Daniel Lesson 3

Introduction

So tonight we’ll be looking at Daniel chapter three. But before we do, let’s uh kind of as a way of review look at some of the questions from the previous lesson, which are on page 16 and 17 question, first question. Uh who did Nebuchadnezzar call first to tell them the tell him the stream?

Yeah, magicians, trollers, sorcerers, Chaldeans.

What would you know about them if they couldn’t reveal the dream?

So is that a pretty good uh test of their abilities? Yeah, definitely. Uh what did the Chaldeans answer the king when he put this forward to them? That no one can answer.

Only who could who could answer it? The gods. Only the gods. And they didn’t dwell the mortals. Right. Um what decree went forth from the king? The wise men. And who was that going to include? Daniel. Daniel and his companions. Okay, uh question number five. How did Daniel describe God’s Nebuchadnezzar?

Reveal secrets? Yeah. Okay. Uh what material was the uh image made in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream? Uh first the head? Fine gold. Okay, and who did that represent? Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar. Um breast and arms, what was it made out of? Sober. Okay, and who did it represent? Medo, Persia. Okay. And about continuing on down the belly and the thighs. Brass. Greeks. Greek. Greeks. Um. And the uh legs of iron? Wrong. Iron. Legs of iron. I guess I answered my question, however.

Okay. And who did the what did the stone represent? Roman Empire. Oh, the stone I presented. I’m sorry. Yeah, that one wasn’t in there. I don’t think. Yeah. God’s kingdom. Um I rephrased the next question. Okay. Number nine. Uh, what did Nebuchadnezzar say of Daniel’s God? God. He’s the God of God.

Okay, number 10. What positions were given Daniel and his companions? Uh first Daniel, because it’s a little bit different.

Chief of the governors. Yeah. Wiseman was out mine headed. Um, and then the others, the companions. Overseers of Babylon. Yeah, over the affairs of Babylon. Um the true false. Uh God gave Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. True. Nebuchadnezzar asked the wise men only to interpret his dream. False. Okay. Uh Nebuchadnezzar’s dream revealed what shall be in the lighter days. True. The head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar. Sure. And Nebuchadnezzar never fell down to worship Daniel.

Okay. So we’ll get into the lesson for tonight, which is chapter three. Sorry that you know we probably all, you know, if we kind of grew up in the church, or probably all you know heard a bunch of times, but um truly kind of the lesson of of their faith and obedience. Let’s start. Um I think the question because I don’t know if you’ll cut where I’ve never thought of it until I was doing this lesson this time. Where was Daniel? That’s a very good question, but I’m gonna try to say it to the end so we can get the rest of it if you’ll allow me. Just remind me if we start running out of time, okay? Okay, and I’ll make sure we hit it, okay?

1. The Gold Image on the Plain of Dura

Thank you. Because I think that is a fair question. It’s one that a lot of people ask, and I did too, actually. Okay. Um, but let’s start out. We’ll kind of work through the chapter first. Um was there any questions for the last lesson? Because I kind of went through the last part kind of quick last time. Okay. Um if somebody will read for me, let’s read Daniel chapter 3, verses uh one through seven of again.

Whose height was 60 kibbleks, and its weight six six kibble. He set it up in the plan of Dura in the province of Babylon. And King of Beaconaza sent word to gather together the satraps, administrators, the governors, the consulars, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrate, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which King Bukoniza had set up. So the satraps and the administrators, the governors, the consulars, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered together for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that would become as a had set up. Then he held, then I held quite aloud. To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and solitude in symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. So at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, the flute, the harp, the lyre, the symphony, and all kinds of music, all the people, nations, languages fell down and worship the gold image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Okay. So some of the other chapters we’re at through kind of helped us get a timeline of when it happened by giving a um year of somebody’s reign. This chapter does not begin that way.

Okay. So we don’t, so we don’t know. It’s not told here explicitly. But the Septuagint records the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. There are some sources that would cite perhaps another year, but this seems to be sort of the consensus or what’s commonly assumed. That’s kind of interesting because if you just would put it around 580 BC, which was I kind of put it up here, around the time of the third remnant, which is also when the temple was destroyed. So some people have suggested that possibly this is actually a celebration of subduing Palestine. Um, that perhaps he came back and it was kind of like they built the statue to kind of celebrate, maybe worship his gods, whatever. And so that was perhaps why this was.

