“BRETHREN, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.”
“Where is then the blessedness ye spake of?”—not the blessedness ye SPEAK of; but, past tense: “ye spake of.” It was a blessedness which they had had, and had lost; and so it was no more a blessedness which ye speak of, but only which “ye spake of.”
This was the blessing of Abraham—the blessedness of justification by faith; for they had received the true gospel; they had believed in Christ, and thus they knew that Christ had redeemed them from the curse of the law, that the blessing of Abraham might come on them through Jesus Christ, and that they might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. All this they had experienced. But, by the delusions of the false gospel of “the Pharisees which believed,” they had been “bewitched” and driven back from the purity of faith unto justification by works.
This is plain from Paul’s appeal, in the first verses of the third chapter: ‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? . . . He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?’
But “to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” Rom. 4:5–8.
This “blessedness” is the blessedness which the Galatians had known when they were Christians; but from which they had been drawn away. And now, it was only a memory: only a blessedness which they had spoken of, but which they could not, as a present thing, speak of. This, because faith, and all that is of faith, is only a living, present thing. Faith is the breath of the spiritual life; and when faith is gone, that spiritual life is gone. It must be constantly present, in constant, active motion, to avail for any soul.
This “the Pharisees which believed” did not know; for they had not true faith: they knew not what it is to live by faith. They thought that justification by faith consisted in forgiveness and justification of the sins that are past; but that, being once thus justified, they must live by works. They thought that justification is obtained by faith, but is kept by works. And into this delusion and loss of faith they had persuaded the Galatian Christians, but with the dreadful result of the loss of the blessedness of righteousness by faith, and their relapse into the darkness of heathenism—into the bondage of sin and the works of the flesh.
And that experience is illustrative of the everlasting truth,—and it is written for the instruction of all the people as to that everlasting truth,—329that righteousness by faith, true justification by faith, is righteousness and justification by divine, ever-living, present faith, “and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”
While the Galatians enjoyed this blessedness, its fruit appeared in the love which they showed to Paul. This love was the very self-sacrificing love of Christ—the abundant love of God shed abroad indeed in the heart, by the Spirit which they had received. Seeing the apostle in need of eyes, they would gladly have plucked out their own and given them to him, if such a thing could have been done.
But now, what a change! From that height of blessedness they are driven back into such a condition that he is counted an enemy, because he tells them the truth; so that he is obliged to appeal to them: “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”
And this is yet the mark of the Galatian, wherever he may be—the mark of the man professing Christianity, but who is not justified by faith, who has not the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Whoever tells him the truth, in that becomes his enemy, and is so counted by him. This, because he does “not obey the truth:” he is not in the way of truth; he does not know the truth. Therefore, truth can not be to him the sole standard and the supreme test; only himself in his own personal preferences and ambitions, and his own self-righteousness, can be the standard. And whoever tells him the truth, especially if it be unpleasant, is counted as making a personal attack on him, and is therefore counted only an enemy.
But the man who is the Christian, who is, indeed and in truth, justified by faith of Jesus Christ; who lives by the faith of Jesus Christ; who is righteous only by the faith of Christ, and the righteousness of God, which is by faith—such a one will always count as his friend, or his brother, the one who tells him the truth. However far it may show him himself to be wrong, however directly he himself may be involved, yet he will thankfully receive the truth, whatever it may be, however it may come, and by whomsoever it may be told to him. This, because the truth is his whole and his only salvation. It is the truth which makes him free. The truth is the only Way he has in which to walk. The love of the truth is his only incentive, the Spirit of truth, his only guide.
But, as we have seen, this blessed condition—this condition of “blessedness”—the Christians of Galatia had lost, and so had again become only Galatians, because they had lost true faith, and had been turned from faith to works as the way of life and salvation. And this loss of true faith was the loss of the Christ within; for he dwells in the heart by faith. Eph. 3:17. And because of their forlorn condition, which they did not realize, Paul longed for them as a mother for her children; and, in the depth of his longing, expressed their deep need: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” The Christ within is what they had lost. To the experience of Christ within they must be restored, or they were lost. And this is simply the gospel, which, in itself, is “Christ in you the hope of glory.”
