Light All The Way Series

Abraham Lincoln was greatly disturbed during the Civil War

because he was so often given advice or denounced by persons

speaking out of a vacuum of information an a reservoir of ignorance.

One of his favorite stories was concerning a backwoods traveler lost

in a terrific thunderstorm. He flounder through the woods until his

horse gave out. He stood in the middle of the road hardly knowing

which way to go as the lightening streaked and the thunder roared.

One crash of thunder was like a bomb and it caused him to slip on

the mud on his knees. He decided that he just as well pray while he

was down there, and so he said, "Oh Lord, if it is all the same to you,

give me a little more light and a little less noise."

This is what Lincoln needed in those dark and stormy days-light

and not noise. Man needs the wisdom and light of God in times of

crisis, and so it was in the day of Daniel. When he found himself on a

stormy path over shadowed by the dark cloud of death he knew his

only hope was in the God of light. Men often get into situations

where they need knowledge and wisdom that is beyond their capacity

to know or discover. This means that there is only one alternative to

despair at such a time, and that is prayer. When all is hopeless and

dark the believer in a sovereign and all knowing God still has hope.

Prayer is a path that can still lead to light when all other roads are

blocked. Sometimes we speak disapprovingly of using prayer as a last

resort, but lets be honest- prayer is a last resort when man faces

darkness that is thinker than the light of his intellect can penetrate.

You do not pray when you know the answer. When your own light is

sufficient you don't call on the reserve power you have in God. When

your strength is sufficient you praise the Lord and do the job with

the tools you have. If Daniel had known the interpretation of the

dream by his own wisdom and insight he would have told the king

when he went to plead for time. He saw the king before he prayed to

know the dream. He went to the king first so that he might fully

understand the problem and when it was he needed to pray for. He

knew after the visit that he needed more than a refresher course in

dream interpretation. He needed more than ability to make a wise

and clever guess. He needed a direct beam from the God of light.

Daniel needed the impossible from the human point of view.

Nothing on the natural level was adequate for the task at hand. He

needed supernatural help. God alone is the source of light that is

beyond man's capacity to discover. In this prayer God is seen as the

God of nature and history, but the strongest focus is on God as the

source of revelation. He is the God who reveals to man what is

hidden in the depth of mystery. Only God can know the future and

reveal it to man as he does in the book of Daniel. Many critics reject

the revelation of Daniel for they do not believe in a God who can

know the future. They say it was all written after the events really

happened. They reveal a god of their own making who is too small to

know the future. But the God of the Bible is the God of revelation

and he tells Daniel of what is going to come.

For those who believe in the God of the Bible there is no problem

in believing that he knows the future, and that there is no darkness

and mystery with him. David says in Psalm 139:12, "Even the

darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day, for

darkness is as light with thee." Job says in 12:22, "He uncovers the

deeps out of darkness, and brings deep darkness to light." The New

Testament stresses that God is light and in him is no darkness at all,

and then in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and

knowledge. Those who have an adequate concept of God will not

walk in darkness but will walk in the light. They will say with Mary

Brainard who wrote-

would rather walk in the dark with God

Than go alone in the light;

I would rather walk with Him by faith

Than walk alone by sight.

Daniel did not always receive answers from God to get him off the

hook, but he still followed the Lord faithfully, and he never let go of