Gooding, David: 2 - Chapters 1 and 2

We are embarked on a short series of studies of the prophet Daniel. We began by reminding ourselves of the kind of person that this Daniel was. He was an expatriate Jew that had, as a result of Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Palestine, been brought early on to Babylon. There have been hundreds and thousands, maybe, of expatriate Jews here in Europe and elsewhere over the centuries. They have become famous in the various countries in which they have lived for their contributions to the arts, to science, to medicine, to literature, to music. Daniel was a character of that kind. Uh, ye- last week too, we concentrated mostly on acquainting ourselves with the contents of his short book, his memoirs, as we called them. And I put them on the screen again, because one of the benefits of this particular course of studies will be, if it rivets on our memories, the actual contents of the book. The Holy Spirit has grave difficulties on times of bringing to our minds what isn't there to start with. Whereas if we do our part in getting God's word onto our minds, then the Holy Spirit can, when he so pleases, bring his word to our minds and show us its relevance. So we notice that there are two major parts to the book. The first chapter is Daniel's arrival in Babylon and describes some of the issues that confronted him as a Jewish student in that Gentile university. He passed his exams well and rose subsequently in the civil service of Babylon to quite great heights. Later on, when the Babylonian Empire was taken over by the Medes and the Persians, Daniel became head of the civil service for a while in Medo-Persia. And thereby amassed an enormous amount of experience of how the then world worked. And what were the big issues in society. So, in his, uh, book, in his memoirs, we shall find him commenting on various sides of Gentile civilization. We notice, for instance, that chapters two and three contain Daniel's critique of Gentile politics. The story in chapter two of Nebuchadnezzar's dream image, a message conveyed to Nebuchadnezzar in his dream of what would happen to the world empires of his day, and going off into the future, to the eventual establishment of the kingdom of Messiah. In chapter three, likewise, Nebuchadnezzar's golden image. Those two chapters are not to be confused, of course. Neb- in the chapter two, it was a dream image that didn't actually exist. In chapter three, it was a golden image that Nebuchadnezzar himself made. Presumably, Nebuchadnezzar was concerned, like many political rulers have been in the course of the centuries, to unify his empire. And saw that if you're really going to tap into the loyalty of the citizen, then you must somehow penetrate to the loyalty that is normally given to God, a religious loyalty. Alexander the Great proposed it when he thought he was on the way to world empire. He rode home to Greece, so we are told, to suggest to his, uh, Greek, uh, fellow citizens from where he came that he was thinking of being a god, do you see? And they said, of course, typical Greeks, which god would you like to be? I mean, as far as we're concerned, you could be any God, you see. Yeah, well, why not? But the Roman Emperor Augustus, coming to his power as a- after an absolute bloodbath that destroyed the Roman Republic and brought on the, uh, form of imperial government. Augustus instituted the worship of the emperor. You'll see he found himself ruling over what at that stage in history was a vast empire that contained people of all kinds of religion. And religion, of course, can be a very discordant affair and be the cause of much trouble, as we are well aware. Now, the Romans didn't mind really what religion you were of, but they saw it was necessary to combine these different nations of different kinds and their different religions to harness their loyalty to the state, to the emperor. So you could, under Augustus, you could be any religion you like, so long as when you were summoned by the governor of your province to come and offer a pinch of incense on the altar to the Lord Augustus, you were prepared to do that. If you weren't prepared to offer that pinch of incense to the Lord Augustus, you were in grave trouble. Many of our fellow believers of that age, of course, perished, thrown to lions and other such, uh, uh, uh, uh, experiences, because they said there is only one Lord, and that is the Lord Jesus. We're not prepared to offer incense to the Lord, that is God Augustus. Well, Nebuchadnezzar tried that kind of thing to keep his ramshackle empire together and instituted the worship of the state in the form of a golden image. And we shall see, God willing, in subsequent weeks what it cost Daniel's friends to take their stand against the, uh, the, uh, worship of the state. So those two chapters are about Daniel's critique of Gentile politics. Here in the next two chapters, it is his critique of Gentile culture, art, architecture, and that other form of culture, if it's worth the, if it's worth the description, having a slap up dinner in the very latest hotel that has been invented in Belfast or Northern Ireland. So much for the first half, therefore, of his, uh, book. The second half starts off with a, a, a chapter about Daniel's personal experience and how he refused to stop praying to God when the state required it of him. Then chapters seven and eight once more return to Daniel's critique of Gentile politics, and these are heavily prophetic, as we shall subsequently see. The