Micah 4-Swords Into Plowshare, The Last Days are Our Days

Micah 4-Swords Into Plowshare, The Last Days are Our Days

Jul 13, 2023 | Eschatology

The thing I love about reading the prophets is that amid all the gloom and doom rays of light and expectations of hope jump out like the sun peeking through the clouds on a very gray day. You know it may only peak through briefly, but that gives you hope of sunny days to come. This analogy is especially powerful for me since I’ve embraced postmillennial eschatology, except now the sun shines more brightly. It applies to the entire Bible, of course, given it’s all about Jesus (Luke 24), but the contrast in the prophets is startling. Micah 4 is an especially good example. I’ll quote the first part of the chapter to illustrate the point, but when I was a “pan” millennialist (it will all pan out in the end) and an amillennialist I instantly read passages like this assuming it must apply to after Jesus returns and has established the restored heavens and earth he came to save. How could it not! You read it and tell me what you think:

In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
    as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
    and peoples will stream to it.

2 Many nations will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3 He will judge between many peoples
    and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.
4 Everyone will sit under his own vine
    and under his   own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
    for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
5 All the nations may walk
    in the name of their gods,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord
    our God for ever and ever.

Previously, my knee-jerk reaction to this passage was it had to be in the new heavens and earth; I didn’t even question it. Swords into plowshares? Not in this fallen world! But I was actually wrong. If we look more carefully at this passage we’ll see what’s being talked about is life in this fallen world. If there is still a need for judging and settling disputes “for strong nations,” then sin still exists. If nations are still walking “in the name of their gods,” then sin still exists. No, this passage is very much about the here and now, and it’s obvious. As Micah says, this is “in the last days.”

We are currently living “in the last days.” There are several New Testament verses telling us these days started with the coming of Messiah. In the very first Christian sermon in Acts 2, Peter tells us quoting the Prophet Joel:

17 “‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.

That pouring out started, as we know, with Pentecost. Peter was telling Jews in Jerusalem it was Jesus of Nazareth, risen Lord, who ushered in these last days. The writer to the Hebrews tells us:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

In the Old Testament these days are referred to in various ways that Jews all interpreted to be Messianic. So we must conclude that Micah is referring to today, to our time, to here and now, to how life is lived as the Holy Spirit enables followers of the Savior who is now seated at the right hand of the Almighty “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” (Eph. 1: 21) For Paul Jesus’ current rule is taken for granted, and we have to be reminded his rule is also for the age to come. Think about that!

So, what does this look like? How does this differ from the typical doom and gloom Chicken Little Christianity of those just waiting for Jesus to come back any moment to save the day? Micah 4! And according to Micah it will look something like peace and prosperity, where justice is done and people live in safety. I know, it almost sounds prosaic, boring. That’s it? Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, more spiritual? More miraculous like? Well, what is more miraculous than turning chaos and violence and want into justice, shalom, and plenty? Or people loving one another? Or the fruit of the Spirit! To me one way this is graphically portrayed, to see what it looks like in this world, is in the history of the war of Christianity against paganism in the first millennium of the West. The spiritual war of Ephesians 6:12 is worked out in this history of redemption from Abram being called out of Ur of the Chaldeans four thousand years ago to this very day. It looks very different now, but the battle is the same. This is graphically played out in the ninth century in King Alfred the Great’s battle saving Christian England against the heathen Viking horde from the north.

Alfred was the king of Wessex from 871-899, and he wanted to establish a Christian united England under one king. He’s the only King in English history with the appellation Great attached to his name because he started the process of uniting England under the law of God. Several years ago, my daughter told me about a Netflix series called The Last Kingdom (i.e., Wessex). I was quickly hooked, not only because it was well done, but also because, sadly, I knew absolutely nothing about the history I saw portrayed on the screen. I was amazed to learn Christian Western civilization as we know it hung by a thread during Alfred’s reign, and a thread might be overestimating the odds, from a human perspective. You’ll have to either watch the series or learn the history to know what I mean, but when Christ rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the heathens didn’t have a chance.

