Daniel 1 – 6

As we open in Daniel we see a bunch of famous stories that will be difficult to comment on each one. You have the Daniel fast, many dream interpretations, his three friends being tossed into a fire and the den of lions. All these stories show to the glory of God over man’s ideas and of lesser gods. Most of this story takes place in Babylon and if you remember a study of that civilization from Nimrod on up, it’s a place of great evil. All the cults and evil stems from Nimrod and Semiramis, so we now understand the evil that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah faced.

Verse 1:12 has Daniel entering into the “fast” which only included veggies and water:

Please, do us a favor. Put us, your servants, to the test for the next 10 days. Give us a vegetarian diet and water.

Daniel is doing without the food from the kings table which is not part of the Hebraic Law as it was not prepared or violates foods allowed. The four focus on eating veggies only and nothing more. Honestly that diet would serve us all well and I call it that over a “fast” since I tend to think of “fasts” as more doing without food altogether. The point here is after the 10 days they were healthier, I think all of us will find that to be true today with all the processed foods we eat.

Verse 2:28 says it all:

But there is a God in heaven who can reveal such mysteries. The dream you dreamed and the visions you saw, King Nebuchadnezzar, unveil the future and disclose what will happen at the end of the age. Now I will tell you what you dreamed and the visions you saw as you slept in your bed.

He was pointing out that no man could reveal mysteries, but God could. I think one of the danger points in this world today is missing this point. Mystics can see what happened through the demons, but they can only observe the world. Only God knows what is going on in our heads. No man or entity can do this. (Sorry about little explanation on the demon thing, but research modern fortune tellers … they can tell your past from demons and make you think they somehow know truth because of this).

Verse 3:25 is a critical verse in the Old Testament:

Then why do I see four men, completely unbound, walking around in the middle of the fire? They don’t appear to be hurt at all. And the fourth  . . . he appears to be like a son of the gods.

Many say the “son of the gods” was actually the son of God, Jesus in the fires with these three men. This is exciting when you look at it this way since it’s a record of the son of God on earth well before he was born to Mary. How cool is that when you find little nuggets like this in scripture.