigned him, if disobedient to it, to a den of lions. See him looking towards Jerusalem and praying to his God. Very well, of course his enemies come, and find him praying and making supplication before his God. You know the end of the story.
He was thrown into the den of lions, but you must remember he came out of it, too, and that unscathed. What lessons we learn from Daniel.
Now, today, there has been no part of Scripture assailed like the book of Daniel. In our day Daniel is not cast into a den of lions, but his book has been cast into a den of critics. Do you think the critics are going to destroy it? Have no fears, Daniel escaped the den of lions unscathed, and equally so his book will come out from the den of critics, and when the critics are dead and gone the book of Daniel will stand. It is the Word of God. That is the point.
The story of Daniel’s escape is a very beautiful one. That night “the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting; neither were instruments of music brought before him: and his sleep went from him” (ch. 6:18). Darius had a miserable night, but Daniel had a grand one. The man in the den of lions passed a peaceful night, and the man who put him in could not sleep. The man with a bad conscience has an awful bedfellow. Darius had a very bad night, and in the morning he comes with a lamentable voice, and says, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God whom thou servest continually able to deliver thee from the lions?”
That is a fine testimony to Daniel. I think we often serve the Lord intermittently, Daniel did continually. That is fine. Then said Daniel, “O king, live forever.” In effect he says, “I am all right. You have had a miserable night, but I have had a grand one. My God has sent His angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me” (vs. 22). Daniel comes out of the den, and his accusers go in.
Then he is more than ever exalted and confided in by the king, for we read, “so this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian” (vs. 28). He lived through the reigns of four kings.
We must not now go further, except that I will draw your attention to one verse, “O Daniel, a man greatly beloved” (ch. 10:11). If you can put at the end of your name the words, “man greatly beloved,” that is the finest affix you can get to your name. By whom? By God. He greatly loves the man that is here for Him, set for His will, determined to be by grace for Him. I desire, my young friends, that it might be so with you, that you so “purpose in your heart” to follow the Lord, that He may be able to use you, and that He may come and communicate His mind to you. May you be a “Man greatly beloved” by God.
“Many mighty men are lost,
Daring not to stand;
Who for God had been a host,
By joining Daniel’s band!
Dare to be a Daniel!
Dare to stand alone!
Dare to have a purpose true,
Dare to make it known.”
W. T. P. W.