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
his trust in God, and the result was, he had protection in the
darkness. He is praising God for the light he gave him on this dream
that was so mysteriously dark. In verse 24 we see him going to
Arioch. He was the man in charge of the horrible task of killing all of
the wise men. He tells him to stop his killing plan for he has the
interpretation that will satisfy the king. Daniel was not just
concerned for his own neck and that of his friends. He felt it was
wrong for any to die for not being able to know the impossible. He
was concerned to save all of the wise men. Daniel became the savior
of ungodly men. It was all of grace just as when we were yet sinners
Jesus died for the ungodly. Daniel was a type of Christ at this point.
So often we see the wrath of God in the Old Testament, and we
miss the times of his great mercy. Here we see a vast number of
pagan scholars who are saved by the mercy of God in sending Daniel
an understanding of the dream. God is ever willing to spare the
ungodly. He spared all of Nineveh when they repented. He spared all
of the pagans on the ship that went down with Paul. He was even
willing to spare the pagans of Sodom if a few righteous people could
be found in their midst. Here he spares a whole class of pagans. We
need to see this aspect of God's mercy so that we understand his
wrath. It only comes when there is no way to show mercy, for there is
no response to his offer, or no one to carry the offer to them. There is
never a lack of love and mercy in God, but there is often a lack of
repentance in man and an openness to God's mercy. Wrath falls on
the people of God when they sin and fall away from God just as it
does on the pagans. God is no respecter of persons. He is merciful to
all, and he brings judgment on all who reject his love and mercy.
Because the king was not a totally stubborn king, and because he
gave Daniel a chance to bring him the Word of God, the whole
intellectual system of Babylon was spared. Daniel was the instrument
by which God saves it and its leaders. There is no way to calculate
the positive consequences of what Daniel did, and we can assume that
there was a great deal of gratitude expressed to him. Calvin does not
want to put a positive spirit in Daniel at this point of being a savior of
these pagans. He writes, "I...think that Daniel spared the Magi, but
not through any personal regard; he wished them to be safe, but for
another purpose, namely to await their punishment from God." He is
able to turn this whole positive picture into a negative. It is easy to
disagree with a great man when he misses the obvious.
Daniel is no enemy of the pagan people he lives among. He has
been helped by them to survive and he is a friend to them. His
concern here is to prevent the unjust death of man who are innocent
of any evil. Daniel was a true friend of these pagan colleagues, and so
ought all of us to be to those we work with in the world. It is being a
true friend of the lost that will lead many to want to know the God
who makes you love them. Daniel, no doubt, won many pagans to
belief in the God of Israel by his loving concern for them.
In verse 25 we see that Arioch must not have been a very
bloodthirsty soldier, for he appears glad to escape the terrible task of
killing the wise men. He rushes Daniel to the king to give the
interpretation of the dream. Daniel rises from the level of captive
slave to a place of leadership in a pagan empire. God moves in
mysterious ways to achieve his purpose in history. We need to learn
from all of this that we too need to be optimistic, and we need to live
in this dark world of paganism all around us, and, like Jesus and
Daniel, be friends of sinners, and be ever walking in the light all the
way.