One of my favorite scenes is in season 1 when Alfred and the Danish leaders Guthrum and Ubba are negotiating. They ask Alfred what the transcribers are writing, and he says, “They are writing what we speak.” He adds, “They are writing history, we are here creating history. People will read of this very meeting.” The heathens didn’t write or create history. They also ask why he seeks peace, and he says, “It is the Christian in me, the will of my God.” Ubba wants to talk of the gods, and Alfred replies firmly, “God, there is only one.” This encounter is a microcosm of two mutually exclusive forces, the two worldviews, and only one could be victorious. Christianity would bring learning and peace, the rule of law, and the advance of God’s kingdom in the world, or the pagans would bring a bloody world of arbitrary power none of us would want to live in. Tom Holland in his important book, Dominion, contends, “So profound has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilization that it has come to be hidden from view.”

This impact is what we read of in Micah, swords being turned into plowshares. When Alfred defeated Guthrum, he and his leaders were required to be baptized and become Christians as the terms of peace. Guthrum was allowed to rule peacefully in East Anglia for the rest of his life, and everyone was able to sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one was able to make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.

 

 

Uninvented: Jonah Had to be Real, Big Fish and All

Uninvented: Jonah Had to be Real, Big Fish and All

Jul 9, 2023 | Apologetics

If there is one book in the Bible that really gives the doubting Thomas’s among us fits it’s Jonah, the reluctant prophet. It wouldn’t be so hard to swallow, pun intended, if it wasn’t for putting that silly big fish in the story, but more of that below. As for the rest of the story, you have to love Jonah, he’s so much like all of us, sinners by nature who just don’t want to do what God commands. That is in fact the job description of a sinner! We’re rebellious little Cretans, as the Apostle Paul says, God’s enemies, literally by nature at war with him. So before we get all high-minded and “judge” Jonah, he is us! And it is just this kind of negativity that that brings out a realness in the story that speaks to its authenticity. Jonah is the criterion of embarrassment on steroids, meaning human nature being what it is, people just don’t write things that make themselves look so horrible. In fact, we naturally go out of our way to make ourselves look good, to excuse ourselves and mitigate our guilt. We don’t tell a story like Jonah unless it’s true.

Jonah’s tale begins with rank disobedience. The Lord tells him to go preach a warning to Nineveh, the great Assyrian city, and he runs in the exact opposite direction, and a very long way. God as He does with His people chases him down until he finally relents. Jonah decides to take a ship that he must think will surely allow him to escape this odious request (the Assyrians were a brutal people and Israel’s enemies), but you can tell he really doesn’t believe that. What makes the argument in Uninvented so persuasive to me is that the characters in the Bible behave psychologically like real people would, and Jonah reads as real as it gets. He knows like all of us really do that running from the Lord is futile, and as soon as the storm hits and things start getting bad, Jonah goes below deck and falls “into a deep sleep.” He’s basically depressed. The captain wonders how in the world he can sleep, and tells him to call on his god to save them.

In that time prior to “science” when people believed storms and weather were controlled by the gods, that’s what they did. Jonah knew better who actually controlled everything including storms. The sailors cast lots to see who’s to blame, and the lot falls to Jonah. When they ask who he is:

9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

I can almost see and hear a board and blasé Jonah saying this. No other ancient people believed in an eternal Creator God and you get the sense Jonah also wishes it wasn’t true at this point, but the sailors are terrified because Jonah’s already told them he’s running away. The sea is getting rougher and they ask him what they must do to calm it down, and he says throw him into the sea. What? Won’t that tick off of your Creator God, Jonah? They decided not to chance it, and try everything else, but it keeps getting worse, so they throw him over. Then we read the words that give the skeptics and doubters fits:

17 Now the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Impossible! They think. No way a human being can last inside of a fish, no matter how big. It’s really gross if you think about it for too long, not to mention dangerous. And impossible! Is it?

Let’s address the word impossible. I’ve heard people say that over the years regarding this story, but what exactly does it mean. How about this:

  • not possible; unable to be, exist, happen, etc.
  • unable to be done, performed, effected, etc.

Now a question for those who think it’s impossible for a man to be swallowed by a great fish and stay alive three days and nights. How exactly do you know this? That such a thing is impossible. Are you not begging the question? In other words, aren’t you only assuming such a thing can’t happen? And in fact you really have no idea if it could happen or not? But, you say, it is literally physiologically not possible, stomach acids, lack of oxygen, etc. Well, that really depends on what one assumes, doesn’t it.

