Rev. M.D. Rogers
Daniel was already an old man, this was very close to the time that he was thrown in the Lions den. During that time, Daniel was reading and studying his bible, especially the book of Jeremiah. And from the book of Jeremiah, he read in chapter 29 that the length of time that Israel was going to be stuck in Babylon would be 70 years. Daniel was now close to 85 years of age. He had come into Babylon’s service as a teenager, in fact, we know that in the first year of King Darius, there would be only two years left that Israel would be stuck in Babylon. You would think that now that there would only be two years of captivity left, Daniel would be jumping for joy right? Maybe he would put on party cloths and have a party with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Guess what he did! He stopped eating, he started fasting, he put on sackcloth (like potato sacks) and he dumped ashes on his head, a sign of mourning, crying he PRAYED! His prayer was not a prayer thanking God that they would be free in two years either! Daniel started his prayer by remembering what God is like, that there is no God as great as our God, able to do incredible miracles. And he remembered that God is also a God who is flawlessly faithful to the promises he keeps, and God especially shows his love to those who keep his commandments.
But then he remembered what God’s people had done. He remembered how they refused to obey God. They went after idols, they worshiped demons. They broke the law God had given them. They rebelled against God’s rule in their lives and they refused to listen to the prophets that God had sent to correct them and lead them back to obedience. Even though the prophets went to kings and leaders and fathers, it seemed all the people of Israel would not listen to them. Daniel felt all the shame for what the people of Israel had done. He heaped ashes on his head. He saw again that the 70 years that God’s people were in Babylon was simply because they had not listened to God and obeyed his commandments for 70 times 7 years. He knew that the beautiful land and the wonderful city of Jerusalem had been reduced to a pile of rocks because all the leaders of Israel, and all the people, including Daniel and his parents had rebelled against God. Again and again, Daniel confessed to God his sins and the sins of his parents and the leaders of the people of Israel because he knew that even though they had been in Babylon for close to 70 years, really, the Israelites had not changed all that much. They still were not all that interested in listening to what God had to say in the bible. They still were not all that interested in hearing his commandments so that they would learn to obey God. And Daniel knew that the blessing of God would only come to Israel if they repented from their evil ways and turned their hearts around to listening and doing what God wanted them to. Daniel knew that the problem with Israel was not God, it was Israel. God is always faithful to the very things he promised and one of the things he promised was that if Israel refused to obey, then Israel would pay the consequences by being captive to a foreign king in a far away city - Babylon. He knew all their problems were nobody’s fault but their own.
And so when he cried out to God, when he was praying he thought God might hear him, in fact, God would hear him, and God would see what was going on, not because Israel, or even Daniel was such a great person, rather because God is a merciful God. And so he asked God to remember how kind he had been to Israel in the past, what he had done for Israel in taking them out of slavery in Egypt, what he had done in making them a great nation and giving them a beautiful city called Jerusalem. He knew that God would listen because of who God is!
No comments:
Post a Comment