Gooding, David: 5 - Law and Freedom

And now good evening to the fifth of our studies. Our studies are running by very quickly, perhaps not very quickly for you, but I've made you work very hard and long. And I know by personal experience the power of gravity, particularly when it pulls down the person to the seat below one for a long time. Pray forgive me that I have worked you so long. Here's hoping I shall be able to reward you with shorter sessions in the future. But we come now tonight to study chapter six of the prophecy of Daniel, and as we did last night, we should begin by taking our bearings within this prophecy. For that purpose, would you care to turn again to the sheet of notes with which you have been provided? And turn tonight to page two of those notes, where you have an enlarged table of contents. A brief word about these notes and the analysis of the book of Daniel that they provide. I hope, should ever the time come that I were called upon to witness to my faith in the inspiration of the word of God by going to the stake, I should find grace to go to the stake for my belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God. But I'm telling you now, I don't think I would go to the stake for the truth of my analysis of this particular part of the word of God. I should, uh, I should re- readily accede to the suggestions of those who interrogated me that other people's analyses might be better than mine. I don't think I would go to the stake for mine, still say. And there are, as you know, many analyses of the prophecy of Daniel, and some doubtless are better than mine, but I put mine before you simply as a practical means of calling your attention to certain features of the book of Daniel that it is important for us to observe. So if you have page two in front of you, you will notice there are two columns, chapters one to five in the left hand column, chapters six to twelve in the right hand column. Looking at the first, the left hand column, you will notice that it begins with Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, reverently placing God's vessels that he had taken from the temple of Jerusalem, reverently placing them in the temple of his idol in Babylon. That is how the first column begins. Notice that the first column ends with El Shaddar calling for those same golden vessels. It's not written there under chapter five, but that's what he did. He called for the golden vessels that his ancestor Nebuchadnezzar had put in the temple, having stolen them from Jerusalem. And he drank therefrom himself, his wives and his concubines, and he invited all his lords and ladies similarly to drink therefrom. Now that apparently small, but in fact very significant piece of information, so to speak, clasps, brackets that first column together. If you will care to look then at, uh, uh, chapter, uh, the chapter one again, it starts with Nebuchadnezzar, the builder, the rebuilder and beautifier of Babylon. Then at the end of the column, we have the story of Belshazzar, how that with his death on the night of his banquet, the Babylonian Empire came to its end, and in this place, the Medo-Persians took over the kingdom. So chapter five forms a logical climax and end to the first five stories that start with Nebuchadnezzar in the heyday of his glory, and ends with the end of the Babylonian Empire. Chapter six then, begins another column because it begins the story of another empire. It is the first story about what happened in Daniel's day within the empire of the Medes and Persians under their ruler Darius. Now let's go back to the first column and notice this. Chapter five once more at the end. The end of the Babylonian empire was accompanied by this remarkable divine intervention. When Belshazzar committed his blasphemy against God by drinking from the sacred golden vessels, there came forth the fingers of a man's hand and wrote upon the wall. An event so famous and so significant that the phrase has passed in English into our metaphorical vocabulary, and when something is coming to an end and we can begin to see it, we say the writing is on the wall for such and such a project. The writing on the wall, indicating the coming immediate end of the Babylonian Empire. Now when we go over to the second column, beginning in chapter six, we begin with the new empire, the Medo-Persians, that is new to Babylon, taking over Babylon. And then, of course, in chapter eight, we have concentration, our attention concentrated on the empire of the Persians, followed by the empire of Alexander the Great. The Greek. And then in chapters ten to twelve, the final vision, the prophet is going to see not simply the Greek empire, nor even the Roman empire that followed it. The prophet is given to see a vision right to the very end of Gentile power in the earth. The end. Not just the end of Babylon, nor the end of Persia, nor the end of the Grecian Empire or the Roman, but the end of all Gentile rule and authority the world through, at which time, of course, the Messianic kingdom of our Lord Jesus will be set up. Interestingly enough, in the vision of chapter ten, when Daniel is to have revealed to him the program that shall lead to the end, that program is related to him in the words, I have come to make you know what stands written in the writing of truth. And you may care in your mind to turn over the comparison between the two. Chapter five, the last of the first column, the writing on the wall. Chapter ten, the last vision in the second column, the writing of truth. That, um, leads us to consider another thing, and perhaps now you'll care to turn over to page three of your notes. And notice what I have called the thought flow that flows through these two columns of chapters. Column one, chapters one to five, its theme is broached by the opening words of the chapter that when Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, he took some of the golden vessels of divine service out of the temple of Jerusalem and put them in the temple of his God in Babylon. Those vessels were of gold because they were Israel's metaphorical and symbolical way of expressing their ultimate values. The highest, the ultimate values in life, as Israel saw it, was God himself and the service of God. And hence, the vessels with which they expressed that service to God in his temple were