Let’s assume something else, my own question begging, if you will. Nothing is impossible with God. If God exists, then preparing a great fish to swallow a man and keep him alive for three days and nights is a piece of cake, easy peasy, not a problem, can do it in His sleep, so to speak. Why? Well, because by definition as the notion of God has come down to us from the ancient Hebrews then through Christianity, God is all powerful. God is all mighty. God has all knowledge, all wisdom, all understanding. We can also add something that’s truly beyond comprehension to us, as if all this is not. He is everywhere, omnipresent. Try to wrap your mind around that! But don’t, you’ll hurt yourself.

Why burden yourself with the Enlightenment philosophical baggage (naturalism, miracles can’t happen, rationalism, etc.), and just read the text as if it could very well possibly be true. Then judge the text for what it is. Does it read real? Does it have the magic word, verisimilitude? For those new to the word, it means the quality of appearing to be true or real. Like a great work of fiction or movie, if it has verisimilitude you’re all in, if not you won’t engage with it for long. The Bible has verisimilitude written all over it, from beginning to end, if only it isn’t shackled to someone’s anti-supernatural assumptions, which are in fact rightly called a bias. And it’s a groundless bias if God in fact exists, which he obviously does! As I often say, there are relatively few philosophical, materialist (matter is all that is) atheists. Everyone else knows God exists because, well, everything couldn’t possibly come from nothing!

One of the reasons the Bible reads so real to me, and why I wrote Uninvented, is because most of the characters who encounter the miraculous are just as incredulous as we are. The ancients in this were no different than we post-Enlightenment Westerners. Such things do not normally happen, so can they ever happen? I’ll end this with one powerful story that reflects this dynamic so wonderfully, the story of Abraham and Sarah. Who does God choose to bring kings and nations through, like sand on the seashore and stars in the sky? A barren old couple, of course! And we’re talking really old. The Lord called Abram and Sarai at 75 and 65, beyond child rearing already, promised him that sand and those stars, then made them wait another twenty-five years! God would leave no doubt whatsoever who was responsible for those nations. In Genesis 18 the Lord visits them and says Sarah will have a son in a year. Then we read these very real words:

13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

Is that verisimilitude or what! And talk about the criterion of embarrassment. Notice the rhetorical question the Lord puts to them. Of course not! Nothing is too hard for Him, including Jonah in a big fish kept alive for three days and then vomited onto dry land.

 

 

 

 

By Golly, Lennon Was Right, All We Really Do Need is Love!

By Golly, Lennon Was Right, All We Really Do Need is Love!

Jul 5, 2023 | Eschatology

The three uses of the law is not something most Christians give much thought to, as in not at all. As Protestant Evangelical Christians, if that’s what we are, our relationship to God’s law can be ambivalent and ambiguous. I had been a Christian over five years before another Christian would give me a formal introduction to the law. He told me most Christians ignore the law because of a distorted view of the gospel, as if it set aside God’s law as no longer binding on the Christian. If we think about it for even a moment that is, of course, absurd. God’s law is a reflection of his being, a transcription of his character, and it can no more be set aside than his holiness. Here according the late great R.C. Sproul are the three uses of the law:

The first purpose of the law is to be a mirror. On the one hand, the law of God reflects and mirrors the perfect righteousness of God. The law tells us much about who God is. Perhaps more important, the law illumines human sinfulness. Augustine wrote, “The law orders, that we, after attempting to do what is ordered, and so feeling our weakness under the law, may learn to implore the help of grace.” The law highlights our weakness so that we might seek the strength found in Christ. Here the law acts as a severe schoolmaster who drives us to Christ.

A second purpose for the law is the restraint of evil. The law, in and of itself, cannot change human hearts. It can, however, serve to protect the righteous from the unjust. Calvin says this purpose is “by means of its fearful denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment, to curb those who, unless forced, have no regard for rectitude and justice.” The law allows for a limited measure of justice on this earth, until the last judgment is realized.

The third purpose of the law is to reveal what is pleasing to God. As born-again children of God, the law enlightens us as to what is pleasing to our Father, whom we seek to serve. The Christian delights in the law as God Himself delights in it. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). This is the highest function of the law, to serve as an instrument for the people of God to give Him honor and glory.

We get the first purpose because we know we are transgressors of God’s law, and that’s what drives us to the gospel. We also in some way get the second but don’t see it as relevant to how entire societies are governed. Since we don’t live in a “theocracy,” the Ten Commandments and the rest of God’s law is not applicable in, for example, America. How’s that working out for us? Secularism is a jealous god which exalts man’s law above God’s law. As in our personal lives so in society, it is either autonomy, self law, or theonomy, God’s law. There is no in between, but that is a topic for another post, many other posts.

