Topic : Daniel

Date

• Bibliotheca Sacra 136:542:129 (G. Archer, Tyndall Bulletin 32, 1981), pp.43-79, D. W. Gooding

God Is Able

I know my God is able to deliver;
Able to save from direst human ill;
Able, as when He saved the Hebrew children—
Almighty still.

But if, perchance, His plans are not my plans;
If hid in darkness should my pathway be;
If when I plead He does not seem to answer,
Nor care for me—

Then, though men scoff and bitterly deride me—
Listen! I fling my challenge to the sky!
God may deliver, but if not, I’ll trust Him,
And trusting, die!

M. Mannington Dexter

Ether

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior, was a doctor. As such he was very interested in the use of ether. In order to know how his patients felt under its influence, he once had a dose administered to himself.

As he was going under, in a dreamy state, a profound thought came to him. He believed that he had suddenly grasped the key to all the mysteries of the universe. When he regained consciousness, however, he was unable to remember what the insight was.

Because of the great importance this thought would be to mankind, Holmes arranged to have himself given either again. This time he had a stenographer present to take down the great thought. The either was administered, and sure enough, just before passing out the insight reappeared. He mumbled the words, the stenographer took them down, and he went to sleep confident in the knowledge that he had succeeded.

Upon awakening, he turned eagerly to the stenographer and asked her to read what he had uttered. This is what she read: “The entire universe is permeated with a strong odor of turpentine.”

Bits & Pieces, November 12, 1992, pp. 20-22

John Bunyan

John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was afraid when he was in prison for his commitment to Christ. “My imprisonment,” he wrote, “might end on the gallows.”

We can understand his fear, can’t we? No one wants to face the prospect of being hanged. But, a change took place in Bunyan’s life one day. He became ashamed of being afraid. He said, “Me thought I was ashamed to die with a pale face and tottering knees for such a cause as this.”

William Barclay comments, “Bunyan finally came to a conclusion as he thought of himself climbing up the ladder to the scaffold: ‘Wherefore, thought I, I am going on and venturing my eternal state with Christ whether I have comfort here or no; if God doth not come in, I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into eternity. Lord Jesus, if Thou wilt catch me, do; if not, I will venture for Thy name.’“

Morning Glory, August 19, 1993

They Took for Themselves God’s Glory

What did King Nebuchadnezzar of ancient Babylon and Nikolai Ceausescu of present-day Romania have in common? Both were ruthless dictators who fell after boldly exalting themselves.

Nebuchadnezzar brazenly declared that he had built the great city of Babylon by his own power and for the honor of his majesty (Dan. 4:30). God humbled him by driving him into the wilderness with a mental illness.

Ceausescu, after years of cruelly persecuting Christians and killing all potential threats to his power, instructed the National Opera to produce a song in his honor that included these words: “Ceausescu is good, righteous, and holy.” He wanted this song to be sung on his 72nd birthday on January 26, 1990, but on December 25, 1989, he and his wife were executed. Although his overthrow was part of the anticommunist revolution that swept through eastern Europe, many Christians see his sudden downfall as an act of God. One Romanian, Peter Dugulescu, said that it was “because he took for himself the glory of God.”

Our Daily Bread, August 2, 1992

Numbered Days

Across Nicaragua, graffiti plastered houses, walls, and public buildings. The most prevalent campaign slogan everywhere was: “Daniel 5:25.” Intended to be a simple instruction on how to vote, it literally meant, “Vote for Daniel Ortega, the 5th position on the ballot, on the 25th day of September.”

But Christians in Nicaragua saw a hidden meaning that only God, the author of humor, could orchestrate. For Daniel 5:25 in the Bible reads, “God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.: Christians wondered if Daniel Ortega had unwittingly proclaimed the prophecy against his own rule. The church waited, hoping the prophecy would bring an end, not only to the economic and social destruction of Mr. Ortega’s communist reign, but also an end to the oppression of the church.

That was 1989. Under the communist Sandanistas, Nicaragua, once the bread basket of Central America and a net exporter of food, had become a food importer and had dropped to an economic level second only to that of Haiti in this hemisphere. It was a nation where communist spies were sent into churches to seek out anti-Sandinistas, a nation nearly devoid of foreign missionaries, and a country where the celebration of Christmas and Easter was outlawed by the communist government. Yet, for the first time in two generations there was guarded hope in the humid tropical air because Nicaragua had scheduled its first free election.

Nicaraguans faced their second free national elections Oct. 20. International observers were there again to see that the elections went forward as planned, but in the run-up to the elections, an air of uncertainty—with incumbent President Violeta Chamorro stepping down and Mr. Ortega’s entry into the race—remained.

Even the most pessimistic political soothsayer did not predict the extent of Mr. Ortega’s 1989 loss. He received less than 20 percent of the popular vote, a thunderous victory for Mrs. Chamorro and the 14-party UNO coalition.

Greg Dabel in Managua, World, October 27, 1996, Vol. 11, No. 23, pp. 20-21.

Resource

• Someone Who Beckons, p. 50 - our life constantly observed

Grass on Your Path

In one region of Africa, the first converts to Christianity were very diligent about praying. In fact, the believers each had their own special place outside the village where they went to pray in solitude. The villagers reached these “prayer rooms” by using their own private footpaths through the brush. When grass began to grow over one of these trails, it was evident that the person to whom it belonged was not praying very much.

Because these new Christians were concerned for each other’s spiritual welfare, a unique custom sprang up. When ever anyone noticed an overgrown “Prayer path,” he or she would go to the person and lovingly warn, “Friend, there’s grass on your path!” - RWD

Our Daily Bread, November 18, 1996

Super Fund Misuse

1983 Environmental Protection Agency official who uncovered misuse of “super fund” set up to combat environmental disasters, clean up toxic waste disposal sites. Superiors in the E.P.A. had him transferred to a menial job, bugged phone, harassed him, followed him. Took pictures of him and a woman coming out of a motel room—later found out woman was his wife.

Source unknown

Resource

• “Evangelical Preaching,” Charles Simeon, p. 245

Resource

• Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 170
• Paul Feinberg, Tradition and Testament, p. 189