DANIEL Books in the PREACHING THE WORD Series: JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS: From Sorrow to Hope by Philip Graham Ryken MARK, VOLUME ONE: Jesus, Servant and Savior MARK, VOLUME TWO: Jesus, Servant and Savior LUKE, VOLUME ONE: That You May Know the Truth LUKE, VOLUME TWO: That You May Know the Truth JOHN: That You May Believe ACTS: The Church Afire ROMANS: Righteousness from Heaven EPHESIANS: The Mystery of the Body of Christ COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON: The Supremacy of Christ 1 & 2 TIMOTHY ANDTITUS: To Guard the Deposit 1 and 2 Timothy by R. Kent Hughes Titus by Bryan Chapell HEBREWS, VOLUME ONE: An Anchor for the Soul HEBREWS, VOLUME TWO: An Anchor for the Soul JAMES: Faith That Works THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT: The Message of the Kingdom Unless otherwise indicated, all volumes are by R. Kent Hughes P R E A C H I N G T H E W O R D DANIEL The Triumph of God’s Kingdom Rodney Stortz R. Kent Hughes, General Editor CROSSWAY B OOKS A DIVISION OF GOOD NEWS PUBLISHERS WHEATON, ILLINOIS Daniel Copyright ©2004 by Elizabeth B. Stortz Published by Crossway Books a division of Good News Publishers 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law. Cover banner by Marge Gieser Art Direction: David LaPlaca First printing, 2004 Printed in the United States of America Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society. Scripture quotations marked NRSVare taken from the New Revised Standard Version, copyright ©1989 by National Council of Churches. This book is dedicated to my three daughters whose love for the Lord Jesus has made their parents’hearts overflow with great joy. Thank you for walking in the truth like Daniel did even when the way was difficult. “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 4) The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed . . . it shall stand forever. (Daniel 2:44) Table of Contents A Word to Those Who Preach the Word 9 Preface 11 1 No Compromise 15 (DANIEL 1:1-25) 2 The Wisdom and Power of God 27 (DANIEL 2:1-23) 3 Revealer of Mysteries 37 (DANIEL 2:24-49) 4 Faith Standing Before the Fire 49 (DANIEL 3:1-30) 5 Pride Comes Before the Fall 61 (DANIEL 4:1-37) 6 The Handwriting on the Wall 73 (DANIEL 5:1-31) 7 Family Sedans of the Faith 89 (DANIEL 6:1-28) 8 What Is the Meaning of All This? 101 (DANIEL 7:1-16) 9 Thy Kingdom Come 113 (DANIEL 7:17-28) 10 A Stern-faced Man of Intrigue 129 (DANIEL 8:1-27) 11 O Lord, Listen, Forgive, and Act 145 (DANIEL 9:1-19) 12 Good News, Bad News 159 (DANIEL 9:20-27) 13 The Man in the Golden Sash 175 (DANIEL 10:1 —11:1) 14 His Story Written in Advance 187 (DANIEL 11:2-20) 15 The Two Great Crises 203 (DANIEL 11:21 —12:4) 16 The End 217 (DANIEL 12:5-13) Notes 235 Scripture Index 239 General Index 245 Index of Sermon Illustrations 251 About the Book Jacket 256 A Word to Those Who Preach the Word T here are times when I am preaching that I have especially sensed the pleasure of God. I usually become aware of it through the unnatural silence. The ever-present coughing ceases, and the pews stop creaking, bringing an almost physical quiet to the sanctuary — through which my words sail like arrows. I experience a heightened eloquence, so that the cadence and volume of my voice intensify the truth I am preaching. There is nothing quite like it — the Holy Spirit filling one’s sails, the sense of his pleasure, and the awareness that something is happening among one’s hearers. This experience is, of course, not unique, for thousands of preachers have similar experiences, even greater ones. What has happened when this takes place? How do we account for this sense of his smile? The answer for me has come from the ancient rhetorical categories of logos,ethos, and pathos. The first reason for his smile is the logos— in terms of preaching, God’s Word. This means that as we stand before God’s people to proclaim his Word, we have done our homework. We have exegeted the passage, mined the significance of its words in their context, and applied sound hermeneu- tical principles in interpreting the text so that we understand what its words meant to its hearers. And it means that we have labored long until we can express in a sentence what the theme of the text is — so that our outline springs from the text. Then our preparation will be such that as we preach, we will not be preaching our own thoughts about God’s Word, but God’s actual Word, his logos. This is fundamental to pleasing him in preaching. The second element in knowing God’s smile in preaching is ethos— what you are as a person. There is a danger endemic to preaching, which is having your hands and heart cauterized by holy things. Phillips Brooks illustrated it by the analogy of a train conductor who comes to believe that he has been to the places he announces because of his long and loud herald- ing of them. And that is why Brooks insisted that preaching must be “the bringing of truth through personality.” Though we can never perfectly