District of Columbia School Investigation
The District of Columbia is subject to the jurisdiction of Congress. Complaints were made of the inefficiency of the schools of the city of Washington. A committee was appointed from the United States Senate to investigate the matter. Senator Stewart is chairman of this committee. The correspondent of the New York Tribune, reporting on the subject, said:—
Senator Stewart, of Nevada, is disgusted with the lack of scholarship displayed by pupils of the public high schools of the district. He is chairman of a Senate committee to investigate the schools here, great complaint of their inefficiency having been made; and it was wisely determined to order an examination of the youth of the city to test their mental qualifications. The result of a thorough and fair trial showed a deplorable want of training in the grades the young people were supposed to have mastered. In history and arithmetic the general average made was not much over fifty per cent. The penmanship was poor, and the spelling miserably bad. In speaking of the matter, the senator, who used to teach school himself, said: “The children seem to have had very indifferent instruction. They have not been carefully drilled in elementary branches of a common school education. The teachers of to-day are victims of a bad system; they attempt to teach too many things, and, as a consequence, nothing is learned thoroughly. I am satisfied that the old-fashioned schools did much better work, in spite of the fact that the path to learning has been made smoother, and that many things have been simplified. Then, again, the teachers in the city schools have to look after too many pupils. One poor woman is given the care of fifty lads and lasses, and she has no time to devote to the individual. The bright ones will acquire some knowledge, and the dull ones, from lack of personal help, will flounder along until they quit school with a mere smattering of learning.”
A LATTER-DAY PROMISE.
By Uriah Smith
“Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” Dan. 12:10.
This last clause contains the promise, “The wise shall understand.” Considering the time to which this applies, the nature of the matter to be understood, the result of understanding, and the fate of those who do not understand, the promise expands into wonderful comprehensiveness and power.
When is it that the wise shall understand?—It is when the “time, times, and a half” shall have ended, according to the oath of Him who, with both hands uplifted to heaven, uttered an unalterable declaration, that the great truths, which staggered even the mind of Daniel himself, shall be fulfilled. It is in the “time of the end,” that deplorable and trying period of human history, when the love of many shall wax cold (Matt. 24:12); when evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse (2 Tim. 3:13); when false Christs and false prophets are to spring up everywhere, and show such power that, if it were possible, the very elect themselves would be thrown into confusion, and be deceived (Matt. 24:24); it is the time of which Paul speaks in 1 Thessalonians 5: “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, . . . and they shall not escape.” And he supplements Daniel’s declaration, that then “the wise shall understand,” by saying, “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.” The reason they are not deceived is because they are the elect, because they are the wise, who at this time are to understand. Not to understand, at such a time as this, is to be overtaken as by a thief, and perish.
This shows what it is that the wise understand. It is the prophecy of the book of Daniel, the time in which we live, the time of our visitation, like that which came upon Jerusalem, and for not understanding or knowing which, Jerusalem was destroyed. Luke 19:44. What would be an adequate expression of thankfulness to God for light in such a time as this?
Not to understand now is to be given over to the power of wickedness and apostasy from God; for it is the “wicked” who do not understand, and because they do not understand they “do wickedly,” or are led on into darker and more daring deeds of wrong. “Wickedness,” says A. F. Cox, “debases the understanding, and renders a man so selfish and carnal that he becomes incapacitated for taking any comprehensive view of the divine administration, and indisposed to these sacred inquiries. One important point, especially, which the one, through the teachings of that Spirit which is humbly but incessantly sought by Christians, does understand, and which the other, through willful blindness and perverseness of heart, does not understand, is the connection of the operations of Providence, in the general affairs of the world, with the establishment, extension, and ultimate triumph of the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Thus the twilight of wickedness, in the minds of the evil-disposed, settles down into the blackness of darkness: while the path of the just grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.
The wise are trained for the position they occupy and the course they take, by the trials through which they pass. “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried.” “We must,” says Paul, “through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” The great purpose of affliction is to take away sin. It is not only a fact that tribulations lie between Christians and their rest, but the profitable point to consider is that they have been placed there, deliberately, by a wise and loving Father, in order that, by passing through them, we may be prepared for the rest beyond.”
In some of the most delicate manufactures, the web is made to pass slowly through a vessel of liquid, emerging upon the other side. As the cloth goes into the liquid, it seems to be all of one dull, monotonous color. As it comes out, after the bath, it glitters in a variety of brilliant and beautiful hues. The liquid through which the cloth passes is composed of powerful and biting acids, calculated to eat and cleanse away everything undesirable and defiling, and all the unsightly elements that cling to it, so that in the end, the figures and designs of the finished piece may shine out in all their beauty and perfection. So in this life the disciples of Christ are drawn through trials and tribulations, by a Lord who loves them, that they may be fitted to enter into the heavenly courts, and there shine forth in all their resurrection glory. Peter says that the trial of our faith is more precious than gold, which perisheth. This will never perish, but endure to life everlasting.
