THE LIFE OF DANIEL (LECTURE)

 

Dr. W. A. Criswell

 

Daniel 1

 

11-15-97

 

 

 

I asked Dr. Allen how many more lectures I would have the opportunity to deliver here.  And he said two more besides today.  And then, we have a final class meeting.  Isn’t that what you said?  All right.

I especially and particularly want to encourage your heart and soul to be here for this next lecture.  I’m going to lecture next time on the second coming of Christ: the seven marvelous miracles that characterize His reign, when He comes and seven wonderful signs of his return.  So, you all be sure to be here next time.

Last time we were here, I spoke of preaching in the time of Ezra.  I want to take one more section out of the Bible and speak of Daniel.

First, The Life of Daniel: he had a noble birth and was born about 625 B.C.  That’s in Daniel 1:3.  In Daniel 1:4, he was most learned.  In Daniel 1:1-11, he was carried away captive by Nebuchadnezzar.  At that time, he was about 20 years of age. 

In Daniel 1:20 and following and Ezekiel 14:28, he was trained in the learning and language of the Chaldeans.  In Daniel 2:48, Nebuchadnezzar made him the chief ruler over the province of Babylon and the chief governor over all the wise men of Babylon.  During the intervening reigns of Evil-Merodach down to Nabopolassar, he drops out of sight.  But, at the feast of Belshazzar, the son of Nabonidus, the queen mother remembers him and he’s called into public fame.

The rise of Cyrus—Darius the Mede made Daniel, though he was over 90 years of age, the chief of the three presidents.  And he thought to set him over the whole realm.  That’s Daniel 6:1-2.

Daniel was faithful unto death, even through the lion’s den.  He lived until the third year of Cyrus—Daniel 10:1—in 534 B.C.  And he died when he was about 91 years.

Now, the prophet Daniel is referred to Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14.  He was a man in the court of princes, in the highest place under Nebuchadnezzar and King Belshazzar and under the great Persian Cyrus and Darius the Mede, who were world rulers. 

Yet, he was faithful to God.  He was a man of tremendous spiritual courage.  Look at Daniel 5 and the judgment upon Belshazzar.  Look at Daniel 6:10, where he is praying before an open window toward Jerusalem.

You know, that is one of the most amazing stories to me to be read in the Bible.  All he had to do was close the window and nobody would have known what he was doing.  But, he prayed with his window open toward Jerusalem and, of course, anybody could see and hear him as he prayed.

In Daniel 5, he was a man whom money and power could not corrupt.  In Daniel 9, he was a man of prayer.  And in Daniel 9 and 10, he was a man greatly beloved by God and man.  In Daniel 2, 6 and 12, he was a man of great personal hope, optimism and confidence in the future.

You have to remember he was a slave in the Babylonian capital.  And yet, he had great confidence in the future.

In Matthew 24:15, he was a man used of God to color all the prophetic history with his prophecies.  When you read those prophecies of Daniel, you can hardly believe that some of those things could have been revealed.

He was a eunuch—Isaiah 39:7; Daniel 1:7, 9; Daniel 10:11, 18.  Yet, he was looked upon as one of the greatest before God Himself.  You see that in Ezekiel 14:14, 16, 18, 20.

All right.  We look at chapter 1: the introduction to Daniel, the man.  He was one of the most wonderful servants of the Lord the world has ever known.  He is one of the few men of whom God writes only good, such as Joseph and Jonathan.  That’s the Lord’s testament of Daniel.

He was a commanding figure.  He had great intellectual capacity and executive ability.  He had, and possessed, moral excellence.  In Daniel 10:11, 19, he was spoken of as a man “greatly beloved.”

He was the author of one of the two great apocalyptic books of the Bible.  Daniel, I say, was greatly beloved, like John the Apostle, “the beloved disciple.”

As a mere lad, he was brought from Jerusalem to Babylon.  In a short time, he rose to the highest governmental position in the Empire.

He outlived the Captivity of 70 years—Jeremiah 25:11-12.  In 605, he was carried by Nebuchadnezzar as a slave to Babylon.  And in 536 B.C., 70 years later, Cyrus brought Daniel to the time of the return of Israel to their homeland.

The Babylonian attempt to assimilate him into heathen culture, practice and worship was absolutely vain.  The Babylonian attempt to wipe out the memory of Jerusalem—but that also was also successful.  Look at Psalm 137:5-6.