vessels of gold. And from that you will pick up a theme that goes through all those five chapters, the theme of values. In chapter two, for instance, the image of a man that was there to represent the various successive Gentile empires was made of metals of varying value. There was gold and silver and bronze and iron, and iron mixed with ceramic. And then in chapter three, when Nebuchadnezzar set up an image, eh, for all his, uh, satraps and governors to bow down and worship, so that he might try and keep his empire together. The image that he set up, of course, was golden image, and that was not, uh, by any chance an accident. In having it made of gold, Nebuchadnezzar was saying that what this image represented, namely the state in the person of its monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, and the gods of that state, was the supreme and absolute value before which everybody in the state would be required to bow down and to give to it ultimate loyalty and obedience. The expression of a totalitarian state, if ever there was one. And then in chapter four, of course, as we were thinking last night, Nebuchadnezzar, when he rebuilt Babylon, made it not just a city to live in, it was a city of tremendous splendor, the glory of his majesty, his majesty and his brightness. We come back in chapter five then, to the golden vessels, and then to the writing on the wall, the famous phrase mene mene tekelufasin, meaning they were the words indicating weights and therefore money values. These were the denominations of weights and therefore of coins in the Babylonish Empire. Chapters one to five in the first column, then, dealing with the question of life's values, life's ultimate values. But when we come to the second column, from chapter six onwards, there is another theme that is taken up in chapter six and proceeds all the way through the remaining chapters. And that is the theme, the question of law, truth, and time. You'll notice how that is expressed in chapter six, the law of Daniel's garden, the unchangeable writing according to the law of the needs and persons, which changes not the unchanging writing, the law of the Medo-Persian Empire. And then we read in chapter seven that the fourth beast, he thinks to change the times and the law. The times and the law here being the times that God has set down and God's inviolable law. That he thinks to change them and tries to until the heavenly court sits and the books are open. And then in chapter eight we are told that the stern-faced king casts down truth to the ground. When we arrive at that study tomorrow evening, God willing, we shall find, of course, that the truth concerned is in great part the truth of God communicated in the writings of the Old Testament. Similarly, in chapter nine, when Daniel seeks to understand how the prophecy of Jeremiah is going to be fulfilled, he tells us he understood by books the time for the restoration of Jerusalem. And the books in question, of course, are Jeremiah's books, his prophecies written down, the prophecies he made about the duration of the exile and the eventual restoration of Jerusalem. And finally, chapters ten to twelve. It is a re- revelation, as we have seen, of what is written in the writing of truth. And what a vivid and eloquent contrast that is, is he? To the writing that, uh, we read of in chapter six. The law of the Medes and Persians signed the writing, say the civil servants to Darius, and once it is signed, once the writing is signed, it cannot be changed, but changed it was. There is another writing that shall never be changed. It is here called the writing of truth. That is not the Old Testament writing. This is the writing of the counsels of God recorded in heaven that will be fulfilled to the letter and never be changed. And finally, a delightful touch. As the man above the river explains to Daniel that in spite of the terrible tribulation that will come upon the Jews at the end of time, those shall be delivered who are written in the book. And if all this has seemed to you unduly literary and far removed from practical experience, we'll say, and the troublesome kind of thing that some preachers indulge in, well, let that last observation comfort you. My brother, this is far, my sister, this is far from being impractical. I have authority to tell you too, and not just the Jews, that you are to rejoice in this above all, that your names are written in the Lamb's book of life. No matter what laws the Medo-Persians proclaim and say they cannot be altered, no matter what dictator, even the final one, shall try to change the law and the times, rejoice in this, my brother, my sister. Your name is written in the book. Your name is written in heaven. But this reminds us that we ought to pay special attention tonight, as we come to study chapter six on this matter of the law of the Medes and Persians that doesn't change. Just let's scan down the verses of chapter six of the prophet Daniel, and notice how many times it reoccurs, and that will convince us that we have to take it seriously. We'll see verse eight. say the civil servants to the king, now, O king, establish the interdict and sign the writing, that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which offereth not. Wherefore King Darius signed the writing and the interdict. And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went to his chamber and prayed as before. And in verse twelve, the civil servants come to the king and they say, Hast thou not signed an interdict that every man that shall make petition unto any god or man within thirty days, save unto you, O king, should be cast into the den of lions? The thing is true according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which alters not. Verse thirteen: there is this Daniel that regardeth not thee, O king, nor the interdict that thou hast signed. Verse fifteen: then these men assembled together unto the king and said to the king, know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no interdict nor statute which the king established has may be changed. We can't miss it now, can we? I mean, even we were trying so you couldn't miss it after reading all that. Chapter six of Daniel has got something to do with a writing that cannot be changed, with the law of the Medes and the Persians. Uh, cannot be changed. We shall have to