There are in Dan. 12:10, three remarkable points of contrast:—
First, A contrast of character. The term “the wise” expresses the character of those who possess that wisdom which cometh from above. The epithet “the wicked” expresses both blindness and depravity of heart.
Second, A contrast of moral and spiritual progress; the wise, made white and purified by their trials; the wicked, under the same discipline, doing wickedly, and growing worse and worse in their base actions and their wicked career.
Third, A contrast of mental and spiritual perceptions. The wise “understand,” but none of the wicked do understand. The one attainment, then, to be sought for, and gained, is to be among the wise.
But what is it to be wise? Whom does heaven recognize as the wise? And how may we attain to that desirable condition?—We are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. And again, “A good understanding have all they that keep his commandments.” Ps. 110:11. But for the wise ones of earth shall we not look to the universities, and the great schools of culture, discovery, and science?—That is where the men of this world would naturally go; and there they would find the kind of wise ones whom they could recognize as such. But not many of the wise of God’s school are there. Daniel stamps them in the text with one qualification; and that is, they “understand.” Understand what?—Not perhaps what men have said, but what God has said. This, certainly, is the essential thing which they understand. If they did not know that, could God say of them, These understand? and could he enter them in his vocabulary as “the wise”?
But to enable us still further to identify those who in God’s sight are “wise,” he tells us what they will do: “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever.” This gives to the subject an intensely practical turn. If we are wise, when we see souls going out of the way, the very first impulse and aim of our hearts will be to exert all our powers to turn them right again. When we look at all the works done under the sun, and compare them with this, we must feel persuaded that no other efforts known to men are worthy to be mentioned on the same page with those which are put forth to “turn many to righteousness.” The turn in the path in the right direction should of course be made as near the beginning as possible. This points to the Sabbath-school, as a place not to be neglected. A very slight variation in the direction one way or10the other, in the start, will make a wide divergence in the end. If we are wise, we shall seek Christ continually for grace; for it is through him alone that God gives forth such favors as are necessary to the children of men.
In addition to all else we want that which the Scriptures designate as “the power.” There are different kinds of power. Intelligence is power; union is power. But there are manifestations in the lower forms of life, that all the teachers in all the schools of Christendom, can not make. They can not make the tiniest flower grow, and unfold its petals to our admiring gaze. To turn many to righteousness we must have the power that has life. Then must we draw wholly from Christ: for all power has been given to him. Without that, everything else is but a cypher.
The promise applies at a time when darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people. The things to be understood pertain to things which the prophet himself did not understand, in his own day, and in reference to which he seems to entertain some fears that they would not be understood when the crisis should come; and the answer seems to be, in a large measure, a response to the prophet’s request. “I was astonished at the vision,” he says in one place, “but none understood it.” “I heard,” he says again, “but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?”
The form of the question indicates the anxiety of the prophet’s mind. He does not say simply, When shall be the end of these things, but, What shall be the end of these things? He takes in a wider range than simply the idea of duration; that is, he asks not merely how long, but what shall the issue be, including, of course, also the time. Consequently the answer included both points. The reply was, “Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end;” and the last verse of the chapter repeats the instruction: “Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”
Thus gently was the prophet dismissed from his labors, comforted with the promise that the wise should understand, and that he at last should stand in his lot. We, who are living down here in the time about which Daniel wrote, can see clearly what was not clear to his mind; that is, how the wise are made to understand. We see that the seal has been taken from the book, and that a special message has been prepared to go forth to the world, in the spirit and power of Elias, explaining all these things. We hear the tones of the message ringing out, and see its influence spreading among the people, and multitudes of witnesses rising up, to testify to its power. Instead of saying now, as was said to Daniel, the wise shall understand, we can say, The wise are understanding, and are heralding to the world, in their living bearing, the truths so long ago penned by the prophet. U. S.