vi- the vision here in chapter two is also prophetic, of course. These are heavily prophetic. Daniel's renewed con- uh, critique of Gentile politics and the future that they are leading to. Then here, finally, two visions. The one is concerned with the prophecy that the prophet Jeremiah gave in his book, when he warned his fellow Judeans that because of their sinfulness, God was going to allow Nebuchadnezzar to come and destroy them, the city and the temple, and to take them into exile. But Daniel had, uh, Jeremiah had promised that they would be in exile seventy years, and then they would be allowed back, and Jerusalem be restored. And here is Daniel praying for the restoration of Jerusalem? Jerusalem was, to some extent, restored, but alas, Israel continued in their disobedience of God, and therefore Daniel is forewarned that there would come a time when Jerusalem would be downtrodden of the Gentiles. And our Lord repeated that same message, didn't he? As he went for the last time out of the temple at Jerusalem and warned his apostles that the time would very soon come when Jerusalem would be downtrodden by the Gentile nations until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, and the times are discussed in this particular chapter. And finally, here is a more detailed prophecy about the future that would come upon Israel soon after, uh, in particularly in the rise of Alexander and then of the, uh, Seleucid and Ptolemaic emperors. And from that, the prophet goes off like from a springboard and talks about the terrible days that shall come upon our earth prior to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It will be a good thing, therefore, if we can get that simple outline of the contents of the book of Daniel onto our heads. We may get to it tonight, or we may not, but sometimes it will be helpful for us to compare and contrast. In chapter two, we have a dream image that describes the succession of major world empires from the time of Nebuchadnezzar onwards. Here in chapter seven, you get a similar topic. It is the description of the succession of world empires from the time of Nebuchadnezzar onwards. If we get as far as that this evening, we shall need to compare the two, because here in chapter two, the succession of Gentile world empires is represented as a very impressive, magnificently beautiful construct of an image of very precious stones. In chapter seven, a very different view is given of the succession of Gentile empires. They are not there likened to a beautiful image of a man. They are there likened to wild beasts. And when we get to it, we shall find that that contrast is true to life. The great empires of this world have made an enormous contribution to the progress of the human race, to its civilization, to develop the potential of human beings. When I was a boy, not being a prophet myself, hadn't a clue that a human being would walk on the moon. We didn't think there was anything much more beyond Orion and, uh, Andromeda Galaxy. What a marvelously interesting time you younger folks live in, don't you? The marvels of the universe. And of course, the research that's been done on it has been largely financed by the various governments. There's another side to human rule, isn't there? For I missed the First World War, perhaps you won't believe that, but I did miss that. Managed to be born when it was all over. But I did experience the Second World War, and have known and heard, of course, of the millions that were eliminated under the Marxist regimes, as well as under Adolf Hitler. And the last named Adolf Hitler in our civilized Europe, perhaps the most civilized of all the European nations, gave rise to Hitler and to the subsequent massacre of millions. There are two sides to the story, aren't there? We shall find Daniel's very balanced understanding of this world, if we're prepared ju- not just to take in i- i- individual chapters by themselves, but we learn to compare the way he presents a balance of truth. But tonight we come to chapter one, and perhaps you will care to turn to chapter one. I'm not going to read it. For time's sake. Some of Daniel's chapters are very long. It will be an enormous help if we can find a scrap of time before we come to the sessions to have read the appropriate chapters. But as it is, in the third year, says verse one of the book, of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Je- Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with part of the vessels of the house of God, and he carried them into the land of Shinar to the house of his God, and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his God. And the king spoke unto Ashpenaz, the master of the eunuchs, that he should bring in certain of the children of Israel, even of the sea royal and of the nobles, youths in whom there was no blemish, but well favored and skillful in all wisdom, cunning and n- in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability to stand in the king's palace, and that he should teach them the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. This is not fairy talk. It was the policy of Nebuchadnezzar, as it was of others like the Assyrians. If they came and, uh, uh, conquered your country, they would leave a lot of the farmers behind to till the land and keep the wild beasts from multiplying, but they would cream off the skilled technicians and the scientists and the architects and the learned people of letters and take them back home to their country to build up an enormous intellectual treasure