Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

sians."
return,"
contempt."
world."
angels."
and when
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused
to bow or worship, he cast them into a fearful fiery
furnace. The men were not burned or even harmed,
and there walked with them, as the king said, one
like the Son of God. The king spoke more wisely than
he knew, for the Son of God was there to keep and
protect them from all harm.
Tested by Lions
The most severe test which came to Daniel was
when Darius commanded his subjects to pray to
none other but himself for thirty days, or, as a pen
alty, to be cast into a den of fierce lions. When Dan
iel prayed to God as usual he was cast into the den,
but Christ was there to protect him from all harm.
When the men who sought his death were cast into
the den they were torn to shreds before they reached
the bottom of the den. Then the king issued a decree
declaring that the God of Daniel is the living God
and stedfast forever,
and His kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall be
even to the end.
Handwriting on the Wall
When Belshazzar on the night of a drunken de
bauch with a thousand of his lords saw the hand
writing on the wall, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,"
Daniel was called in to interpret the writing. He told
the trembling king that though he knew of the pow
er of God over Nebuchadnezzar, he had not humbled
himself and had rebelled against the God of heaven.
The writing on the wall declared, "God hath num
bered thy kingdom, and finished it. Thou are
weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Thy
kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Per
In that night was Belshazzar the king of the
Chaldeans slain. It was the stone cut out of the
mountain (Christ) who brought to an end Belshazzar's
reign, and it was He who ruled over all the
kings whose reigns are recorded here, and over sev
eral others whose subjection is foretold in the latter
part of this Book.
The Assyrian Army
Christ has no less power today than when the
proud army of Sennacherib, the Assyrian, stood at
the gates of Jerusalem. The prediction through
Isaiah came true, "He shall not come into this city,
nor shoot an arrow there ....
By the way that he
came, by the same shall he broken, ruined
and disgraced by the hand of the messenger of the
King of kings.
Can you throw out your hand and stop a jet
plane as it shoots by like a rocket Can you rush
down to the beach and block an ocean wave as it
catapults toward the shore No more can you halt
the purpose of Christ the Mediator as He deals with
men and nations of the world.
On a mosque in Damascus, formerly a Christian
church, there still remains on its wall the inscrip
tion: "Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting
kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all
generations."
Mrs. Jennie Kennedy, a missionary
in
Alexandretta,
Syria, told of the destruction of the German
consulate during the First World War. A French
warship had come into the harbor and ordered the
German consul out within an hour. He left just be
fore the hour was up and the French gunners
promptly shelled the building to pieces, but the
cen-
June 8, 1955
tral wall was left and on it pictures of the Kaiser
and Frederick the Great. The German consul called
Mrs. Kennedy to come and see the remains of the
building, and looking up at the portrait of the Kai
ser, shouted: "See! they couldn't bring him down!
They will never bring him down!" But the Kaiser
was brought down. So will it be with all the powers
that rebel against the honor and the kingdom of
Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The Right of Dissent
These courageous, good men, Daniel, Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego, not only taught us the im
portance of a pure life and pure worship, but they
demonstrated the right of the child of God to dissent
from the laws of a government which contravenes
the commands of God. What would we know of these
men today if they had not only been willing to dis
sent, but to die if need be, rather than dishonor God
If they had not been pure, temperate, men of prayer
and faith, they would have died in their early career
along with the wise men of Babylon. Christ would
not have honored them and preserved their lives;
He would not have heard their prayers and given
them wisdom above others if they had not honored
Him and had true faith in Him.
IV
Christ Will Judge and Reward His Own
The Dead Raised
In the last chapter of this book we are told of
the resurrection and the judgment. "Many of them
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlast
ing
The resurrection is a great fact which men of
all ages need to know. It was not a fact hidden from
those who studied the Old Testament. There are a
number of references to it in the Psalms and else
where. Martha, who was a student of the Old Testa
ment, said to Jesus, "I know that he shall rise at the
resurrection at the last day."
It was an encouraging truth to those who were
to undergo persecution in that day and in the future.
There is a story in the second book of the Maccabees
of seven brothers and their mother who were sus
tained during torture and martyrdom by the assur
ance of their resurrection to everlasting life.
The Judgment
The last judgment,
which is so briefly men
tioned here, is vividly portrayed by
our Lord in the
latter part of Matthew 25. There we are told of the
great and final separation of the righteous from
the wicked, of the sentence pronounced on the
wicked and the reward of the righteous. Christ shall
say to the righteous: "Come, ye blessed of my Fa
ther, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the To the wicked he shall de
clare: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his The
wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment:
but the righteous into life eternal. It is a fearful
thing to neglect Christ as sad as to openly defy Him.
Eternal Rewards
Earnest laborers for Christ shall have a great
(or more
and eternal reward. "They that be wise
exactly, teachers) shall shine as the brightness of
the firmament; and they that turn many to right
eousness as the stars for ever and ever."
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