He was born in the reign of the good King Josiah.  In childhood, he remembered the finding of the lost Book of Moses.  His youth was passed in a great revival.  And in the reformation that followed, he heard the preaching of the prophet Jeremiah and brought with him to Babylon his book of prophecy—Daniel 9:2.

Nebuchadnezzar came three against Jerusalem.  In 605 B.C., he took away many of the chief men of Israel.  One was the prince, Daniel. 

In 598 B.C., he took away 10,000 other people.  And that included Ezekiel.

And in 587, the third time he came, he destroyed Jerusalem.  There was no need to come back.  The entire nation was removed to Babylonia.

In 605 B.C., Daniel was taken captive, I say.  He was a youth, about 14 years of age.  His friends also were taken captive with him.  His name, Daniel, means “God is my judge.”  Those three men who were taken captive with him were Hananiah—“beloved of the Lord”; Mishael, whose name means “Who is God?”; Azariah: “the Lord is my help.”

The first one was renamed Shadrach: “illuminated by the sun god Ba.”  The second one was Meshach, which means “servant of the god Shach.”  And the third one was Abednego, meaning “servant of Nego.”  They really were introduced to the culture and religion of ancient Babylon.

Now, when we read Acts 20:28-30 and 2 Timothy 3:1, 13 and 17 and Revelation 2:4, we read of the attack on Daniel and the destruction of a city.  And it is, of course, a picture of the church.

In the Bible, the city itself is so important.  And that is true of our present day.  The city is the center of culture: music, art, literature, theater, opera, ballet—everything else that you can name.  The city is the center of commerce, merchandizing, banking and insurance.  The city is the center of communication: the press, the wire services, the radio and television.  The city is the center of education: schools, universities, colleges and seminaries—so much so that the city is almost the nation itself. 

It controls the cultural and political and economic life of a nation.  Rome is Italy.  Cairo is Egypt.  Moscow is Russia.  Paris is France.  London is England. So, the missionary journeys of Paul were characterized by the planting of the gospel in the heart of the great cities, like Antioch, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth and Rome. 

So there is a ceaseless warfare of Satan to destroy the message of God in the great cities.  He sends false teachers.  He destroys the work.  And the church loses its heart of devotion.

Satan seeks to liberalize the church.  And he uses plagues like diphtheria and AIDS—what he can—to try to destroy the city.

We have a little mustard seed that grows into a large tree.  Every unclean bird nests in it.  That is a picture of the city.  And it is like that leaven.  It works until it permeates the entire mass.

An example of the attack of liberalism is the repudiation of the Book of Daniel.  Modern criticism overwhelmingly denies the authenticity of the Book of Daniel.  The reason is simple: prophecy is an impossibility to the liberal.  There is no such thing as foretelling events to come.  Therefore, a book that makes predictions must have been written after the events and was a forged manuscript.  It was a fraud.  It was written years later as though it had been written years earlier.

For example, about A.D. 275, Porphry, the Neo-Platonist of Alexandria, who was a bitter assailant of Christianity, categorically refuted the possibility of Daniel’s miraculous predictions.  The Book of Porphry was written about 150 B.C., in the days of the Maccabees. 

This verdict of one of ancient Christianity’s bitterest enemies is also the verdict of modern liberalism and destructive criticism.  So, the liberal world looks on Daniel as a forgery.  There is no exception to that.  When a man is a liberal, he sees Daniel as a fraud—as a deception—as a deceptive piece of fiction.  The whole world out there—the whole liberal world repudiates the Book of Daniel.

But, for us—you and I—in Matthew 24:15, Jesus calls Daniel a prophet.  In the canon of the Old Testament Scriptures—the Jewish Scriptures—you will find Daniel there.  In the Septuagint, the most famous translation of the Bible in the world, Daniel was an influential part of it.  It was translated in Alexandria, in 300 B.C.  You will find Daniel there.  Genesis, Psalms and Daniel you will find there—in the Septuagaint, in 300 B.C.

Remember, the liberal said it wasn’t written until about 150 B.C.  They say it was written in the days of the Maccabees.  But, in 1 Maccabees, there is an allusion from Daniel.  In 1 Maccabees 8:14, you will find the lament of Daniel.