house of able people. That was their policy, and you see here an example of the same. Daniel being of princely background, and being, like teenagers tend to be, well favored, do you see? And all that is there said of them. And they were selected to be in the Babylonian, the equivalent of Babylon's university, to be trained, so they could be advisors to his majesty and be active in his civil service. It must have been an overwhelming experience for Daniel, however, when he first caught sight of Babylon. He was used to Jerusalem and thought it was there was no place on earth like Jerusalem, you know, Jerusalem the golden with milk and honey blessed, you'll see. And they had a temple. Went back to Solomon. But when all is said and done, Jerusalem was only a few square acres up on a rock. And then he got to Babylon. It must have been overwhelming to be s- escorted down along the royal parade, through the Ishtar Gate, to see the ziggurat, to see the temples, to see their progress in astronomy and their understanding of the stuff, to see the beautiful royal gardens, and all foreign, of course, to him. Overwhelming, of course. Very attractive. And then when he got selected... to enter the university and to be trained, it is interesting that as a Jew, he didn't refuse. Because, you see, he will have noticed... how idolatry permeated almost every facet of life in Babylon. Not only in people's homes with their god shells up the corner, but with the big ziggurat and with the temples. And not only astronomy, but what we should call astrology, where the sun was worshipped as a god and the moon likewise. Daniel had to go into that atmosphere and study, where these things, of course, were rife. And when he ca- curse came in, he and his fellows had names in the good Jewish fashion that ended with some mention of God, do you see? My judge is God, Daniel, or Azariah, or so on and so forth. Names compounded along with the name of God. But the Babylonians gave them other names. All four of them got names, each one incorporating the name of some Babylonian god. It was straight idolatry, of course. Though Babylonians didn't take it seriously, of course they didn't. That was just Joe to them, or Thomas, or whatnot, I mean to say. When I first went to Spain to meet dear folks whose Christian name was Jesus, was a little bit, um, well, it put a, a, a put a bit of a, a shock in the, in the road, you see. One got used to calling him Jesus, you see, yes. Jesus. Curious. But it didn't register with Spaniards, of course. But it would have registered with Daniel when they called him and his fellows by names. They incorporated the name of some Babylonish god. There was nothing he could do about it. Couldn't stop them calling him that. But when he got into the university, he gave himself to his studies, that is obviously so. But he took his stand, he and his fellows. The issue at stake at the time was the food that was served in the students' union, provided by His Majesty, of course. And therefore, for the advanced students, this was the very best that the Babylonian monarch could supply, food and wine. It raised a very big matter of conscience with Daniel and his friends, and that for two reasons. He tells them, uh, tells the man in charge that he doesn't want to be defiled by this food. Defiled. It wasn't because it carried any germs or stale, but it would have gone contrary to the Jewish food laws. It might have included meat that came from animals that were barred to the Jews in the book of Leviticus. It could be that the animals whose meat was being served had not been killed in the proper way, so as all the blood drained out as far as possible. And that would have offended a Jew because they were forbidden, strictly forbidden in the Old Testament to swallow blood of any sort. To this day, of course, Orthodox Jews seek to regard and to keep those Levitical laws. And to eat Gentile food, therefore, was to be defiled. Now, as Christians, we might well ponder that a moment, because as we all know, do we not, that our blessed Lord Jesus annulled the food laws. Mark chapter seven, if you want the reference, or Matthew chapter fifteen, or Acts chapter ten. uh Our Lord annulled the food. And that raises the question why God gave them in the first place, doesn't it? If later the Son of God was going to annul them. And some people have suggested that the old food laws were there because it could have been dangerous for people to eat, for instance, pig, uh, not having fridges or things like that, you see, to store the meat in. It could easily have gone bad, and those who ate it have been infected. So some people argue those food laws were there to protect the nation's health and hygiene. That can't really be so, can it? Because when our Lord annulled those food laws, they still hadn't got fridges. Had they now? Well, not that I heard of. So why the difference? The difference, of course, when the food laws were, uh, on the statute book and were there to be obeyed. Made Gen- uh, Jewish contact and table fellowship with Gentiles very difficult. And they were meant to do exactly that. For the ancient world was a filthy world. And in those far off days, Jews did not have, as we have, the Holy Spirit residing in them, did they? Pentecost had not yet taken place. And therefore God had to treat them like children. Now, you who are mothers and fathers and all that, you're very broad-minded, I'm sure you are. But there are places in Paris where you wouldn't want your fifteen and sixteen-year-old daughter to go, are