quite at home in the feast of Bel shazzar. He might even have a fling at the Watusi himself! Thank God, at the original feast of Belshazzar, the Queen could say, “ There is a man,” a man who knows what time it is and who can read what God is writing. I am glad that Daniel didn’t get up at the feast, scared half to death, and say, “ I can’t read the handwriting.” Too many prophets in too many pulpits today cannot decipher the heavenly hierogly phics. Others try to cheer every body up by saying there is no special significance to the signs of the times. I am glad that Daniel didn’t read something else. They wouldn’t have known the difference! There are modern prophets who read out of God’s revelation what never was in it and the average American is so ignorant of God’s Word that he doesn ’ t know the difference either. I am glad that Daniel didn’t read just part o f the mes sage. There are prophets in Baby lon today who are afraid of the truth, the whole truth and noth ing but the truth. God had a man who could read it, read it all and read it right. I know that Daniel is not popular today in some cir cles. The Interpreter’s Bible Dic tionary says he ought to cure us all of predicting the future since he tried and failed. I know that we have been misled by those who make Daniel’s fourth world-power to be Greece instead of Rome and who can see no farther than An- tiochus Epiphanes. But my Lord said, “Whoso readeth [Daniel] let him understand” and read Daniel we will and make our way through the Babylon of Revela tion 17 and 18 until Babylon is no more and then join the in numerable multitude in Revela tion 19 singing, “ Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” ! God grant us prophets in Baby lon who will decline the table of Nebuchadnezzar, disregard the decrees of Darius and stand at the feast of Belshazzar and read to this frightened generation what God is writing on the wall! THE KING'S BUSINESS
a sedative. Morning found him down at the lion’s den, leaning over the rail, crying with choked- up voice, “ 0 Daniel, is thy God able to deliver thee?” We need men of God who can pray them selves into lions’ dens and then answer this world of troubled in somniacs: “ Yes, my God is able; able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day; able to do exceeding abun dantly above all that we can ask or think; able to make all grace to abound; able to succor them that are tempted; able to save to the uttermost; able to keep us from falling; able to subdue all things unto H imself.” Who’s afraid of the decree of Darius with a God like that? There was another test, THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR with its REVELRY, REVELATION and RETRIBUTION. America is on a national drunken frolic all the way from beatniks in Podunk to bigwigs in Washington but where is there a Daniel in all this Babylon to read God’s handwrit ing on the wall? Time was when a prophet could say: “Many would unite church and stage, cards and prayer, dancing and sacraments. If we are powerless to stem this torrent, we can at least warn men of its existence and entreat them to stay out of it.” But the prophet was Spur geon and that was a long time ago! Time was when another proph et lamented that churches had been turned into play-houses and that there was hardly a carnal amusement from billiards to danc ing which did not find a nesting place in Christian sanctuaries. “ Is it then Pharasaism or pessi mism” he asked, “ to sound the note of alarm or to predict that the close of this decade may see the Protestant church as com pletely assimilated to 19th-Cen tury secularism as the Roman Catholic church was assimilated to 4th-Century paganism?” But he was A. J. Gordon who lived be fore the New School came along. A modern Daniel in Babylon is
street and become an expert in the art of almost saying some thing. Of course John the Baptist told King Herod off but he wasn’t up on communication, dialogue and public r e la t io n s ! Modern prophets are more likely to be guests in Herod’s palace than prisoners in Herod’s jail. Certain ly no one would think of calling him a fox as our Lord did. How should a prophet conduct himself in Babylon? How did Daniel do it? He faced THREE TESTS. First, there was THE TABLE OF NEBUCHADNEZ ZAR. “You are what you eat” spiritually as well as physically. Nebuchadnezzar’s table takes new forms today. For instance, too many church members sit in front of late, late television, gorging themselves from Babylon’s fare and then wonder why they have no appetite for God’s Word on Sunday. Jim Elliott, that prom ising young missionary martyred in Ecuador, tells in his diary of watching television in the home of a friend. God spoke to him in r ep ro o f w ith Psalm 119:37: “ Turn away mine eyes from be holding vanity.” He goes on to speak of “ the decentralizing ef fect on the mind and affections. It quickens me in ways not o f God, defeating the purpose of prayer to be quickened in ways Divine.” You cannot grow a Daniel at the tables o f Nebuchad nezzar. We must get back to the simple fare of the Word of God. There was also the DECREE OF DARIUS. The devil aimed first at Daniel’s diet, then his devotions. His adversaries ganged up on him, but he went ahead with his prayer life “ AS HE DID AFORETIME.” The devil is in constant conspiracy against a preacher who really prays for it has been said that “what a min ister is in his prayer closet is what he IS, no more, no less.” The man who prays like Daniel may end up in a lion’s den but it is worth it. After all, God “mil- lennialized” the lions and it was not Daniel who had insomnia that night! It was Darius who needed 12
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