They say there is no problem.  But, in Ezekiel 28:14, 20, 23, you’ve got that before you.

Again, in the Qumran—the Dead Sea Scrolls, you will find fragments of Daniel.  The scrolls date to the time of the authorship of the Book.  Fraudulent corruption is claimed by the liberals when it comes to the Book of Daniel.  But, you will find Daniel in those Dead Sea Scrolls that have been comparatively recently dug up.

It’s like John’s Gospel.  The critics said it was written 200 years after John.  Then, when they were avowing that, they dug up papyri from 90 A.D. in which were quotations from John’s Gospel.

However these liberals avow their infidelity, give it time.  Archaeology will make it sound ridiculous.

And of course, Josephus quotes from Daniel in his Antiquities, in 8:1-4 and 15:1-22.  He again quotes Daniel in chapter 10, in several paragraphs.

And actually, the world as it is today is exactly the way Daniel prophesied, though it has been 2,000 years since Christ and it has been 2,500 years since Daniel prophesied it.  All you have to do is look at it.  Daniel prophesied a worldview of history.  So, it is exactly as Daniel prophesied it.

You look at it.  That head up there is the Babylonian Empire.  The breast and arms is the Medo-Persian Empire.  The thighs are the Greeks.  The legs—two of them—are the Roman Empire: East and West.  And the feet and the toes are broken up.  There is no such thing as a world empire any more.

All you’ve got to do is look at it.  Read it for yourself.  The whole sweep of history is exactly as Daniel prophesied it.

The head is the Babylonian Empire.  The breast and the two arms are the Medo-Persian Empire.  The thighs are the Greek Empire.  And the two legs are the Roman Empire: East and West.  Then, the statue is broken up into feet and toes.  That’s the world ever since.

There are two different things.  The Babylonian Empire found its heart in Babylon.  The Medo-Persian Empire was Cyrus and Darius and their arms of conquest.

If you read in the paper—the newspaper—all over this world there is conflict.  And that is exactly the prophecy of Daniel 9:26: “Unto the end war and desolations are determined.”

We live at a moment when you would think the whole world would be at peace around us.  Yet, every time you turn on television or every time you pick up a magazine or every time you read a newspaper, even the United States is preparing for war.  They’re sending in big ships, with those bombs and aircraft—they’re sending them over there, into the Persian Gulf, and sending thousands of soldiers over there.

You’d like it to be quiet, peaceful.  But, it’s not going to be that way, ever.  There will be wars and rumors of wars all around, just as Daniel prophesied.   

In February 1914, there was a prophetic conference in Los Angeles.  Attention was called to the predictive Scripture: “Nation will raise against nation and kingdom against kingdom” and all those passages, followed by famine and pestilence, like the sixth seal in the Book of the Revelation.

Now, when that prophetic conference had its meeting, and they avowed these things, the editor of the Christian Advocate said it was not a prophetic conference, but a “pathetic conference.”

Do you remember reading in history—now, I was alive when this happened—in less than six months after that conference—less than six months—the Archduke of Austria was killed in Serbia.  And the great First War began.

The liberals said that the prophecy spoken of at that conference was pathetic.  I don’t care who you are, you will never get away—I don’t care how brilliant you are, you will never get away from the truth of that Scriptures that you hold in your hand.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote of the personal suffering of the children of England, toiling in the sweatshops of the factories of England:

 

Do you hear the children weeping, O my brother?

Ere the sorrow comes with years.

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,

But that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleeting in the meadows.

The young birds are chirping in the nests.

The young fawns are playing with their shadows.

The young flowers are bending toward the west.

But the young, young children, O my brother.

They are weeping in the playtime of the others.

In the land of the free.

 

This is a sad world in which we live.

            Well, that’s that part.  I’m going to speak now on the language of God—the language God uses.  Before I do that, does anyone want to make a comment?

            Thank you, Dr. Allen.  You are a prince of a friend and a great encouragement to me.

            Well, I have a discussion here of the language of God.  And the reason I do this is because of the phenomenon of the languages found in the Bible.

It is often said that the Old Testament is written in Hebrew and the New Testament is written in Greek.  But, there is another language in the Old Testament: Aramaic.