We don’t, you know, obviously we’re not told in our passage here, um, but that’s perhaps the day one was done. Okay. The gold image, right. We’re told that it’s an image. Some have suggested that perhaps an obelisk, and I’ll get to why in just a second. Um I think that it’s some form of one of his gods. Some said perhaps it was him, certainly pretty much put himself up there, you know, whether the out and out said it or just kind of made it seem like he was a god that certainly put himself pretty high. Um but it tells us that it was 60 cubits tall by six cubits wide, which is approximately nine feet by nine feet. This doesn’t fit the dimensions of a person if you actually look at just those dimensions.

Um guy here typically three and a half to one is sort of like our height to width of a typical person. Um, but this is 10 to 1. So what some have suggested is that it could be an obelisk, you know, basically more or less a column, you know, and then perhaps it was carved or something. Um, or perhaps it had a pedestal. So if we kind of try to figure out kind of the dimensions of an image of like a human or something similar, and we assume we could come up with a 50-foot base and 40-foot image. Um, and this is yes, it’s just conjecture, but I think it’s interesting to look at. Um it is interesting to note that there was a statue actually removed by Xerxes, um, with that was described as being 40 foot tall.

One of the things that I kind of went over I first read this, of course the engineer in me was thinking that’s a big statue or a big image for ancient Babylon, right? I mean I know they’re pretty you know high tech for their time, but that seems pretty pretty big. But the Egyptians actually 13 BC had one that was 106 feet tall in obelisk, if I’m saying that right. Actually, I think it was size across the street from a cathedral or something in Rome now, maybe. But um so my other point with this, other than just it’s interesting to look at and consider is that this certainly could have been constructed by them at this time because obviously yes. How tall is the Washington monument?

I have no idea.

History buff, but I don’t have a clue about that. Anybody know?

So somebody pull out their uh their smartphone and Google it or something, right? Um I would suspect taller than that. Which actually the Washington Monument kind of looks like an overgrown obelisk. Um I’m not sure about obsolete was quite big, and actually the way these they put these things in there actually bigger because there was actual part that went into the ground that was kind of like a built-in foundation. Um 555 feet. So even bigger than that, but but it is kind of interesting that there that the pagan obelisk in Egypt was actually actually has a big cross on the top of it now. Anyway, my main point, like I said, was somebody might say, well, you know, that that’s awfully big for a statue of that time, but it was perfectly doable in their time.

Yes, sir. Well, compared to the bigness of it, I don’t think today there exists a boundary that can cast all the iron that was cast in the sea with the oxen in front of them. That uh mind David’s son, Solomon did or had done. This is a toy compared to that. Yeah. And of course, the pyramids who knows. Well, that’s very true. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, certainly. And of course, the thing with this was if assuming it was one piece. And of course, they say it was, you know, we’re told it’s this gold image, doesn’t necessarily mean it was entirely made out of gold. You know, you know, somebody move we may say, you know, somebody’s wearing a you know a blue shirt or something, that doesn’t mean their shirt’s made out of blue.

You know, it’s a we’re describing it. Um continue on. Um depending on what you read, the plane of Dura could be in a couple of different places. I think the I think Mr. O’Hara says northeast in the thing. I also read south. Yeah, so okay, you said southweet southeast, I think northwest was another one. But what we do know was it was in a plane, and it was in the province of Babylon, and presumably it had to be somewhere that it could be seen from afar or that a large group of people could be gathered. Because there was quite a few different groups of people mentioned. Okay, as I said, verses two and three, it gives a very long list of all these different, we might just say sort of all the important officials that were there.

2. The Command to Bow and the Punishment

Um, we’ll get into this later. Well, actually, I’m gonna hold off because we’re gonna talk about the Daniel thing later, but um, point is there was there was all these important officials there, quite a few people. Um, and then the command is given to bow down to this image. And if you think about it, the Jews perhaps were in a unique position here because so many of the nations around, probably pretty much all of them, probably, were polytheistic nations. They believed in multiple gods, and you know, just another god, so you know what’s one more? So when you think about it, you know, it kind of helps add to you know how unique these three were by not bowing down to it, because the others probably wouldn’t have cared.

