HOMILETICS
SECT. VI.—THE THANKSGIVING (Chap. Daniel 2:19-23)
The part of faith not only to pray but to look out for an answer. Daniel prayed in the firm expectation that, if for God’s glory, an answer would be granted. When the answer was given in the vision vouchsafed to him, he was in no doubt about its being such. The vision carried with it the proof of its divine origin. Revelations from God bear their evidence in their own bosom. No need for Daniel to wait till the king identifies his dream. Daniel therefore at once gives thanks and blesses the God of heaven. The text exhibits him at seventeen or eighteen years of age as a beautiful example of elevated piety and devotion, worthy of the mention made of him by the prophet Ezekiel some years afterwards.
In Daniel’s thanksgiving we have—
I. The Object of it. This is God, viewed under two aspects.
1. “The God of heaven” (Daniel 2:19). All blessings received to be traced immediately to God. The title indicates
(1.) His unity. The one God in contrast with the “gods many “of the heathen. The only God known in heaven, though mysteriously subsisting in a Trinity of persons.
(2.) His supremacy. Heavenly powers and heavenly bodies worshipped by the heathen. Israel’s God the God of them all. All in heaven as well as on earth subject to Him as His creatures. Daniel’s God not the sun nor the firmament, but He that made both.
(3.) His majesty. Heaven His throne, the earth His footstool. Nations and their sovereigns as nothing before Him. This not to be forgotten in our approaches to Him. Prayer to be addressed to Him as “Our Father, who art in heaven.”
(4.) His holiness. Heaven conceived of as the place of purity, untainted by sin. The abode only of pure and holy beings. That holy heaven the place of God’s throne and special residence.
(5.) The source and centre of happiness. Heaven the place of blessedness. It is God that makes it such. The “God of heaven” makes heaven what it is. A heaven without God no heaven to holy creatures: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee?”
2. “The God of his fathers” (Daniel 2:23). The God known, served, and trusted in by his fathers, from Abraham downwards. A special mercy when the “God of heaven” is also the God of our fathers. Daniel recognises the privilege of having godly, praying ancestors. Answers to prayer and blessings in general to be then viewed in connection with such ancestry. The prayers of godly parents often answered in the blessings bestowed upon their children after them. Children often blessed for the sake of godly forefathers. The prayers of the righteous their children’s best inheritance. A special reason as well as encouragement to pray to Him who has been the God of our fathers. “Our fathers trusted in Thee and were delivered,” a scriptural and powerful plea in prayer. The God of our fathers likely to be our God too. The promise that comforted Jacob’s sorrowful heart on his way to Padanaram (Genesis 28:13-15). What God was to our fathers He will be to us, if we take Him and trust Him as our God. “I am the Lord; I change not.” The text a powerful argument with parents to make God in Christ their God, so as to hand down the blessing to their children and children’s children after them.
II. The Subject of the thanksgiving. The special subject is the answer to prayer vouchsafed. “Who hast given me wisdom,” &c. (Daniel 2:23). The very thing that Daniel and his friends had asked had been granted—wisdom and power to interpret the king’s dream, and so to save the lives of others as well as themselves, as well as to relieve the king’s agitation. The thing granted in answer to prayer often the very thing asked. Examples, Eliezer, Hannah, Elijah, Nehemiah. Faith receives either the very thing asked or something better. With thanks for the special blessing vouchsafed, Daniel connects blessing and praise.
1. For what God is.
(1.) Wise. “Wisdom and might are His” (Daniel 2:20). Divine wisdom seen in the manner in which all things have been created and in which all things are governed; in the plan of the universe and the means for carrying that plan out. Especially seen in the redemption of fallen mankind by the incarnation and mediatorial work of His own Son. God the only wise. His wisdom contrasted with the pretended wisdom of the wise men of Babylon. That wisdom revealed in part in the king’s dream.
(2.) Mighty. “Might” as well as wisdom His. Has power to execute what His wisdom plans. Power as well as wisdom necessary to the government as well as the creation of the universe, and of every, even the smallest portion of it. One object of the king’s dream to exhibit the power of God, in opposition to the gods of the heathen and the rulers of the world. Constant reference to this contrast in the descriptions of Jehovah in this book. “It is He, not as the Chaldean kings in their pride fondly imagined, human power, that bestows kingdoms, sets up kings and casts them down, and that changes times.” The author of those great changes in the kingdoms of the world which Daniel announced in the interpretation of the king’s dream.
(3.) Omniscient. “Knoweth what is in darkness,” &c. (Daniel 2:22). Able to “reveal the deep and secret things,” which the wise men of Babylon, with all their pretension, were unable to do, or their gods to do for them. All things naked and open before Him. No darkness or shadow of death where men may hide themselves from His sight. Hell and the invisible world without a covering before Him. The future as the present within His ken. Sees the end from the beginning. “Known unto Him all His works from the beginning of the world.” All history, including the lives and doings of the humblest of His creatures, only the development of His plan formed before the foundation of the world. No mysteries with God. The web of the universe, with its endlessly varied pattern, all before His all-seeing and all-contriving mind from the beginning, and that without any prejudice to the free agency of His intelligent creatures.
DANIEL EXHIBITED IN THE TEXT AS AN EXAMPLE OF THANKSGIVING
“Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven” (Daniel 2:19).
Mercies in general, and answers to prayer in particular, call for due acknowledgment. Favours demand returns. A thankless heart a graceless one. “Neither were they thankful,” among the marks of man’s apostasy from God. Of the ten cleansed lepers, only one “returned to give glory to God.” Not much prayer in the world, still less of thanksgiving. A gracious soul not only prays but praises, especially when prayer has been heard and answered. Thanksgiving for answers to prayer doubles the blessing. “More blessed to give than to receive.” Thanksgiving both God’s right and man’s happiness. The want of it a wrong both against God and ourselves. To give thanks not only right and “comely,” but “pleasant,”—pleasant both to God and man. The ungodly man prays at times in a way; the godly both prays and gives thanks. Prayer made in hell, though in vain; thanksgiving and praise the employment of heaven.
Daniel’s thanksgiving was—
(1.) Prompt. Followed immediately on the bestowment of the blessing. “Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.” Thanks delayed lose half their value. He gives twice who gives quickly. Christ gave thanks even before the answer to His prayer was actually given, though anticipated (John 11:41).
(2.) Hearty. Indicated by the language and enlargement on the subject. Heartless thanks not real ones. The thankful leper fell down on his face on giving thanks to Jesus, a thing more like a person asking for a favour than giving thanks for one. Daniel as hearty in his thanks as he had been in his prayers. “I thank thee, O God of my fathers.” So the Psalmist: “I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart; for great has been Thy mercy toward me” (Psalms 86:12-13).
(3.) Full. Daniel copious in his thanksgiving, as in his prayer (ch. 9.). Anxious to omit nothing in describing the blessing received. When God is not stinted in His gifts, we should not be stinted in our thanksgiving.