JUL 26

Jeremiah 25:8-11, 29:10
Memorise Ezekiel 33:7-11
“I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel”

WHO WAS THE PROPHET DANIEL?

The vision of the Seventy Weeks came to Daniel at the fall of Babylon and the beginning of the reign of Darius, the king who reluctantly sent Daniel to the lions. The year was 537 BC, 69 years after he was carried captive to Babylon (606 BC), and one year before Cyrus, King of Persia and conqueror of Babylon, decreed freedom to the Jews to return to Jerusalem.

This princely prophet who subdued kings and lions was of greater personage than the highest royalty. He was God’s ambassador to the kings that he served; he was Israel’s spiritual leader during their years of exile. Throughout the dark night of her captivity Daniel not only kept in touch with Jehovah the Lord God Almighty by prayer and supplication, but also by study of the sacred Scriptures. That portion of Holy Writ that particularly struck him was Jeremiah’s prophecy on Israel’s Babylonian captivity to last 70 years (Jeremiah 25:9-11; 29:10). As this was the 69th year, the prophet was gripped with a spirit of expectancy — what hopes and fears in the face of a new Day that was fast dawning!

He is like the watchman in Ezekiel’s vision, yea, like Ezekiel himself, to whom the Lord said, “O thou, son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me” (Ezekiel 33:7). Daniel had stood, faithful to his commission, all these seven decades as God’s watchman.

Dr Chia Yu Ming, China’s first theologian, was like Daniel. In August 1948 when he left China to attend the First Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches in Amsterdam, Holland, the Communists were hard on the heels of the Nationalist Army fighting a rearguard action. The Chiang Kaishek regime was about to collapse. Yet he submitted to God’s will to return to Nanking, the then Chinese capital. He said he had a duty, as a spiritual leader of China, to return to the Fatherland to watch over the flock of the Chinese Church even though like Daniel, he was in his early 80s. Likewise today, there is need of a witness to kings and governors. Daniel started this ministry when he was still just a teen. Can you do the same?

Thought: A true pastor of God’s church serves out of love and loyalty, never for gain and fame.
Prayer: Lord, grant us true pastors who are loyal to Thee and who love Thy people.