 

The third use is what I want to focus on, and why the title of this post and shout out to the also late great John Lennon, and to Doug Wilson in this video for giving me the idea. If you read the reference above to John’s gospel (pure coincidence it’s also a John?), you might see where I’m going with “All you need is love.” Most of us would not equate love with law. In fact, I dare say, we might even say law and love are antithetical, which shows just how programmed we are by our secular Triumph of the Therapeutic age (in the title of Philip Rieff’s 1966 book). Modern people see love in every way but what it really is, the hard selfless often sacrificial work of seeking the benefit of others, the kind of love the Apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13, that kind of love. Most Christians are familiar with the Greek word for this kind of love, agape-ἀγάπη, or “love which centers in moral preference.” In other words, it isn’t driven by emotion, as in another Greek word for love eros, which we know as romantic love, but by choice. That’s why love is a verb.

This also brings to mind the question the Pharisees asked Jesus when he was proving a conundrum to the Sadducees, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” I imagine like so much of what Jesus did, what he said next was also completely unexpected to the Pharisees:

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus is of course quoting from one of his favorite Old Testament books, Deuteronomy. He is also connecting loving God with loving neighbor from Leviticus, one of the last books in the Old Testament we might think of as loving. But God’s law is love, and the only basis for true human flourishing, made possible for Christians because of the gospel. Even non-Christians can love because they’re made in God’s image and know to some degree that love is better than self-absorption.

It is instructive to see in the Leviticus passage, right after God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves He declares, “I am the LORD.” I am not sure why he did this, but maybe loving our neighbor has something to do with who God is. Not exactly the meanie Old Testament God the second century heretic Maricon claimed he was.

This Old Testament biblical theme of love is also perfectly consistent with the New Covenant revealed in Christ in the gospel. Love and law are connected as Paul shows us in Romans 13:

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

How many of us connect love with law, let alone think love is its fulfillment? We see law as constricting and scary, as in “the long arm of the law.” But life without law is anarchy which is destruction and the antithesis of love. This means God’s justice must be meted out when his law is transgressed and thus also a reflection of his love. The ultimate display of this being God himself in Christ paying the penalty for the sins of His people and the world. Paul also connects the law with the gospel regarding it’s second use in I Timothy 1:

8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

It is highly unlikely John Lennon has God’s law and the gospel in mind when he sang, “All you need is love,” and he was certainly being sarcastic, but he was more right than he could have imagined (pun intended?).

Calvin Coolidge on the 4th of July

Calvin Coolidge on the 4th of July

Jul 4, 2023 | America, Uncategorized

In 1926 in the early days of the rise of progressivism in America, President Calvin Coolidge gave a 4th of July address on the 150th anniversary of that blessed day. It’s worth reading the entire address, but I’ve pulled out two sections that indicate he understood in some sense a “fundamental transformation of America” was under way, in President Obama’s infamous words. We are now on the other side of that transformation and we see just how ugly it can be. Let us take his words to heart, and pray and fight like the patriots who bequeathed this great country to us, that God grants us again that liberty under God which so many fought and died and lived for.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

He concluded:

We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.

Uninvented: Daniel is Either All History or All Made Up Stories

Uninvented: Daniel is Either All History or All Made Up Stories

Jul 1, 2023 | Uninvented

One of the arguments I make in Uninvented is how for several hundred years biblical skeptics have assumed the Bible is primarily fiction, made up stuff, veritable make-believe. They never try to prove or even argue for it. In fact, the sense you get from skeptics even today is that not only is much of the Bible, especially the super-natural parts, make-believe, but that it would as easy to make up as modern fiction. Just as writers of fiction make up entire worlds and stories out of their heads, so the Bible would be just as easy to make up, a piece of cake. The ancient world of the Bible, to the skeptics, is no more real than the Middle Earth of Tolkien. Wrong! I call this question begging anti-supernatural bias, and it is so strong it blinds people to the narrative genius of Scripture, and how incredibly difficult it would have been to make up, specifically in light of the flow of redemptive history. I don’t focus on this theological perspective in the book, but that would be a great addition to this one (note to self!). Rarely, if ever, do critics connect the dots and how perfectly they fit into the entire theological picture of the Bible. The book of Daniel is a perfect example of a puzzle piece that fits into the whole picture with exquisite Scriptural beauty.

