Daniel 9:20 “Daniel, the Man – Yet Again”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²⁰And while I [was] speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request fall to the faces of YHVH my God upon the holy mountain of God…

I want to pause again and simply observe Daniel, the man. Granted, prophetically speaking, this is one of the most profound chapters in the Bible and certainly worthy of very careful study. However, as I have often explained, I believe the Bible is a book of discipleship. Part of the reason any of this is recorded is so that you and I can learn from the people presented. We can learn much from simply observing the life they live, what they thought, how they interacted with God, how they treated each other, and on and on. And that is true whether we’re learning from the blessings of their good choices or the consequences of the bad!

So let us pause again and consider Daniel the man. Here he is at some eighty years old. He’s living in a world of terrific political upheaval as Nebuchadnezzar’s mighty Babylon has been conquered and now he serves under Darius and the Medo-Persian empire. As I’ve observed before, no one likes change, and Daniel, being a man, would be no different than us. Probably the main reason we don’t like change is because we don’t know what it will mean for us, and we naturally fear a future we can’t see. This is just “the first year” of Darius, so no doubt there are a lot of massive sweeping changes swirling all around Daniel and the Babylonian court. What will it all mean for him? He doesn’t know – just like us – and so we all dislike change and the uncertainty it invariably introduces into our lives.

In that chaotic, fearsome world, what does our Daniel do? He pulls out his scrolls and studies the Bible! And what does his study lead him to do? Pray. We could pause there and ask, “So what should we be doing in our chaotic, fearsome world?” Should we not also be studying our Bibles and praying?  Just like Daniel, in spite of all the present fears and threats, what is really going on in our world? Is it not the sweep of our God’s great eternal plans? Yes, nations rise and fall (and companies) and those political upheavals cause immeasurable distress for the poor beleaguered human race, but we believers have the enviable privilege of knowing the great God who is over it all. The more we tune into His world, the less we’ll be troubled by ours. Yes, my world today is filled with very important issues and I must live here and try to be faithful at my job and to my family, but it does me eternal good to constantly remember there is a much larger battle swirling around me – the spiritual battle of God’s great good and all the forces of evil. That evil is (to me) extremely powerful, yet what do they sing in heaven? “Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!”

One has to wonder, in all the world, how many other people even realized that the 70-year captivity of the Jewish people was about to end? Jeremiah had written it down. It was there in the Scriptures for anyone to read. The math was simple. Nebuchadnezzar had first conquered Jerusalem in about 605 BC. Now it is about the year 538 BC., or about 67 years later. Very simple math for anyone who read those Scriptures and took them seriously. 605 – 538 = 67. Simple. However, I would say it is quite safe to propose that, out of all the estimated 200 million people alive at that time, only a very, very small handful of people even realized there was a monumental Divine timeline ticking down.

However, Daniel knew it. And why? Because Daniel took God seriously, took the Scriptures seriously, and thus his mind and his eyes were able to peer through the spiritual veil and see that there is more – far more – going on than the simple rise and fall of nations. All the way back to chapter 2 and Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the statue, Daniel has been keenly aware that, in fact, the Lord Himself is, even at this moment, working out a great eternal plan. The rest of the world is oblivious to it. Daniel can “see” it. Any why? Because Daniel is a man of Bible study and prayer.

We humans live in this material world. We aren’t usually allowed to see the spiritual world of angels and demons and God’s great plans swirling around us. Enter the Word of God and by faith we can “see” that world, just like Daniel. By faith we can understand whatever God has revealed about that great eternal plan which is even today continuing to fall in place. We enjoy the luxury of having the book of Revelation and the other prophecies of the New Testament which we can study and pray over and hopefully then recognize the hand of God in the events we see transpiring in our world. Nothing has changed. Though there may be people studying prophecy, how many, out of a world population of some 8 billion, can see that eternal plan being worked out? Not many. Only those who open their Bibles and pray and take God seriously, doing what we should do.

So here is our Daniel, doing what he should do. Does he know what the next five years will bring? No. Does he know what the next five seconds will bring? No. He’s just doing what he should. Let’s remember again that, like us, Daniel has to live “in the moment.” As verse 20 ends, all he knows is that he is, as he says, “Speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for His holy mountain…” He knows God’s great plan is working out, but he doesn’t know what that will mean for him even in the next five seconds. We know he’s about to be visited by his old friend Gabriel, but he doesn’t.

I find it enormously encouraging to have followed along the life of Daniel and his three friends and to see that they were all simply faithful to be who they should be, to do what they should do, living in their moments, and, although that often landed them in very threatening situations, the Lord has again and again blessed them, stood with them, and proved to the ages that redeemed people can live lives of integrity, even in a world of insane uncertainty.

As for me, I think that is what I will try to do. I’ll study my Bible, pray, and beg the Lord’s grace to live this life well in my own moments, hopefully bolstered by a keen awareness of that great eternal plan swirling around me!

“Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!”