Brown's Daily Word 2/26/15

Praise the Lord for the sweet rest He gives us as His gracious gift night after night.  Praise the Lord for His eternal companionship day after day, every day, all the way, and all the days of our lives.  He blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday gathering and a deep fellowship where people shared with great transparency.  Many shared deep horror and sadness at the abduction of Christians in the middle East and slaughtering of them, including children and women.  Let us all pray reverently against the insanity and madness of the Islam terrorists.  Only the Lord of the Heaven and Earth has the power against the demonic and barbaric  forces that have been let loose amongst nations.
    I have been thinking about how the Lord, who is  great and mighty   delivered His people like Daniel from great terror.  In fact, God delivered  him while he was in the lion's den.  Those lions intentionally had been starved and were extremely hungry.  In fact, when the king ordered the conspirators thrown into the den along with their families, they all were killed immediately.  The author of the book of Daniel wants us to know God always can do the miraculous, and early Christian art often used the story of Daniel in the lions' den as an Old Testament picture of the resurrection of Jesus.  That's the power of God.  He can deliver His people from bondage in Egypt, from Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace and from the lions' den of the Persians.  He can crumble the walls of Jericho, use one smooth stone to fell a blasphemous Philistine giant, and raise Lazarus from the dead.

    Physical deliverance is not always true for all of God's people in all times and all places.  Sometimes He lets them be beaten, whipped, and even crucified. Foxes' Book of Martyrs is one of the most prominent books in the English language, and it describes the torture and death of hundreds of faithful Christians through the middle of the 16th century.  Furthermore, there were probably more Christians martyred in the 20th century than in the previous 19 combined.  So, while Daniel 6 tells of a great miracle of deliverance, God does not always choose to deliver. 

    In verse 16 and 20, Darius twice describes Daniel as "continually serving His God."  In the original text, it's one word and it's only used here in all of Scripture.  It means to "move in and make your home with."  Verse 23 says Daniel trusted his God—even in the most dire of circumstances—and I'm convinced he did so because years before he put his full trust  in the Lord and made his home with God and learned in time that God was good and always would be his Comforter, his Counselor, and his Savior.  Although Darius foolishly deified himself, he had no power to save Daniel.  Our God shut the mouths of those lions and saved Daniel from certain death, because He's the all-powerful Savior.  He never sleeps or slumbers, and He is always working to accomplish what He wants in your life and mine.  As the author notes in v. 27, He's the One with the power to deliver regardless of the circumstances, and that's why we need to continually serve the Lord and keep on trusting Him and keep on walking by faith. 

    In the days of Moses, the Hebrews were oppressed by Pharaoh, but their King still had one more move.  David looked to be an insect to Goliath, but David's King still had one more move.  It looked as if it was all over for Daniel when he was thrown in the lions' den, but his King still had one more move.  Jesus was tortured, crucified, dead and buried.  His enemies said, "That's all folks.  Show's over.  Time to go home.  They were wrong because the King still had one more move. 

    Jesus is our King, our Lord and Our God, and He always has one more move!  So let us make our home with Him, because He's the All-Powerful Savior. Regardless of our circumstances, irrespective of our situation, our King always has one more move, and that's something—and Someone—we can celebrate  about.

In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/2qCmtUhiKcA