Um perhaps they had some problem with that god, but I think they that probably would have been overridden. Okay, the punishment. First of all, was this a serious sounding punishment? Yeah, just a little bit, right? Um being thrown into a fiery furnace, you know. This wasn’t uh, you know, and what was interesting to me as I was looking this up was this actually isn’t even without precedent. This isn’t like it seems kind of like you know, well, who’s they up the idea of throwing somebody in a furnace? I mean, I know the Romans had some crazy things they did as well, but you know what’s that? I mean, later, yeah, yeah. But I mean, you know, that’s who thinks of that, right? But um, actually, somebody turn over to that Jeremiah passage.

This is kind of interesting to me. I just didn’t occur to me. Okay, you’ve got it, okay. Go ahead and read that for me. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab, the son of Kaliah, and Zedekiah, the son of Massai, who prophesied a lie to you and my name. Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall slay them before your eyes. And because of them a curse shall be taken up by all the captivity of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, The Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire, because they have done disgraceful things in Israel, have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them.

Indeed I know and I’m a witness, says the Lord. So even there we see, you know, that this was not unusual for that. And the code of Hammurabi actually had this as a punishment for several things, which kind of surprised me. One of which was adultery, I believe. Yeah, one of which was adultery. Um, one of which, I forget the exact wording, but it kind of gave the impression of some sort, I think sacrilege, um, which I’m not sure if dishonoring another god would be considered in that, but perhaps. So there was actually sort of a legal precedent, you might even say, for uh doing this from his perspective. Um, and others at the time. So it’s actually in sort of a cursive way, kind of interesting to see.

3. Ways This Could Have Tempted Them

Okay. So, you know, as I was saying the Jews, you know, um Israelites were kind of, these three were kind of unique in this perspective, that they were being tempted by this at all, um, in the way they were, besides the fact that Oxla being worshiping the one true God. These are some I’ve thought of different ways that this could have actually tempted them. Obviously, fear of the punishment. I mean, fiery furnace is gone, you know. We’re gonna be afraid of you know any bodily harm. Intimidation, you know, this is a king that just by you know being sort of the boss or being the one in charge is gonna be a little bit intimidating, right? Um I mean if if your boss if your boss tells you something to do, and the worst thing he can do to you is fire you, right?

And even that’s gonna he can they can pressure you pressure you a little bit, right? Um fear of losing position, you know, they had risen up to have some power, to have a position, um perhaps even in their position a little bit more comfortable than their fellows were. But of course, how did they get to that position? Where why were they where they were?

Exactly. So there’s kind of kind of that um ear pressure. You know, you’ve got, I mean, how we have no idea how many people are here, but when you’ve got that many government officials all gathered around, and they’re telling you that everybody, you know, oh peoples, nations, and languages, it’s saying everybody’s gotta bow out on this thing. And at least in this one time, there is obviously a lot of people there. And you know, what when in Rome, or in our case Babylon, you know, this kind of goes the same deal, you know. Well, everybody’s doing it, you know. I’m I’m I’m Babylonian official now. And maybe they even said, could have said, well, you know, the statue’s nothing. You know, I don’t have to give off on the one true God, right?

Um it’s easy to say I’m bowing down, but not in my heart. Well, yeah. I’m just I’m just gonna we rationalize that way sometimes, yeah and and couldn’t we try to rationalize with with all these well you know obviously I’ve I’ve gotten in this position God’s put me here you know surely wouldn’t want me to you know get killed off this quick you know been serving and you know maybe even doing some good for his people by their positions and everything and um you know he is my boss you know he is he is the big guy you know I’m just do what I’m told you know I’m here they said you know go to Babylon to be saved and you know that doesn’t make sense that you know I mean is this I be it in a much greater sense is this thing different than a lot of the things we face I don’t think any of us have been threatened to be thrown into front yeah it’s different it’s not as though people in our time happened I think of the uh the girl that I thought in Colorado with Shu and he said do you believe in God you had a gun she said yes I think she probably knew yeah same thing the the extreme level at which they were they were faced with this you know the types of temptations in some sense if you take away the punishment of course you take away the punishment you take away kind of the whole story but uh kind of have the same temptations with our jobs, you know, um whether or not to speak up about something, because we’ll we’ll we may lose our job or or lose position or you know, all kinds of things that we may not speak up because we may lose something and not not do what’s right.