For example, in Genesis 31:47 are two words in Aramaic.  In Jeremiah 10:11 is a sentence in Aramaic.  And—listen to this—Ezra 4:8-6:18 and Ezra 7:12-26 are in Aramaic.  About one-third of the Book of Ezra is in Aramaic.  This includes official documents about the rebuilding of the Temple.  One-third of the Book of Ezra is in Aramaic.

And from Daniel 2, beginning at verse 4, through Daniel 7:28—all of that was written in Aramaic.  One-half of the Book of Daniel was written in Aramaic.  So, one-third of the Book of Ezra was written in Aramaic and one-half of the Book of Daniel was written in Aramaic.

Ezra was born and brought up in Babylon.  Daniel was taken there as a youth.  Both spoke and wrote in Aramaic at the slightest suggestion.

For example, in the Greek New Testament: Abba, “Father.”  Abba is Aramaic.  Talitha cumi, “Maiden, arise,” in Mark 6:41, is Aramaic.  Lama sabachthani, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” in Matthew 27:46, is Aramaic.

Aramaic was the language of Palestine.  And Christ and His disciples spoke in Aramaic.

Now, what is this Aramaic language and where did it come from?  Who are these Arameans and their language?

In Genesis 10:22, “Aram, the son of Shem”—and their name comes from him.  And Shem, the word “Semitic.”  The Greeks called these people “Syrians,” an abbreviation of Assyrian.  They were scattered throughout the Middle East.  They were traders, as well as shepherds.

Their language was the language of commerce.  They controlled the commerce of western Asia.  Theirs was the speech of the Assyrians, the Babylonians and, finally, Palestine. 

So, the change in the language of the Jews: they spoke Aramaic.  After the conquest by Babylon and the 70-year Captivity, a change took place in the speech of the people.  They began to speak Aramaic.

Some could still speak Hebrew.  Witness the Books of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.  But, the language of the people was Aramaic.  And when they returned home to Palestine, they spoke Aramaic.

For example, one of the most unusual chapters in all the Bible is Nehemiah 8, where Ezra read the Book of the Law in Hebrew.  But, it was necessary to give the translation in Aramaic.

Here’s what happened.  In Nehemiah 8, all those people gathered in Jerusalem to hear the Book of the Law.  Ezra read out of it in Hebrew, but the Jews couldn’t understand it.  So, Ezra had to give the meaning in Aramaic.  It is a remarkable thing.  Aramaic altogether displaced Hebrew as the language of the people.  Hebrew was a lost language in Palestine.

The Old Testament Scriptures, therefore, had to be translated and explained in Aramaic.  And they’re called the Targums.  And there are Lord knows how many of them.  And that’s why that came about: an explanation of the Hebrew.

Aramaic was the spoken language of Christ.  He spoke Aramaic.

It is a remarkable thing: from 605 B.C. until after 1900, Hebrew was a lost language.  Only out of necessity, the State of Israel in Palestine made it the law and the custom that Hebrew was to be spoken again.  They settled from so many different lands that they had to change to a common language.  And that language was Hebrew.

And I tell you, there is no prophecy in the Bible that is more meaningful to me than Jeremiah 31:23, which says that this Hebrew language will be spoken again.  For 2,500 years it was not spoken.  But, Jeremiah 31:23 says it will be spoken again.  And that has come to pass in my lifetime, as the State of Israel has put together Hebrew as the national language of the people.

Now, we’re going to speak of the Aramaic of the Book of Daniel.  The critics say that the Book of Daniel was written by two authors.  That’s not true.  There is the same use of words in the presentation of both sections: in chapters 2-7, in Aramaic; and the rest of it in Hebrew.  They say that there was a gap in the original that was filled in by the Aramaic.  Or, there was a gap in the Hebrew that was filled in by the Aramaic.  That’s what they say.

But, from the beginning, this book was written that way: half of it in Aramaic and half of it in Hebrew.  Ancient fragments that have been recovered are all that way.

And this represents the two great divisions of the people.  What concerns the Jews is written in Hebrew—Daniel 1:1-2.  What concerns the Gentiles is written in Aramaic.  The Aramaic portion is a revelation of “the times of the Gentiles.” 

I quote: “The point that I would like to make is that the author of Daniel had two distinct kinds of messages to deliver.  One was a message of judgment and final defeat to the Gentile world, the major representatives of which were Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Cyrus and Darius.  The other was a message of hope and comfort for God’s oppressed: the precious holy people, the Hebrews.