take account of that in our study. One final observation by way of perimeters. This story too is a story about man and the animals, isn't it? Much beloved, therefore, of Sunday school children and some grown-ups. You'll say this is the story of Daniel in the lion's den. And we are, at the end of the study, going to listen to Darius's credulous inquiry. Daniel, is your God able to deliver you from the lions? And that's a potent question, isn't it? For lions have very strong instincts, and they relish human beings for dinner. Is there a God who can suppress the animal instinct of a lion? But we shall find, as we come to the close of our study, that there's an even bigger question. For we who live in this age are not so much concerned, are we, with whether God is able to change the animal instincts of animals around us. We have a bigger problem, nearer at home. Is God able to control the animal instinct within us? And for that purpose, I should like you to read with me just a verse or two from our brother James in the New Testament, for he raises that problem explicitly. This is James, epistle by James, and it is chapter three. Just let's break into his exhortation, and we shall read in verse seven: For every kind of beast and bird of creeping thing and things in the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But the tongue can no man tame. It is a restless evil. It is full of deadly poison. Is there a God, my brother, my sister, that can tame the an- tame the animal instinct within us? And if so, by what law does he do that? And now to let these matters sink down into our hearts and to clear our heads, look. No sooner has Daniel recorded for us under the inspiration of God his story of the end of the Babylonian Empire and its replacement by the Medo-Persian kings, then he is moved to tell us of an incident that immediately shows us the significant advance that the Medo-Persians had made in the area of political theory and practice. Granted that progress was not very extensive, but progress surely it was. They had hit upon the scheme and the idea, as you see, of the supremacy of the law in the sense that when once a law was passed by royal decree, then everybody in the kingdom had to be subject to the law, the king himself included. Not even the king himself who had passed and promulgated the law was at liberty to disobey the law. The king, like the people, at least for a while after the law was passed, was himself subject to the law. Of course, it wasn't the fully developed system that we now have of the rule of law, much proclaimed by our modern politicians, with the, uh, other motto attached thereto, freedom under the law. No, in those days, Persia, Medo-Persia was not a democracy. The citizens did have no say in the passing of any law. It was the king and his civil servants who made the law. And it certainly wasn't yet the marvelous freedom that the Greeks of Athens achieved in the fifth century BC, when in democratic Athens, every male grown up male in the city sat in parliament. Goodness me, if that happened in Britain, what would we do? But anyway, Athens was a small city state, and every male in the city sat in the parliament and voted. No wonder it lasted a long time. And they prided themselves on this, that it was the people themselves that made the laws. And what is more, everybody was equal under the law. That was fully fledged democracy, wasn't it? A democracy that we haven't quite reached here in Britain yet. And the one of the Greek words for democracy is isonomia, which means everybody equal under the law. We have advanced a long way ourselves, however, is that not so? I believe that in this country you can even sue the Crown if you want to, and summon the Crown to court. We do want to thank God, don't we? I think we do. We English and your admixtures of Scots and Irish and all the others that enrich the English so much. Ah, but we live in islands where we have known for so long freedom under the law. Oh, thank God now and again, my brothers and sisters, for there are multitudes of millions of men and women and thousands of our fellow believers that have lived this century in fear under the tyranny of totalitarian states and have not known the first meaning of freedom under the law. So I say the Persians, the Medo-Persians weren't so advanced. I'm not suggesting that. This wasn't what we nowadays know as democratic rule of law, and yet it was a beginning, wasn't it? They weren't quite so crude as the Babylonians and old Nebuchadnezzar in particular. If he got up with a sore head one morning, who will be slow? Uh, and if he happened to like you, who would he kept alive, you'll say. And the middle person, well, if the king had signed the writing, not even the king himself could go against it. And that was a defense on the one side, wasn't it? Against the king passing the law that applied to some people, but then he exempted himself and his favorites. He couldn't do that, not in Medo-Persia. And it protected the king against the lobbies, you know, whether it was the railway lobby or the motorway lobby or the transport lobby or whatever lobby it was, you'll see. It protected the king of Persia, of Medo-Persia, against powerful lobbies, because once a law was passed, you could say what you liked to the king, but the king was powerless to change it. The rule of law, therefore. And since our passage does, at the end of it, start talking about lions, indeed very early on, and men being cast to the lions, you might permit me an indulgence tonight to observe how this concept of the rule of law, and everybody being, uh, subject to the law, is a marvelous, isn't it? A marvelous characteristic of humankind as distinct from the animals. You've observed that, haven't you? That the lions and the monkeys, they don't make laws. Oh, they have their little tribal customs, and the bull is master of the herd until some other bull, young bull, comes and disputes it and wins for himself all the cows in the herd. They have their rules and protocols, will be tied any monkey who doesn't, uh, submit to the senior monkey, you'll see. They have these, but they didn't make them, did they? You never see them sitting in parliament and discussing amongst themselves whether they shall have this order or not, and then once it's written down, forbidding any other monkey from