there not? Where you might even forbid them to go. You wouldn't get a man who's recently been an alcoholic and has been saved and is off the drink, you wouldn't encourage him to go with you to preach in a pub, would you? While Israel were children, they had to have a wall built round them, lest they be infected with the evil, dirty practices of the Gentile world. You should remember, if I may be blunt, that homosexuality is not a new thing. Many of the high leading philosophers in Greece were homosexuals. So God had the food laws. Of course, when our Lord came, then after Pentecost, then the food laws were annulled. Because now believers have the Holy Spirit to strengthen them, to be with them. Now you are all grown up sons, says Paul, in Christ Jesus. But there was another lesson that we could learn from it, couldn't we? Daniel and company wouldn't eat the literal food, lest they be defiled. But literal food is important, it should be clean. Mental food, is that important? Would you as a parent allow your little children to switch on the television as they please? And fill their minds with unclean things enacted in front of them? Daniel took his stand, lest he be defiled. But there was another reason, of course. In the banqueting halls, as in the private houses, when the main, main meal was begun, whoever was in charge, be it the head of the house or the dean of the college or whatever, would offer the first bit to the gods. You'll read an example in chapter five when we come to it. Belshazzar put on a banquet for his lords and ladies. Oh, you'd like to have been there, you would really, to watch the women arrive in all their poor, the dresses, but we won't go into that, do you see? Not just now. Christian Dior wasn't in it. But, uh, uh, uh, do you see? And as they sat down to table and began to take part and drank the wines, they praised the gods of silver and stone and brass. Daniel wouldn't do it. For this was straight idolatry. For the gods of the Babylonians were deifications of the forces of nature. So they worship Shamash, the sun god, and the moon god, and the storm god, and the god of sexual love, and so forth and so on. Deifying the forces of nature out in the big universe, and the psychological forces inside the human heart. That may sound to you a little bit exotic, but it's true at the moral level. The great and famous tragedian Euripides wrote many plays, but one play in particular, where a young lady, wife who knows better, is trying to justify her going off and taking another lover. And she says, typical Greek, Aphrodite made me do it. The goddess. And of course, our God, our, our desires, our gods and goddesses. You can't think of a, of refusing a god or a goddess, could you? Aphrodite made me do it. And Euripides has the other character reply, nonsense woman. It's only your lust made you do it. But then, of course, a good many of our scientists deify the forces of nature, don't they? If you ask the a- a- average atheist, you see, particularly if it's a scientist, what are the powers that govern our universe? What are the powers that started it all? What are the powers, if any there be, that will end it all. They will reply. The forces of nature. Mm-hmm. The strong atomic power, the weak atomic power, electromagnetism, the laws of biology, gravity, anti-gravity, if there be such a thing. And what are they? They are the forces of nature, of course. But according to the atheist, they are, well, he doesn't call them gods, but they might as well, mightn't they? They are the supreme powers. They brought us into existence. They will one day destroy us. They brought us into existence and don't know they've done it, because they're mindless. And they they will destroy us and not know that either, because they're mindless. Well, the atheist doesn't have a row of gods in his drawing room and bow down to them, but he does take the forces of nature and make them the absolutes in our universe. That is the modern form of idolatry. You'll find it in your universities and in your schools, won't you? And Daniel and his companions wouldn't have it and took their stand and did it very sensibly because they were aware of the difficult situation that put the master of ceremonies in, who feared the emperor. The emperor had made this special, uh, provision of food for the, uh, uh, students because he wanted them well fed so that the brains would work well, does he? And if they refused his food and met some ordinary porridge or something, it might have an effect on their studies, you'll see. And if that did so, the man in charge of the students' food would be eliminated. Daniel and company realized what a difficulty it put them in, so proposed a little experiment. Well, allow us privately to take not the king's food, but this porridge stuff, and then have a look at us and see whether we're any the worse for it. Sensible chap was Daniel, wasn't he? And it worked. And Nebuchadnezzar never knew anything about it. The other interesting thing to note is that chapter one tells us that Daniel, do you see, progressed in every matter of wisdom and understanding concerning which the king inquired of them. The chapter tells us that he investigated and mastered the thinking of the Babylonians, and what they imagined they were doing when they had their dreams, and what they thought they were doing in their astronomy and astrology. Took the trouble to master, while he was in university, how the Gentiles thought. Now that's a very important lesson for us, isn't it? We must be careful not