Friday March 18, 2011

Read Daniel 8:1-14

It’s been two whole years since Daniel had his first dream. Now he has another one.  Daniel dreams of rams and goats fighting  each other.  Given the ending of chapter 8 (where Daniel lays ill for several days and is completely exhausted) we can only surmise that the dream was particularly scary,  life like and incredibly intense.

This time, though, the Lord Himself gives us the interpretation of the dream. The ram is the Medo-Persian empire.  The shaggy goat is the Greek empire. The four horns represent the four rulers who took up the divided kingdom after Alexander died.  The small horn that arose is Antiochus IV. Antiochus was extremely anti-God - taking away the daily sacrifice, desecrating the temple, destroying copies of the Torah (Law of God) and forbidding its public reading, offering sacrifices etc. He did destroy the mighty men and the holy people.  But as vs 27 reminds us, ‘Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power’.

God  is able to humble even the most arrogant and powerful rulers. He can take great kings, mighty warriors, intelligent scientists and do with them as He pleases. No one can stand up to our Lord and King.  And yet, it is this great King - who defeated and humbled Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius, Alexander and even Antiochus IV—that comes to us as a helpless babe. He comes to serve not to be served. He comes to die on the cross, not to Lord it over people. He does not intimidate people to worship Him but woos them gently in love and patience.

As we stand out for Jesus and show the world His love, this is the type of servant love we are to be modelling. People will see God’s power in and through us as we love and serve them sacrificially as Jesus has done for us.

Prayer:-

þ Pray that each and every single person in your church would have a servant, sacrificial heart. Pray that each person would attend church this Sonday ready to give sacrificially, ready to serve and ready to love others.

Pray that the Word of God would be powerful and active among us as we sit under its authority this Sonday. Pray that God would do great things among us.  Pray that God would heal those needing healing, give relief to the burdened and raise up the lowly and down cast. Pray that Jesus name would bring hope to us all tomorrow.