changing it or going against it. No, animals don't do that kind of thing because, well, because they are animals, you'll see. They go by instinct that they themselves didn't put there. It rules them. And if the lion breaks your law and eats you, and the country said lions shouldn't do that kind of thing, it's no good finding fault with the lion, you'll see. He never did have a law that said you weren't to be eaten. Instinct told him you were. Mm. It is therefore an interesting phenomenon, isn't it, and not to be brushed lightly aside. This is a thing that marks human beings, and if we were evolutionists, we should have to scratch our head very deeply, shouldn't we, to find out where this kind of concept ever came from. Is it the result of some accident, or what is it? This concept of the law, when we're prepared to have a law, the abstract notion of law, whatever particular law may be involved, of law, and everybody bowing to the law, that is a marvelous bit of human phenomenon and of human progress. So that you might well ask, is this going to prove, in the last analysis, the way to the paradise, the age of peace and glory, world peace and prosperity that all of us long to see? It's an idea I know that's been around for centuries, hasn't it? At least from the Medo-Persians, and in particular from the Greeks and the political theorists. It's an idea that hasn't always triumphed very well, has it? But if I had patience, will it in the end, will we get all the nations in the world to submit to some international law? And that's been in the age of unqualified peace and prosperity that we seek. The answer that we get from scripture, and it's backed on by experience, isn't it? I'm afraid not. The early Greeks were very impressed by the idea of the rule of law. They used to say, you see, mankind started his life in the forest living like an animal, and it was all very beastly. You know, the men pulled their wives around by the, by the hair of their head and beat their enemies with stone cudgels and things. And then they came out of the forest and they formed cities, and they learned to live together in cities, and they invented laws, and law, they said, is the thing. Nature, phusis, as the Greeks called it, nature is beastly. The key to prosperity is law, that is nomos. And all went well for a while. But very soon the Greeks discovered that nor- law wasn't the final answer, was he? Because Because law. law was not able to suppress the animal instinct in man completely. And they found that the laws that men made, men could subvert. And they found that all too often the very laws of the state proved, if not a s- uh, if not a uh, uh, a disaster, yet an intolerable burden. Law itself became a tyrant, the instrument of the powerful and the wealthy to the suppression of the poor, the instrument of the majority to deny the minority rights. And the Greeks began to say, law is a rotten thing. Let's scrap law and get back to nature. And that's what the hippies were saying in the nineteen sixties, weren't they? The flower children and all that, they were saying that law, there's so much corruption in the legal system, and it's partly true, isn't it? And so much corruption in the banking system and in the insurance system and in all the other systems and in the finest democracies you ever met, let alone the totalitarian states. There's so much corruption in it, let's get rid of the law, said the hippies, and live the life of anarchism. It didn't last, of course, how could it last? You can't have civilized life without law, and yet there's a problem there, isn't it? You say to me, perhaps, Mr. Preacher, I know what we are. It's the law of God, that's the answer. Hope I'm sure. Certainly the law of God is good, it's spiritual. But the biggest saints in the New Testament are to be heard complaining that the law has become a slavery. Can neither justify us before God, can but condemn us, and cannot make us holy, but simply make slaves of us. So we shall have to think of that, and leaving politics behind, we shall have to think about the basic human problem. Has God got an answer? There can suppress the animal instinct within, without turning us into machines. But let's come back to our Daniel six. As you say, as to the fact that, uh, law isn't the final answer, and law made by man doesn't necessarily suppress the animal instinct, and that, uh, law m- m- made by man, man himself can pervert to the cause of injustice. You have a vivid example before you in this very chapter six, And it concerns the eminent civil servants, if you please, of the court of Darius and his imperial administration. And if you would, please don't imagine that they were just unsophisticated yobbos. The high-ranking civil servants among the first five in the whole Medo-Persian Empire were, I tell you, exceedingly sophisticated, educated, and polished gentlemen of the first order. Their conversation would have been charming. Yarming. And yet when, uh, Darius proposed to put Daniel over them and make him head of the Persian civil service, then the other civil servants around him knocked their heads together, and they said, this is not going to be. And what drove them to try and stop it, and in the end collaborate together to get Daniel utterly destroyed? Well, the answer, ladies and gentlemen, is simple animal envy and jealousy. Yeah? You say, could such a thing e- e- exist in the civil service? Well, I don't know enough about the beauty civil service to answer that one, my b- my good friends, but it did exist in the civil services in the ancient world, I tell you. And it exists in many great organizations to this very present day. Law, animal, jealousy and envy. Because they didn't let their claws appear in public. They covered their claws with the velvet of the good of the state. And loyalty to his majesty. They have in mind, of course, the peace and prosperity of society. And so they put their idea to the king and suggested that he pass the law. And the motivation behind it was sheer animal. They were out to get Daniel destroyed so that one of them might take his place. You know, we would be wise men and women not to deceive ourselves, wouldn't we? It's all right to hire the civil service, particularly when they tend to send you their income tax account, but my brothers, my sisters, we should be unwise Christians to