If there’s anything we need in these days of fear and uncertainty, it’s perspective. We need to see the flow of history as God sees it: purposeful and absolutely under his control. One of the best places in the Bible to see this is the 2nd chapter of Daniel.
Daniel and his three friends arrived as teenagers in Babylon. The first thing the pagan king tried to do was re-educate them. The goal was for them to forget their true home and the true God. How did Nebuchadnezzer try to do this? And how did the four youths resist?
The theme of Daniel is not “be brave like Daniel.” It’s not end-time prophecy. The theme of Daniel is God. The original hearers were Jewish exiles whose world had ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Was God still in control? A. W. Tozer once wrote: “what comes into our minds when we think of God is the most important thing about us.” That’s what this magnificent OT book is about.