A United Catholic Movement
Archbishop Ireland has written a letter to the Duke of Norfolk, who is president of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, urging a united Catholic movement on the part of all English-speaking Catholics in the world. As the grand basis for such a movement, he cites the fact that the English language is fast encircling the globe, and that English-speaking countries are gaining a world-wide influence. Thus he writes:—
It is a broad, plain fact in the geography of the world—a fact daily becoming broader and plainer—that the English language is encircling the globe, that English-speaking countries are constantly growing with speed that nothing seems able to arrest, in territory and influence. I certainly shall not belittle the spheres of influence of languages other than the English, or deny in the least the importance to the church of countries speaking those languages; let due place be given to all agencies in the great work of religion. But, this said, the truth is before us, that in the present, and more yet in the future, the minds of peoples spread over immense regions of the globe are to be reached only through the English language, and that very much of the missionary work of the church is to be done under the ægis of English-speaking countries. That mission is to attune anew the English language to the harmony of Catholic truth, which was its charm before the days of the schism of the sixteenth century—the most woeful disaster which ever befell Christendom; to make the English language the bearer of Catholic verities to the hundreds of millions who speak and read it; to build up for the Catholic Church public and social influences in English-speaking lands, so that there their power, instead of being against her, be for her; so to establish her in those lands that she be seen to be, as in fact she is, thoroughly in unison with the political institutions and the social aspirations that dominate these lands, so that the argument for such institutions be an argument, too, for the church herself—in fine, so to place the church as to enable her to win over to herself the great English-speaking world and turn to her own profit and to the profit of Christian civilization the wondrous potencies of that world.
Shall not the people to whom the Third Angel’s Message is committed see this truth as to the spread of the English language, and act upon it now?
“A NEEDED EDUCATIONAL REFORM.”
The Outlook of April 21, 1900, describes and urges “A Needed Educational Reform.” This reform is one that will make it possible that “religion can be preserved and promoted while education is being acquired.” Thus says the Outlook:—
One problem of education sorely needs to be taken up by our educators, which we are persuaded has not yet sufficiently occupied their attention. It is sometimes considered under the aspect of education and religion—the problem how religion can be preserved and promoted while education is being acquired—but the problem is really larger than this.
That which makes this reform so sorely needed, is the present educational processes. These are most aptly described by the editor of the Outlook; who on this subject is thoroughly qualified to speak. He says:—
The educational processes of our time—possibly of all time—are largely analytical and critical. They consist chiefly in analyzing the subjects brought to the student for his examination, separating them into their constituent parts, considering how they have been put together, and sitting in judgment on the finished fabric or on the process by which it has been constructed.
Thus all or nearly all study is analytical, critical,—a process of inquiry and investigation. The process presupposes an inquiring if not a skeptical mood. Doubt is the pedagogue which leads the pupil to knowledge.
Does he study the human body?—Dissection and anatomy are the foundations of his study. Chemistry?—The laboratory furnishes him the means of analysis and inquiry into physical substances. History?—He questions the statements which have been unquestioned heretofore, ransacks libraries for authorities in ancient volumes and more ancient documents. Literature?—The poem which he read only to enjoy he now subjects to the scalpel, inquires whether it really is beautiful, why it is beautiful, how its meter should be classified, how its figures have been constructed. Philosophy?—He subjects his own consciousness to a process of vivisection in an endeavor to ascertain the physiology and anatomy of the human spirit, brings the soul into the laboratory that he may learn its chemical constituents.
Meanwhile the constructive and synthetic process is relegated to a second place, or lost sight of altogether. Does he study medicine?—He gives more attention to diagnosis than to therapeutics, to the analysis of disease than to the problem how to overcome it. Law?—He spends more time in analyzing cases than in developing power to grasp great principles and apply them in the administration of justice to varying conditions. The classics?—It is strange if he has not at graduation spent more weeks in the syntax and grammar of the language than he has spent hours in acquiring and appreciating the thought and the spirit of the great classic authors. It has been well and truly said of the modern student that he does not study grammar to understand Homer, he reads Homer to get the Greek grammar. His historical study has given him dates, events, a mental historical chart; perhaps, too, it has given him a scholar’s power to discriminate between the true and the false, the historical and the mythical in ancient legends; but not to many has it given an understanding of the significance of events, a comprehension of, or even any new light upon, the real meaning of the life of man on the earth. Has he been studying philosophy?—Happy he is if, as a result of his analysis of self-consciousness, he has not become morbid respecting his own inner life, or cynically skeptical concerning the inner life of others.
It is doubtless in the realm of ethics and religion that the disastrous results of a too exclusive analytical process and a too exclusive critical spirit are seen. Carrying the same spirit, applying the same methods, to the investigation of religion, the Bible becomes to him simply a collection of ancient literature, whose sources, structure, and forms he studies, whose spirit he, at least for the time, forgets; worship is a ritual whose origin, rise, and development he investigates; whose real significance as an expression of penitence, gratitude, and consecration he loses sight of altogether. Faith is a series of tenets whose biological development he traces; or a form of consciousness whose relation to brain action he inquires into; or whose growth by evolutionary processes out of earlier states he endeavors to retrace: forgetting meanwhile what is the meaning of the experience itself as a present fact in human life, what vital force and significance it possesses.