Yeah, so just by the fact that they stood at that one moment, you know, go so far beyond, um and sets for a great example as we’ll continue on, not to get at ourselves, but to this one point, you know, that last point statue being nothing, you know. Well, I can I can bow perhaps, and my faith is still the same. What about that passage that I’ve got listed there? This straight out of the Ten Commandments, you know, as God was speaking to them, shall no other gods before me, you shall not bow yourself down to them nor serve them. And if they had bowed down, even thinking that well, I’m just kind of going through the motions or whatever, you know, wouldn’t they have been at that point giving in?

Because there’s that temptation there, right? You know, if we um give in something and we’re seen as that, we’re just seen as everybody else, right? When we giving in to sin.

Okay.

4. Our God Is Able to Deliver, But If Not

Because we read it um at in verse eight to the next several verses, they kind of remind, they come up to him, they accuse. They actually also kind of uh remind of this command that’s been uh put out. You, O king, have made a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, and symphony with all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the gold image. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast in the midst of the burning of the burning fiery furnace. And I didn’t go quite far enough. Um there are certain Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abinago, these, O king, have not paid due regard to you.

They do not serve your gods or worship the gold image which you have set up. So they’re saying don’t play, you’re not paying due regard. You’re not fought, they’re not following your laws, they aren’t following you, and it’s all the same thing, which so you know you don’t respect his laws, you’re not respecting him, which as a king probably hit pretty close to home, pretty pretty deep, wouldn’t you think? Um, so continue on. The verse is so it says in verse 13, that Nebuchadnezzar, in rage and fury, gave the command to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So he brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying to them, Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up?

Now, if you’re ready at the time, you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in sympathy with all kinds of music, and you fall down and worship the image which I have made. Good. But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you from my hands? So the Nebuchadnezzar, being this just king, says, gives him another chance. He says, Is this true? You haven’t done this? You know, well, just if you’ll bow down now, it doesn’t matter. You know, first, you know, they’re they’ve already been faced with this midst, all these people and everything. Well now the king himself is basically right in their face, saying, Okay, when this happens, are you going to bow down?

So it wasn’t just the single moment that they’re faced with this temptation. They’re facing it again. They’ll face it again because I doubt the fiery furnace was just sitting there hot. Well, that’s very thing heated up. Well, exactly. And going right to that point, it wasn’t just that uh it wasn’t just it wasn’t just good enough for a regular fiery furnace, was it? Um before we skip too far ahead. Um, this makes me think of a passage I think we actually mentioned in the first lesson, um, where um Nebuchadnezzar said something that I thought was kind of similar. Do you not know that what I and my fathers have done to all the people of their lands were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their lands out of my hands?

A little bit. Yeah. You know, your gods, your God’s not any better than my gods. You why don’t you caught in mine? I think that was actually Sennacharo, wasn’t it? Oh, it was. Okay. Oh, well, my so a few years earlier. A few years earlier. Okay. Well, my apologize. It’s the same attitude, isn’t it? Yeah, but yeah, certainly the same attitude. Yeah. I guess I should have looked a little more at the context. Okay. And I think this is really important. Um, verses 16 through 18. Shadarak, Meshach, and Abineko answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us from your hand, O king.

But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up. I think what what I get out of this that’s that kind of strikes me. You know, do they believe that God that God could save them? Okay. Do they in their heads know that God would save them for certain? No. And I think that’s really kind of striking to me. Because, you know, it’s one thing if they had, you know, was still been an amazing show of their faith, but you know, if they had said, Well, you know, I know God’s going to save me. But even if he didn’t, you know, they believed that he could, but even if he didn’t, that wasn’t going to change anything for them.

And it’s a um that the king’s going to know this, that they aren’t going to serve this, serve this God. Some responses to some trials I was thinking of, kind of to try to I try trying to think of some other context of some other passage where we’ll see other people responding to some trials. Obviously we ought to obey God rather than men from a New Testament passage. Um Job in chapter 13, though he slay me, I will not wait, but I will maintain my own ways before him. He also is my salvation for an ungodly one shall not come before him. Job, whatever happened, was faithful.