forget that we Christians still have animal instincts within us, don't we? Sometimes we manage to cover them up, and they don't appear for what they really are. You know, I have known a sense that great feuds have broken out. We'd never guess over what. Over who should arrange the flowers. Mrs. Timbuktu was arranging them until one day our Mrs. Brown came and she arranged them. Wow. And then there was an eruption, and the thing split the church, with families dividing down the down on one side or the other. Or it is that some brother is accused of coming out with heresy or something, or or not toeing assembly principle lines. But if you, if you press a little bit deeper, it isn't that. It's because number one wanted to give out the notices, and number two wouldn't let him. And someone dared to suggest that number three ought to be asked to give out the notices. But you couldn't believe it, not you, not you in, not you in this church here, of course you couldn't. I'm just telling you what I met elsewhere, you'll see. We do have little animal instincts, don't we? You'll see, even in nature, listen to that bird singing so beautifully on the telegraph poles, you'll see. Isn't it delightful? You would think it was a cherub come down from heaven. But the biologists and ornithologists tell us what he's singing about. He's warning all other birds, this is my territory, don't you dare come here and stamp on my toes. Yeah. And isn't it funny, we all have our little territories in the church, and if somebody dare step into our territory. It'll take a lot of Christian grace, won't it? Not to react to a sheer animal. And the path to holiness lies through facing ourselves and recognizing those things are still there. For if we don't recognize them there, then we shall cover them unintentionally with all kinds of cloaks and make out it's a matter of principle or doctrine or something or the other, when all the time it is nothing of the sort. But I wonder, and I'm being tempted to preach tonight, and I nothing do that. I'm supposed to be expounding Daniel. I was saying about these, uh, civil servants, you'll see, um, and they dester- determined to destroy Daniel, and without a jealousy, really. And then they scratched their heads and wondered on what score they could trump up a charge against him. And then they found they could- they they couldn't find anything in his general conduct, his efficiency in his work, his loyalty to the country, his loyalty to the king. All these were beyond question. They couldn't find any grounds for accusation, but there was one area they noticed in which he was wide open to their attack, in which they could very, very easily represent him as being an absolute bigot, antisocial, disloyal to the king. And they saw their opportunity and the gate open, and they went into it very quickly and very cleverly. And the area of weakness, so to speak, the area where he was open to attack, was his monotheism. For as Daniel was a loyal civil servant in Medo-Persia, in spite of all the authority around, loyal to the king, if you had asked Daniel, and they had, of course, I suspect, many times in conversation over the soup in the civil servants club, you see, what his idea of religion was, and what did Jews stand for? You can hear the conversation going on, can't you? Over the venison and the roast lion. And now, what do you say about our gods? Our God, you say, and Daniel would say the truth, of course. Your gods are but idols, figments of human imagination. They're not real, gentlemen. There is only one true God, the Lord God Creator, the God of Israel. And it didn't please the civil servants, and it didn't please a lot of other people in that Medo-Persia either. That anybody should be so arrogant as to say that their religion was the only true religion. And living in a multi-faith society as Medo-Persia was, with people attached to all kinds of gods, for one person to say that his god was the only god. There was intolerable arrogance and bigotry. And disloyalty even to the regime. Do you mean to say, they said to Daniel, that you're not prepared to worship the god of the state? No, said Daniel. And not even worship the, the god that His Majesty worships? No, says Daniel, I'm not prepared to do that. Well, this is serious, they said. And when they saw their chance, they took it. We Christians ought to listen to this story, I fancy, don't we? Because it's not only godly Jews that have from time to time found themselves in this position in Gentile societies. Our early brothers and sisters in the first century of the faith found themselves imposed on this difficulty. The Roman government didn't mind what gods you worshiped, they couldn't care less. For it was a polytheistic society, and the Romans didn't mind how many gods you worship, they didn't worship, so long as you were prepared to show due respect to other people's gods, and if required by social custom, you were to worship them as well. And if you didn't worship other people's gods, then the Romans didn't like you. They didn't like the Christians. They called the Christians atheists, if you please. They meant that the Christians didn't worship the gods of their fathers. Also, when a young Christian man or a young Christian girl got converted, they no longer worshipped the gods that their parents worshipped. And the Romans didn't like that. They said that made for social tension, that made for, uh, division in society, and in the end would lead to strife. They didn't like these Christians who weren't prepared to worship other people's gods as well as their own. And to apotheists, the idea that a man could even begin to believe that there was simply one God, and that his God was the only God, seemed preposterous arrogance. And the Romans didn't like the early Christians either, did they? Because they were not only not prepared to worship the gods of their fathers, but they weren't prepared to worship the gods of the state, and when called upon to offer their pinch of incense to Caesar, and they refused, like Daniel, they were thrown to the lions. And that makes stimulating reading when you're at your breakfast table, doesn't it, munching your buttered toast, or with your feet cozily by the fire before you have your nightcap and go to bed. But could it happen again, my brothers, my sisters? In the eyes of the