Filled with God working, doing, revealing, Daniel is super-natural from beginning to end. Which is of course why skeptics and critics deny it is historical in the least, but I would argue it is exactly the super-natural that gives the narrative verisimilitude, makes the stories read so real. If you don’t reject the “super” stuff even before you get to the text, if you aren’t completely programmed by secularism, you’ll know you’re reading history. Remember, fiction, including historical fiction, didn’t exist in the ancient world, not in any modern sense of the term. Skeptics will counter that ancient works about the stories of the gods and such are fiction, but when you read those, they don’t read like the Bible, and it’s not even close. The Bible claims to be history in the way modern people think of history, stuff that actually happened. Ancient myths only purport to include some history, like Homer’s Iliad about the Trojan war. Everyone believes there was a Trojan war, but nobody believes Homer intended to be writing eyewitness history like every biblical writer does.

A central theme of Daniel is a very simple one sinful human beings have a very hard time with: God is God and man is not. I know, shocking, but true. The entire tragic history of the world, all the sin, misery, suffering, and death comes from man the usurper thinking he belongs on the throne of reality rather than God its Creator. In Daniel we see God the sovereign ruler of all reality, in total control over nations and kings, over dreams and fire and lions, over past, present, and future. We have only two choices when we come to the text, either it’s all mere human invention, or it all actually happened. There is no in between.

When you study the history of biblical criticism that gave birth to something called liberal Christianity, an oxymoron, critics always try to have it both ways. Sure, they claim, some of what’s written in Daniel by whoever wrote it is historical, but some clearly is not. Who decides which is which? And why should I trust them? Good questions. The problem if it’s not all history, it’s all as good as lies. Liberals told us there are great moral lessons about courage and dedication and all that, but none of it really happened. Well then, who cares what it teaches. Lies claiming to be true just don’t do it for me. It’s either all, or nothing at all. Without the anti-supernatural bias, I’m going with all.

First a little context. Daniel was a teenager when he was taken to Babylon with the other Exiles of Judah in the late 500s BC. He along with some other young men were chosen to be educated and trained to become “wise men” of Babylon, but he and his friends never compromised their faith and devotion to Yahweh, and he was used mightily to get across God’s message to the rulers of Babylon, and then the Persian kings who later conquered Babylon. The first ruler is King Nebuchadnezzar, and Daniel comes to the rescue to reveal and interpret his dream (chapter 2), something only God himself could do. Nebuchadnezzar in modern terms is blown away, and appoints Daniel to a great position of power in the kingdom. After he says to Daniel:

Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.

Daniel’s interpretation of the king’s dream points to a future time, the coming of Christ that will be the beginning of making the king’s declaration come true:

44 “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

Jesus was crucified by one of those kingdoms, and a few hundred years later that kingdom was brought to an end by the Father’s kingdom come his will being done. Daniel points forward to Paul’s declaration that Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” (I Cor. 15:25) His reign continues even at this very moment. Later Daniel himself has a dream (chapter 7) that expands on his vision of this everlasting kingdom referring to the “Ancient of Days,” and “one like a son of man,” Jesus’ favorite phrase for himself.  Of this son of man Daniel says:

 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Over five hundred years later, Jesus declares after he is risen from the dead (Matt. 28) that “all authority in heaven and on earth” has been given to him, and Paul confirms (Eph. 1) that Jesus is seated at God’s “right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked” in this present age. This is of course all consistent with the entire Scriptural message of God’s covenant promises from Genesis 3 on to save and redeem His people and the world. It’s almost as if there was one author of the whole thing!

This same message is communicated in two other utterly super-natural stories in Daniel, that God is the sovereign all-powerful ruler over not only all kingdoms of men, but over all of his created order, every nano particle of reality. Needless to say skeptics would mock the stories as make-believe. In the first (chapter 3) Daniel’s three friends refuse to worship a huge golden statue of the king and are thrown into a blazing furnace. Instead of being consumed, the king sees four men walking around in the fire, “the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” They come out unharmed and don’t even smell like fire. In the other story (chapter 6), Daniel refuses to worship a human king and is thrown into a lion’s den. He too is rescued and comes out unharmed “because he had trusted in his God.”

Let us too in our day in a hostile pagan culture be like Daniel and his friends were in his, and refuse to bow down to foreign gods because we know the Truth. The risen King Jesus rules, and we are his warriors of love as he extends his reign, advances his kingdom, and builds his church to return one day to consummate his ultimate victory over sin and death.