Just
Thirty Days
One of the great truths established
by the Major OT Prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel—is this:
The ability of God’s enemies to remove the Jews from their land could
not keep God out of the enemies’ land. Daniel is an example. This godly
man, removed from Judah and held captive in Babylon, never missed a
lick in his worship of God. He’s the perfect illustration of the old
adage: “Grow where you’re planted!” Little did the heathen realize that
when they brought Daniel to Babylon, they brought Daniel’s God with
him. God gave his man the ability to interpret two dreams for
Nebuchadnezzar and to translate some supernatural handwriting for son
Belshazzar.
After “Darius the Median took the
kingdom” (5:31), he set up his government consisting of three
presidents and one hundred twenty princes to protect his interests
(6:1-2). Daniel was the “first” president over the other two presidents
and princes. You can imagine how these other two presidents
and princes resented this one man from Jewry running the show
and having such favor with Darius. It kind of reminds me of
outsider Trump invading the Establishment ranks. The Russia collusion
hoax was manufactured to discredit the man, to cripple his
presidency.
These Medes did the same to Daniel.
But there was no need to manufacture a hoax. Daniel lived an exemplary
life, one loyal to Darius and so faithful to his God. These
men concluded: “We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel,
except we find it against him concerning the law of his God”
(6:5).
So they appealed to Darius’ ego by
proposing an ‘Ad Hoc’ law, JUST THIRTY DAYS in length, that required
the death penalty (a “den of lions”—6:7) for anyone offering worship
to, or making a petition of, any God except him during that time period
(6:7). Darius signed the decree, and made it the law of the land (no
hoax) for the next THIRTY DAYS. It’s interesting to me these men knew
THIRTY DAYS was MORE THAN ENOUGH time to catch faithful Daniel in a
violation.
Now one might think if Daniel knew
what these men had done, he’d just ‘lay low’ for the next THIRTY DAYS
until the decree expired, then pick back up where he left off and
‘outsmart’ his opponents. It turns out Daniel DID know what had
happened (6:10). His reaction: “He went into his house; and his windows
being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees
three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he
did aforetime.”
We don’t know how many days
transpired before these men ratted out Daniel to Darius. But we DO know
it only took a SINGLE DAY for them to gather the evidence they needed
to convict.
This raises a valid question for each
of us who name the name of Christ: “How long would it take the world to
gather sufficient evidence to convict one of us of being a Christ
follower?” Would THIRTY DAYS be more than enough? Or would a
SINGLE DAY be sufficient to convict?
Top
|