The language of the first was Aramaic, because it was to the Gentiles.  The appropriate language for the second was Hebrew—to the Jews.

Daniel was a minister in the court of the king.  Aramaic was the language of the Babylonian world empire. 

God has a message for the whole world.  Here, in our country, we speak English.  Over there in Australia, they also speak English.  But, when you go to Germany, they speak German.  When you go to China—they speak Chinese.  It doesn’t matter.  God has a message for the whole world.  And you see that in the Book of Daniel.

The wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world—that’s my next comment.  The wisdom of God is delivered to us in sharp contrast to the wisdom of the world.  The wisdom of the world dissolves and changes so rapidly a textbook that is more than 10 years old is totally outdated.

By contrast, the Word of God remains unchanged and unchangeable.  The truth of God’s wisdom is unique and unrivaled.  The truth about us is such that we could never learn it in any university or graduate school.

The paramount glory of the gospel is that there is nothing like it anywhere else.  It is without rival, either in the scientist’s laboratory, the psychologist’s office or the philosopher’s study. 

It is this factor that constitutes the supreme value of preaching.  It simply does what nothing else can do.  Paul calls this truth “the deep things of God”—the thoughts of God: spiritual truth, the mind of Christ and the wisdom of God. 

The wisdom of God is in sharp contrast to the wisdom of man.  The

wisdom of the world swings from one extreme to the other, going in cycles of acceptance and rejection.  Science textbooks more than 10 years of age are totally outdated.  In contrast to that, the Word of God remains unchanged and unchanging, always relevant, always up-to-date, always perceptive and penetrating and eternally accurate. 

The supreme motive of the preacher is that the hearer stand not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.  And that task of the preacher has to do with his identity as an expositor of the Word of God.  It is the one discipline that can make him an effective master of the faith. 

As a preacher, I can speak to the physicist, the high tech engineers, the doctors, the lawyers, the bankers, the captains of industry, as well as artisans, secretaries, plumbers and many others, presenting essential knowledge about themselves and life that they would never learn in any secular university or graduate school.  I am privileged to present to them a perspective on reality not available from any other source.

Now, this is a tragedy of much modern preaching.  Preachers have come to believe that the average person no longer has any religious interest.  So, they appeal to knowledge of science or philosophy.

If people appear to have no religious interest, it is because preaching has failed to clarify that which people really want to find: namely, the secret of human fulfillment.  That is what God lovingly offers to us in the Bible.  True preaching—the preaching of the truth and wisdom of God—will result in human glorification, the actual fulfillment of our deepest desires.

Well, I am done.  I cannot emphasize enough—as you have heard me say in these lectures, I cannot emphasize enough how marvelous and how wonderful the Lord has been to me. 

And to take that Book and declare its message is pertinent to every life and every factor of living: for the home and the family, for America, for the business.  It impacts every area of human life.  And all you have to do is read it and expound it.  What a marvelous, marvelous ministry you can have, if it is based upon the infallible Word of God.

And matter where you are, you have a message.  You always see me dressed so formally.  I have a funeral service.  What do you think I’m going to do that funeral service?  Do you think I’m going to read a passage from philosophy?  Do you think I’m going to speak of some scientific equation about this body that is decaying in the grave? 

What do you think I’m going to do?  I’m going to take my Bible.  And I’m going open that Book and I’m going to preach out of that Bible.  That’s what I’m going to do at the funeral service this morning.

No matter where and no matter what the circumstances, the Bible is pertinent and has a living message for any of the fortunes and providences of human living.  And you have the privilege of declaring that Book: the infallible and inerrant Word of God.

Young men, God bless you as you listen to my voice and do exactly what I have said.

Any comment anyone wants to make?  Any questions you’d like to ask?

Thank you.

Y’all be sure—be sure to be here for class next time.  I’m going to speak on the second coming of Christ and the biblical revelations that precede His coming.  And I tell you, they are present in the world today. 

Oh, dear.  It just amazes me how all these things that the Lord has said come to pass before He comes back.  Some of them are taking place today.  And then, there are the marvelous, marvelous things that will take place when He comes.

Well, I love you.  Thank you for putting the Book right there.    

 

 

 

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