5. Four Men Walking in the Fiery Furnace

Others, you know, had all kinds of awful trials going on, and yet they still believed. Okay. Fiery furnace, just sitting back for a moment for just a little bit of background again or history. Um the Babylonians didn’t have you know like furnaces like you would heat your home up. That’s not what this is talking about. They didn’t have it in the sense at that time. So what they would have had was either an ore smelter for um producing their metals or a brick uh oven. This actually isn’t from the time, but from all the historical descriptions, this was actually the best picture I found that I thought kind of described it because the ore would be dropped in the top, or of course this would be like a smokestack, there’d be a door to retrieve stuff out of.

There’d also be uh perhaps holes to blow air into it to make the fire even hotter, which of course it was heated seven times hotter. Now, does this mean that say that oven was a thousand degrees that it got heated up to seven thousand degrees?

They put in ten on the work or cords of wood, they just put in seven hotter. Yeah, I mean, was this you know we heated it? Well, no notice at the time, of course. What what kind of position? What uh what was uh Nebuchadnezzar’s uh um disposition at the time? He was pretty mad of fact yeah, it doesn’t say he was in a rage. He was full of fury, and the um expression on his face changed. Um have you ever said something like, you know, wow, you know, it is twice as cold today as it was yesterday? Now was it now, you know, we maybe we said that getting up this morning, you know, walking the dog, you know, it’s like you know, and you say, wow, this is like a thousand times colder than it was yesterday.

I am freezing. Well, you know, does that literally mean you know that if you say it was twice as cold that it went from you know 70 in the morning yesterday to 35 this morning necessarily? Well, you’re it’s kind of expression, right? You’re saying it is a whole lot. Basically, you know, perhaps Nebuchadnezzar was just saying, I want this thing heated up as hot as it can go. You know, just you know, he didn’t he didn’t heat it. Um I’m gonna beleagger the point, but um we certainly know they don’t how I already skipped the next question, but obviously we know it was pretty hot, right? It was so hot that it killed the ninth that took them up.

Yeah, exactly. So however hot it was, obviously he had they had succeeded in getting it a whole lot hot enough that it was a major, you know, killing machine at that point. And this is important now, but another question I’m gonna ask. Um okay, so there’s a kill.

See here, okay. We’ll go ahead and start back in uh verse 20. And he commanded certain mighty men of valor who were in his army to bind chatterak, Meshach, and Vinegar, and cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their trousers, their turbans, and their other garments, and were casted in the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore, because the king’s command was urgent and the furnace exceedingly hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abnego, and these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. So he fell down, either they were tossed on top or um tossed in such a way that they fell down, you know, kicked him in or something.

Obviously, if it was hot enough to kill these guys, then they were probably you know trying to get him get them in there quick. Um, because we’ve got some other stuff. I’m gonna kind of go over this real quick. It’s um but obviously they were falling down in there, there was they’re bound, there’s no means of escape. Verse 24 reads, and Nebuchadnezzar was astonished, and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, do we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said to the king, True, O king. Look, he answered, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the former of the fourth is like the son of God.

So does that mean Nebuchadnezzar saw Christ in the fire? No. Mine’s a son of God. And that’s a very good point. It’s also translated son of God, so several of the translations phrase it that way. Minus is the gods. Or the gods. You know, obviously, whatever he’s on there uh was something different than these three men. That’s what we know. And so, and how would um Nebuchadnezzar nobody Christ? How would he know what he looked like? You know, I think I think the translation Son of Gods or um the word angel is used a couple verses later, um think perhaps is a little bit more after what he’s saying. The point is there’s somebody else in there that obviously they didn’t put in there. Maybe they were cold thrown in a cold spot.

I mean come on, I mean they could have been thrown I mean surely they’re I mean you’re not at home. I mean they have a cold spot in it, doesn’t yours I mean not very big. Not a very big one. I I I visualize this has to be like maybe big open pit fire sort of the other I other way of visualizing is like a glas a furnace with glass doors because Nebuchadnezzar can see through. And he can see what’s going on inside, and he has to be far enough away from it that he’s not burned by it. Well obviously there was some door or something because obviously they’re using it for whatever there was some way for them to see in. Um but to say it was thrown into a cool spot, okay.

How much sense does that make given a context?