apocalypse revealed that when the early Christians would not bow down, then they were slandered. Alas, they were very often slandered by the Jews, and they were slandered for being disloyal to the emperor himself. So then, well, of course. But you'll notice when the civil servants secured the ban on anybody praying to anybody else except, uh, the king to rise, Daniel went a full fine. He not only prayed as he always did, but he did again what he always did. He opened his windows and prayed towards Jerusalem, if you please. That was adding insult to injury, wasn't it? Why pray towards Jerusalem? Not because of any superstition. But Daniel did believe not only there was one God, one true God, but that that God had chosen Israel, and Jerusalem was God's capital city. It would be through Jerusalem that the savior of the world would come. And the salvation of the world would not come through the now vanished Babylon, nor even through the Medo-Persians. Salvation for the world would come through the Messiah, whose capital city was Jerusalem. And he paid it openly. And you can see how the civil servants could make that out, can't you, as an act of arrogant disloyalty to the king of Of needle Medo-Persia. pleasure. And so the Jews in the Acts of the Apostles, they said to the Romans, you know, these Christians are teaching a form of politics, you know, political messianism, that messianism, they're saying there's another king, one called Jesus, and they are a king of government, you know, and they're fomenting civil unrest. It bans the Jews from worshiping Jehovah and anybody else from worshiping their God. None must worship any God for a whole month, except to riot, if you please. It only lasted a month or so, but it was an ominous beginning. Before you come to the end of the book of Daniel, you'll read prophecies relating to the great tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes, who around the year one hundred and sixty BC invaded Palestine. And as you read further in Daniel, you'll find that that great tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes is but a prototype of what shall be at the end of the age. There shall arise a dictator who shall sit in the temple of God, exhibiting himself as though he were God and exalting himself above all that is honored or worshiped, and he will forbid the worship of the true God of heaven and the pain of death. That's the seriousness of it. Daniel chapter six is but a beginning, the first rumbling of a distant thunder. There it is. And how easily it can be represented, can't it, as a, as disloyalty to the state. I remember being in Spain once in the city of Valladolid, and there I had been asked by the Spanish believers to conduct a fortnight's meetings on the tabernacle, and there came a student who was from Iran. He was studying in Valladolid in Spain, and he began to come to the meetings, and then he stopped. He explained he didn't come anymore because the tabernacle was something to do with Israel, and if his government had found out by their spies that he was attending lectures on something to do with Israel, his draft would have been withdrawn. I was my third year to a vote before the walls came down in Europe. I was in the city of Oprava in Czechoslovakia. And this night, before we went to the meeting, the believers told me I must go early because the secretary wanted to meet me, and I thought it was the secretary of the church and thought it a bit odd, but when I got there, it wasn't the secretary of the church, it was the secretary of the Communist Party religious division. And so he stood at the back of the meeting room there and gave me what was meant to be a welcome. It was so full of cynicism that I nearly bit him on the nose, but decided it wasn't a good way to begin a Christian meeting, so I didn't. And after the supposed welcome, then he walked up to the front and sat with the old on the front row. And I, as my custom was, I leaned over to my translator just to make sure he would know certain crucial phrases in what I was going to talk about. You say, and I was going to talk about the early verses of Hebrews one, um creation and redemption, and Enoch, the pattern of the Lord's coming, and then now the end of the world. And I said to my translator, do you know the English word consummation? I want to talk about the consummation of our faith. Not tonight, he said, not tonight. I said, yes, tonight. I want to talk about the Lord's coming tonight. No, no, not tonight, said he. No, no, not tonight, please, not tonight. I'm not talking about the end of the world either. I said, what I want to speak about, but not tonight, he said. His lips were sitting across the eyes, you see. And I felt angry. I was in no danger. Let me hasten to explain, I would have not been thrown to any lions at all. I might have been thrown out of the country, not any lions. Nor were the believers in that stage in danger of being thrown to the lions. But you see, the boy wouldn't have got converted, and it would have made it very difficult for the believers to get any further speakers from abroad that night I'd spoken on the Lord's coming. And that was in the days that things were getting easier. That the government would have held it disloyalty to the state to even talk about the second coming of the Lord Jesus. And you know there are signs around us. Are there not signs around us now? Of a very big rise of pluralism in religion in this country. We're now being told that we must get rid of all this religious fundamentalism and imperialism, trying to convert people of other faiths to Christianity. By the previous Archbishop of Canterbury came home the other year from India and said he was deeply impressed by the spirituality of India, and it was time now for people of all faiths to get together in open dialogue and seek for the truth. In time that we don't have the truth yet, even if we are Christians, we're to join with Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists and seek for the truth. And what you're not saying is that you have the truth. And should you dare to stand up and say there is no salvation in any other, for there is none other name given under heaven amongst men whereby you must be saved, you will be in danger of being accused, not by the government yet, but by religious leaders of being hopelessly arrogant