to be undercut by the rationalism that can happen in our universities and schools. We mustn't go to the other extreme. If I tell you a secret, you'll not tell anybody, will you now? You'll not mention it outside these four walls. But when I first came to Ireland, there were some gracious Christian people I met who thought that to be in a university was a very suspect occupation. Education, they felt, was against faith. That isn't so, is it? We need God's help and strengthening and wisdom. At the same time, if we're going to help people, we often have to need to know what they feel, how they think, so that we might come alongside and help them. So now, having thought about the stand that they took while they were still going through their courses. Let's congratulate them on taking their studies seriously, so that when they came to be examined by the emperor, he found they had, uh, followed their student courses well. They weren't content to do just enough to get through. For God's sake, for the testimony of the faith's sake, they gave themselves to their studies, that their very progress in their studies might not only commend them for higher tasks in the government, but commend their stance as Jews who believed in the one true God. When it so turned out that the king, the emperor found that in wisdom they excelled their contemporaries, their testimony was very powerful. Powerful. But now let's introduce us finally, uh, to the first of these critiques of Gentile politics. And it's a story, it's a very long story. It fills chapter two. So again, I'm not going to read it all, do you see? Um, I'll just relate the story, and you will check on me whether I have exaggerated some of the details, will you not? Nebuchadnezzar, poor old boy, went to bed. Even he did. And doubtless his head was full of thoughts and scheming. You don't become emperor of a vast empire like Babylon, the Neo-Babylon, without surrounding yourself with all sorts of courtiers and, uh, plenipotentiaries and politicians. And Nebuchadnezzar knew them very well indeed. And had reason to think that some of them might be scheming behind the scenes to get Nebuchadnezzar gone, so that one of them or one of their friends could succeed to the throne. How would he keep his empire together? Well, this night he, he, he went to bed, and he dreamed. And I expect you know how dreams are, don't you? You recognize one if you saw one. The fact is, we don't when we're actually having the dream, do we? You don't say to oneself, well, this is all sky boss, I'm dreaming, I know I am. No, no, no, you take it literally. So this is Nebuchadnezzar, and he's in bed, uh, and yet he wasn't. He's walking along the plain. Well, this is very odd. How did he get here? He couldn't remember leaving the palace, but he was here, walking across the plain. And he went to talk to his co- where is his bodyguard? It's odd he was all here by himself out in the country. Very odd. Anyway, he walked along, and lo, presently there was this colossal image standing on the plane. Oof. It was very impressive. It was a bit modern artish like, you know. Wasn't exactly like the normal, uh, uh, statues that his own artists made, because it was a, in the form of a man, but it was made, uh, uh, like a cake, you know, Geneva cake, whatever they are. Uh, uh, uh, one bit was gold, and then there was another bit of silver, and then there was another bit of bronze, and finally there was a, uh, the rest of it was, was iron, you see. Very odd, but impressive. You think of the technology required to make such an image as that. And what, what was it all about anyway? And he looked at it, and it was a man, a very big man. Well, who is that an image of then? Nebuchadnezzar knew of only one very big man in the whole of Babylon, actually himself. But this was man that was so big, it was sort of terrifyingly big, enormously big. Well, he was standing there thinking about this image and whatever it could mean, and what was the artist trying to say? He'd have a word with the boys in charge of the art department in the university when he got back, he certainly would, uh, when he happened to look round, and well, there were some mountains. He didn't know there was any mountains in this part. And just as he was looking, he saw the top of one of them, and then it looked as if... the top was coming a bit loose. He could see daylight between the top and the next bit of the mountain. This is very odd. And then, to his dismay, this rock came whistling like a meteorite right in his direction. And he went to say, oh go, you, you smashed the image. Well, just like that happened, and it hit the toes and smashed the thing to s- smithereens. Whew. And Nebuchadnezzar woke up. And he was in his bed. And the table lamp was still there. Well, he hoped he hadn't cried out and that the watchman at his bedroom door n- not heard him making a fool of himself in the middle of the night. But what did it mean? And now he had a problem. He believed that some of these dreams are sent by God. We shall have to discuss one of these nights the question of dreams. They took dreams very seriously in those old-fashioned days. It'd been very odd if they hadn't, wouldn't it? Dreaming is a very big part in the human, uh, personality. But anyway, he had his wise men that could interpret dreams. The trouble with wise men was this, you see. They could come up with any old scheme of interpretation. They could say, we're sorry, your majesty, but you are that head of gold, of course, but you're going to be smashed by