Well they also unbinded themselves, so something is I mean, I have a shimane. When I put it too much in it, the flames shoot out the top and out coming out at me. I have to be very careful not to put too much in it. So what happened to people throwing throwing them in there? They were killed, right? So, you know, look I think it’s almost a you know, you have to really be trying and stretching and and looking for some way. It’s a lot easier just to accept it for the truth, which is that it was empirical, they were saved. I’m not actually sure. Um, I saw a reference to the series, and I know other people have mentioned this before. I’ve never I haven’t actually seen a good excuse for the fourth person, perhaps a reflection or something, I think, that he actually only saw Daniel saw one Pete twice or something.

I don’t know. I didn’t want to throw that out there though. Um was it just King King Nebuchadnezzar that saw him in there? You know, obviously there were others around, right?

That verse 27, verse 27. And all these people in it says, and they saw that these men on whose volume fire had no power, their heather hair of their head was not singed, nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not in them. That’s the part that really kind of striking to me. These guys have been in there, and yet somehow they didn’t smell the fire, smell of it. Maybe there was a point being made here that you know the you know they’re already being saved from fire. It’s like as if there was any doubt what had happened to these guys, and something you know, not of human power just happened. The smell fire wasn’t even wrong. Okay. Verse 29, Nebuchadnezzar, there’s no other uh God who can deliver like this.

6. Where Was Daniel?

And the three were promoted. Now I’m gonna get to your question in the last couple minutes we have here. Oops, I went too far. Okay. Um, where was Daniel? Daniel was to bow down, right? Because it didn’t mention him. He wasn’t in the plane of Demon. Pardon? He wasn’t at the plane of Divine. That’s certainly thing. I’ve listed quite a few here, all of the possibilities, and there’s maybe there’s others, but these are all the ones I could think of or had seen when I was researching that people had thrown out there. First of all, one I just kind of threw out there. Well, Daniel may have bowed down. He didn’t bow down, but wasn’t reported, perhaps because of due to his position. And they’ll note that it doesn’t say that Nebuchadnezzar bowed.

Daniel was in Babylon attending to matters of state.

You know, and Group in a fairly small town. When he had a parade that everybody was at, you know, there was still a policeman somewhere doing something, otherwise every house was probably going to get robbed, right? I mean, you know, the you you know, we’re talking about a massive city here. It’s entirely possible he was actually just back in the city. Um that obviously he was somewhere else, like you’re talking about, not there, not you know, he wasn’t official after all, he may have been out of town, as we say on business. Um would say, well, the it doesn’t specifically mention some of the miracle worker type people, so perhaps he was exempt. Like I said, he perhaps he was away, um, or he was sick.

Okay. Um they would also say, well, you know, maybe he didn’t, but they just didn’t risk challenging him because of his position being tied to Nebuchadnezzar. I think the most likely scenario is that he wasn’t there. I mean, I think that’s you know, um I don’t really see how you can take the rest of the book seriously or take other any of it if you can’t say that you know Daniel, you know, how can you say this faithful Daniel who we have who bears his name is on this book. So like I said, it’s I would say that he was half away. Um females won’t adventuring or evidence of one or the other, um, go right ahead. Um by the way, this is some people know that this might be a might say it was an evidence of an earlier authorship.

Conclusion

The reason they say that is you know, here you’ve got um if this book is written much later and you’re writing it as sort of a lesson of faith or something, you know, wouldn’t you want to have your star be at one of these major you know events in this book? Um I just breeze through that. Um but I may have not explained it very well or something either. That this part or any part of the lesson. If anybody’s still got a minute or two, if anyone wants to have any questions or anything before I perhaps get the questions, but I think obviously the most important thing we can get out of this lesson, you know, there’s a lot of great lessons for us. Somebody’s posed with a horrific um possibility of being killed for their beliefs, and yet they stood firm in the midst of all this you know pressure from different directions and for different reasons, and so I think that’s you know, it’s a great lesson for us.

And I guess knowing to the reason why the children of Israel were in Bible going in captivity, it was because of the infinity to worship God and worship an idols. That was one of the reasons, too. So for those who are faithful, like Daniel and his friends, they’d rather die as we see here than to bow down to an idol, which God just detest.

When they’re speaking to Nebuchadnezzar directly.

And I think sometimes we like to, maybe not like you, but we sometimes in our prayers or in our yearnings to God, we we ask him for things, and then when it doesn’t come out the way we we hope or whatever, we blame him. And that’s just a wonderful.