What was covered in third meeting - Sunday Night.

We were able to cover Daniel Chapters 5 & 6 as planned. We will be looking at Daniel Chapters 7 & 8 along with Revelation chapters 4 and 5. I believe this is where this study will start to slow down due to the difficulty of the material and the amount of material to be studied. This is one of the reasons I decided to try a blog to try to help you understand things we don't have time to discuss in class.

King Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar's grandson forgot about the God that had laid his grandfather low. He was having a drunken party and remembered the golden service items his grandfather had taken from the temple in Jerusalem before he completely destroyed it. While they were toasting their gods made of stone and wood, a hand started writing on the wall. When Belshazzar saw this he was greatly afraid, he sent for his wise men to tell him what it meant. They could not, then a queen came into their presence and reminded Belshazzar that their was someone else who could help him. This man had helped his granfather in the past. They sent for Daniel, he told the king that this very night, his kingdom would be taken from him.

God has the power to put in power to rule who He will, and He can change it at anytime. All of the people in authority all over the world hold those positions by the will of God. We need to remember that God is watching and very much a part of our world. It may not look like He is around but He is.

We saw the fall of the first kingdom of the statue, the head of gold followed by the second kingdom of the statue the Medo-Persian kingdom, the shoulders and arms of silver. We met Darius the Mede who liberated Babylon and Daniel. Darius set Daniel up as one of his highest officials, just as Nebuchadnezzar had done. Darius's men were jealous of Daniel and tried to do away with him by setting up a decree that for 30 days no one was supposed to worship any other god than Darius. They had Darius put it in writing knowing that the laws of the Mede's and Persians could not be undone if written down. They believed their kings to be gods and as such do not make mistakes. The punishment was to be thrown into the lion's den. You notice that the word lion is plural, there were more than one lion in this den and they were not fed regularly. Darius did not try to change the law, he knew he had been tricked and had no way to fix it. Daniel had prior knowledge of this law and could have chosen not to pray for 30 days. Daniel did not change his habits in order to save his life. Just like his three friends some 30 years before had chosen to make a stand, so Daniel would choose to make the same stand. Daniel's enemies thought they had him they told the king that Daniel had broken his decree and needed to be sent to the lion's den. Darius reluctantly had Daniel thrown into the lion's den. Darius spent one very long and restless night. Darius went to the lion's den early and yelled to Daniel asking if his God had saved him. When Daniel said to the king "May you live forever" Darius got his answer. Darius had all of the officials and their families thrown into the lion's den, they were attacked and their bones broken before they could hit the ground in the den by the lions. So much for saying the lions did not eat Daniel because they were not hungry.
We as believers will be asked to make a stand for Jesus at some point in our walk with God; when this happens, will we be like Daniel and his three friends, or will we take the safer road and not make a stand. Only you can answer this question.