and insensitive. Why, in the year nineteen sixty eight to nine, the Jesuit Order of Roman Catholics withdrew all their missionaries from India, and when we asked them why, they said it was no longer appropriate to try and convert Hindus, and no need either. They are as good as we are, so long as they are sincere. Roman Catholic, uh, theory of missions is that the Pope is in the center, and then there are a series of concentric circles. The Roman Catholic is the first circle, the second is the Protestant, the third is the Jewish faith, the fourth is the Muslim, the fifth is the Hindu, then come the Buddhists, and then come the animists and everybody else. And so long as they acknowledge the center, you don't have to convert any of them. There's truth in all. Liberal theologians who have long since given up on the resurrection of Christ, on his deity, on the incarnation, don't see any reason why. We shouldn't take that attitude. And when one considers the problems now of a multicultural and a multi-faith state. Well, if you get up and preach that there is salvation in none other except Jesus Christ, why liable to upset people in certain areas, you would understand the government eventually being persuaded, can't you, to ban that kind of preaching for the sake of the public peace. Now, Bertram, what would you do? If the British government introduced here the laws that they introduced in Malaysia, that you must not try to, uh, convert the Malays who are Muslims? What would you do? These are often being fairy tales or mere antiquarian stories of little practical interest. We would do well to let this very chapter begin to make us think that we haven't thought before the kind of things that may lay ahead in the coming years. The civil servants were in the end able to persuade Darius. I don't know how they did it, do you? I think I know how I would have got round him had I been a civil servant with those motives. I would have said Darius, you know. You know, in thinking, you know, your nation, your empire is a vast empire with many religions, and you know all religions lead to the same goal, don't they, your majesty? And you will see, unfortunately, some people are very bigoted, and they think their religion is the only one, and what we want to foster to keep the empire together is that all religions shall realize that they are working to the same end. And you know, we talk, and that's what we pay civil servants to do, isn't it? We talk, uh, you'll see, uh, in greeting, you'll see, we talk for a scheme that we could put across to the people in a way they could see that all religions really are the same. So for a month, we only had a celebration of the one goal of religion, and that we thought that to get that across, we should get you to pass a decree banning prayer to any other god except, uh, yourself, Your Majesty. You know, I can imagine His Majesty saying, but I'm not worthy of that. I need, I need... Oh, you are, Your Majesty. And then, of course, it's not, we know it's not to you personally, but it is you as the expression of the gods. I mean, God had wanted you to be in command, haven't they? And it looks as good it will do for the unifying of all the forces and religions, and how it stops civil strife and and lead to cohesion, your majesty will say. And if there were any bigot that would dare to, uh, be so disloyal and antisocial as to carry on, uh, praying to his own god instead of journeying in the spirit of the universal religion. Then you will be rightly thrown to the lions, your majesty. In a big empire of your sort, you can't, you can't afford to have troublemakers like that. Oh. Would you look to us? He thought it was a rather excessive honor, but he, he sort of believed it, and he vacillated in it. But he said we should make a note that in the next New Year's honors, he's meant to be promoted. And then Daniel heard it. Oh, praise God for a Daniel. I wasn't to be frightened with their charge of bigotry or disloyalty either. There is only one God. There is only one salvation. And if he wasn't frightened, nor should we be. I... it's not arrogance to say that there's no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved, is it? You see, there is only one sacrifice for sin, and that's a glorious fact. You don't need any more. Do you? I remember, I remember a parent and a good lady came to me and said she rather liked Christianity herself. Why would we Christians insist that, uh, Jesus was the only way to God? You see, why can't you have Jesus if you want, and Buddha if you want? Now I said, madam, for me it's a very simple thing, a practical thing, really, madam. I said, you see, I have a practical difficulty. I don't know about you. I do, I said, I'm a cynic, you see. I know that all the big religions tell us that we ought to behave, but I actually knew that before they told me. My problem is that I haven't behaved. I've sinned. And my problem is, where can I find forgiveness of such sort that will not say my sin doesn't matter, will uphold my values and God's values, which is more important, and yet grant me forgiveness? And I said, Madam, I only know one in the whole human history that offers it, and his name is Jesus Christ. In ordinary Buddhism, there is no such thing as forgiveness. Any Buddhist will tell you. Islam has no sacrifice by which men shall be reconciled to God, neither Judaism either. Christianity stands alone. It's not arrogance to say that there is one God, and there is one Savior, as there is one sacrifice. For it's so big, big for the whole world, and you don't need another, and there is no other. Daniel went home and he told his before he opened his window. Do you know what? It was extraordinary. Um, he skates out his windows, then the sugar sellers just happened to be passing by, you know. They never normally attended prayer meetings, that wasn't their style, but, but, but they did happen to be passing by. And the way they dismayed, they said to each other, what is that? And they couldn't make out what it was and where it was coming from, and they looked around and they saw it was coming out of the window, you see, and uh, and they said, what is that? And one of them said, you know, I think that's Daniel's window. Oh. Well, after that, they were biting on to His Majesty, weren't they? I mean to say that this Danny was making the