the Medo-Persians. Or you're going to be taken over by your prime minister. And how would you know whether that was the right interpretation or not? And if you ask their opinion, you've got to take it, haven't you? So Nebuchadnezzar had a scheme, and the next morning he rang the bell, and in came his advisors and philosophers and interpreters of dreams and all the rest of them, with their PhDs in psychology and all the rest of it. And he said, gentlemen, I've had a dream, and I want you please to interpret it. They said, of course, Your Majesty, delighted. Now tell us the dream, they said. No, he said, that's not what I'm going to do. What do you mean? Yes, you just tell us the dream and we'll interpret it. No, he said. I'm not going to tell you what the dream was. You've got to tell me what I dreamt. Well, they tried to be polite, but they said there's no other king or emperor in any kingdom that have ever asked such a thing, which is, uh, you know, court language for saying, you silly old fool, of course. Absurd men. We'll interpret the dream if you tell it what it was, but how can we tell you what you dreamed? Now, if you're reading the old King James version, it is a delightful version, but it might give you at that point a slightly wrong impression. The thing is gone from me, implying that he'd forgotten what the dream was. No, no, he hadn't. Doesn't mean that. It means my command, my word is firm. You must take it seriously, gentlemen. I'm not going to tell you the dream. You have to tell me what I dreamt. You are to tell me what its meaning is, and if you don't, I should give order, you'll be executed and put on the on on the scrap heap. It's merciful that the government hasn't yet got round to treating universities quite like that, but um, they are, but also then. So there was much hubbub, and Daniel heard of it, and by this time he was reckoned as one of the wise men, so he stood in danger himself. So, faith in God, courage in both hands, he went into the emperor and asked for a stay of execution and guaranteed to the emperor he would tell him what he had dreamed and its significance. That took a lot of faith, that did, didn't it, Watto? And he went home and got his three companions to pray with him that God would reveal it to him. And here we come to the center of the message. Is there such a thing as divine Divine revelation. revelation? You see, Daniel had many prophecies to give about the future, and the critic will say, yes, but he made it all up in vague terms, do you see? But it's not a question of simply whether God has revealed the future. It is here whether God could reveal the past. Is there such a thing as divine revelation? This is one of the big issues, isn't it? It's a big issue in theology as it is taught in many of our universities and in some institutes of Bible learning. Is there such a thing as divine revelation, as distinct from religiously minded men putting their brains together and working up a lot of moral precepts or hazarding a guess about the future. Let me remind you of what Peter says in his second epistle. Talking of prophecy about the future, he says, grasp this. You are to know that no prophecy ever came by man's shrewd conjecture. True prophecy came, says Peter, as being borne along by the Holy Spirit, there spoke from God. There's many a theological department in academic institutions where you'd have to take courage in both hands to say you believe it. It's a very big issue. And if we're going to profit from this book, with all its prophecies about the future, we first have to settle it in our hearts right from the start. We are prepared to believe in divine revelation. And then when God revealed it, they didn't go rushing in to see the c- king all at once. They stayed to praise the living God, who at his mercies had revealed to them what his majesty had dreamed. Now, I'm not going to set you a term essay. I would be interested to know whether you believe, with that Bible in your hand, that there is such a thing as divine revelation in Holy Scripture. That is the bedrock of all we're going to learn in this book of Daniel. I wonder what you'd say if I ask you a further question. You believe that the Bible is God's revelation. Why do you believe that? And what are your reasons? But I've used up all my time. But I do take seriously the way Daniel has begun, because it is absolutely basic to our testimony to the world. Whatever arguments we may use, and rightly use, in apologetics, nonetheless, we come back to this, that God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ and through his word, and we stand upon the fact of divine authoritative revelation. Let's just pray, shall we? Our Father, we thank thee for this book that thy servant Daniel has written for us. We thank thee, Lord, for we sense that he was a man like us, more brilliant, certainly, but knew the temptations that we know in our modern world, as we seek to stand and to witness for thee and for thy dear Son. Give us, we pray, as we seek thee in thy word, give us to hear thy voice, we do beseech thee, that we know this is God's objective truth, and that it is God the Holy Spirit speaking it to us again in our day and generation as the truth. So grant us grace to stand in the various occupations that thou has placed us in, in life. And we ask it through Jesus Christ our Lord. And give thee thanks now for the food and refreshments to be provided, and pray that our fellowship too may be mutually profitable. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.