Vivisection is almost sure sooner or later to become a post-mortem; and the subject of it, whether it be a flower, a body, an author, or an experience, generally dies under the scalpel. It is for this reason that so many students in school, academy, and college lose, not merely their theology, which is perhaps no great loss, but their religion, which is an irreparable loss, while they are acquiring an education.
When the destructive nature of the educational processes of the present day are thus so clearly set forth by one who is not only friendly to that system, but is himself a part of the system; and when in view of this even he urges “a needed educational reform;” surely that people whom God has made the light of the world in these last days should not need to be urged to this “sorely” needed educational reform. And where any of these should need to be urged to it, the measure of the urging could be only the measure in which these themselves are blindly imbued with love of these destructive processes.
THE KING OF BABYLON HEARS THE MESSAGE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH.
By William Warren Prescott
(Concluded.)*
“THEN Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonied for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. The king spake, and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or the interpretation thereof, trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies. The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth; whose leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation: it is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth. And whereas the king saw a watcher and an holy one coming down from heaven, and saying, Hew the tree down, and destroy it; yet leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over him; this is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which is come upon my lord the king: that they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know331that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.”
God deals with every man as an individual. His messages of warning, his instruction, his “exceeding great and precious promises,” are all personal. In all effective preaching of the gospel, the message must be delivered as to the individual, and not to the mass, and each one must hear the voice saying to him, “Thou art the man.” Thus God spoke to Nebuchadnezzar through the dream and its interpretation, and through the same channel he is still speaking to all “those that walk in pride.” And so this experience is still preaching the gospel of the kingdom to every man who reads it.
The lesson which Nebuchadnezzar the king needed to learn, and which every other man must learn who wishes to be a king and to “reign forever and ever,” was “that the heavens do rule,” that the ruling powers are of heaven, and that he himself was a servant of “the Most High.” The simple recognition of this fact would establish him in his kingdom. “Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.” This is a universal truth. Man lost his kingship and his dominion by refusing to continue as an obedient servant of the Most High. In the gospel there has been abundant provision made for his restoration to his place of privilege and power, but to avail himself of these blessings means that he must constantly acknowledge the God of heaven as above all, and himself as a servant. This is the law of the new kingdom, and so “his servants shall serve him: . . . and they shall reign forever and ever.”
What the Lord said to Nebuchadnezzar, and to all men, in the dream, is the same gospel message which he has proclaimed and is yet proclaiming: “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me. . . . I have made the earth, and created man upon it; I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. . . . Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” “Fear God, and give glory to him, . . . and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. . . . If any man worship the beast and his image, . . . the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.” Acknowledging that the Lord he is God, that it is he that has made us and that his are we, and giving unto the Lord the glory due unto his name, and serving him with gladness, mean eternal salvation; but self-exaltation, a claim to be independent of God, seeking one’s own glory, and allegiance to “the god of this world,” mean “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish.”
The message to Nebuchadnezzar was a complete one. It did not simply warn him of the coming trouble, but it pointed out the remedy. Sin was the cause of the trouble; righteousness was the only remedy. “Break off thy sins by righteousness.” It required the courage of a Christian to give such counsel as this to the king of Babylon, but Daniel was a Christian, and so he was “strong and very courageous,” and in his faithfulness to the king he did not content himself by speaking of sins and iniquities in general, but he made it a personal matter,—“thy sins,” and “thine iniquities.” The Lord was seeking to bless Nebuchadnezzar by turning him away from his iniquities, and his spokesman, Daniel, did not thwart his purpose by seeking to please men. The Lord is no respecter of persons, but sends the same gospel message to all, high and low, rich and poor. It sometimes happens that the messenger forgets that he is simply to be a mouthpiece for God, and prophesies smooth things to those in high position. Then the word becomes man’s word merely, and the power of God unto salvation is not revealed. The Lord’s instruction to every messenger is, “Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak . . . all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word.”
The result of the inward change in Nebuchadnezzar’s character was to be manifested “by showing mercy to the poor.” No grand temple was to be built in honor of the true God, which should surpass in its glory the temple of Belus in Babylon, but the king was to recognize the temple of the living God already built, “the temple of the Holy Ghost,” revealing the character of God in his treatment of the poor. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” The true king both reveals and retains his kingship by ministering to the lowly and the unfortunate. “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”