law. Animals, weren't they? Like a lioness stalking their prey. And Darius saw through them and he able to save Daniel, but he couldn't. And Daniel went to the lions. So that the writing, even these old Persians, should not be changed. And then look what he says. In the morning, he asked anxiously, Daniel, is your God able to deliver you from the lions? The joyful reply came, yes, indeed, sir. God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth. Do you believe that? Do you believe in the power of the universe that can override animal instinct? You don't? Mm. No, the civil servants didn't either. They didn't believe in angels. It's when the king found out what they'd done, he ordered that they should be thrown into the den of lions. They didn't believe in angels, and when they fell down to the bottom, there weren't any angels there. Angels gone home. And then it was a question with a battle of the beasts, and the biggest animals won, and ate the civil servants for breakfast. Oh, you smile at these old simple stories. You think they're naive, but I tell you straight, if there's not a power somewhere in this universe that can override animal instinct, then it will be the law of the jungle to the end. You know what laws you like, they will ameliorate the situation, but in the end it will be the law of the jungle. How many Russians are told? They say, they say, now when the people perceive that the government is the biggest criminal, lies, child and murderer of any. And the only way the people know how to survive is by copying the government. You don't have to recall too many instances of Watergate in the civilized parts of the world, do you, to know that in spite of their claims to democracy, corruption exists at the highest level in every kind. There is a lot that can override the instinct of the animal. And as now occurs, we Christians live in the mountain, Mount of hour. And has the story any immediate lesson to us? Oh, my brothers and my sisters. Thank God. Is there a law that can override and control and suppress the animal instinct within us. Let's think long before we answer it too glibly. How easy it is to tell the unconverted that God can break every fetter, only to find that as Christians, we from time to time give way to the philosophy of animals and tear and devour and snipe at and wound our fellow believers. We all have a difficulty, don't we? And James reminds us of it very, very plainly. He says, you know, every nature of wild beast has been tamed by human nature. Humans have this marvelous power of being able to tame even many ferocious beasts. Or what they can do to the beast outside them. Even Christians find difficult to do to the animal inside them, don't they? But the tongue can no man tame. What is the answer? You say the answer is the law of God, but well, wait a minute, the law of God is good, isn't it? It is spiritual, it is true, we need it to tell us what is right and wrong. We need to study it and believe it. The witness of Holy Scripture itself is that even God's law isn't the final answer, is it? For by the law comes the knowledge of sin. It can neither justify us before God, neither in the end can it sanctify us. You say, why doesn't God make us holy then? Well, that's a point, isn't it? He could, I suppose, but it would be a funny kind of holiness. For he could make us do as we should by taking away our free will, wouldn't he? And then there should be what? Well, they should be like animals, shouldn't they? They wouldn't be humans anymore. How did God solve the problem? And you know in your hearts what the answer is. First, sin shall not have dominion over us because we are not under law, but under grace. God does not drive us, his people, to holiness by holding over us the threat of eternal sanctions and penalties against sin. It informs every true believer who has repented and trusted the Savior that there is therefore now no condemnation. We can be accepted with God, not on the grounds of law, but on the grounds of his grace. And therefore, as as believers, we fall. As often we do. It's not the end, is it? Sin shall not tie us down and tyrannize over us. If we were under law with its eternal penalties, then I will be sin as a believer. We should be finished. No good thing, I'll try to do better next time. If we were under law, you would only have to make one slip, and the law would condemn you eternally. Oh, thank God we're not under law as a principle. There is no penalty to them that are in Christ. And if we slip as believers and fall, we may confess it, and the scripture says he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But that's only one side of the story, isn't it? That doesn't mean that we're no longer responsible to fulfill the law. Paul puts the other side of the case when he says that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, that God sending his son has done, that the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. God help us. There can be no paradise until the Lord Jesus comes and set up his just government. There is no entry into paradise. So for those who have found the secret of God's salvation, justification through Christ, and the empowering of that new power, that new life, which is the spirit of God within, enabling us to rise over our merely animal passions and to control those passions to the glory of God. So may God bless our study, shall we pray? Lord, we thank thee for this passage tonight and the shining example of thy servant Daniel of old. We pray thou will give us wisdom and grace as thou wouldst give him, and courage in our day and generation, that we may stand for thee boldly, tactfully, graciously, and yet firmly and clearly and uncompromisingly, and be faithful witnesses to the Lord Jesus. And Lord, we thank thee for the way these ancient scriptures have a turning round on us and probing us in the depths of our hearts and experiences. And we confess before thee, Lord, how often the old wild animal within us has risen up. So we pray thy grace, as the days go by, that we may learn how more and more to lay hold of the grace and power of thy Holy Spirit, that we may lay hold of us the more fully and deeply, that the righteous requirement of thy law may be progressively fulfilled in us until that great day comes when Christ shall be all and in all. For his name's sake, amen.