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 earts
full of idols.
Have you ever thought that worshipping idols is a dumb idea?
Have you ever thought the Israelites in the Old Testament were
stupid for worshipping a god called Baal (2Ki 10:23) or Astoreth
(1 Kings 11:33)? They were just idols. Idols made out of metal,
wood, stone, or pottery. They did not see, hear, walk, talk,
speak, or comb their hair. Yet people worshipped them because
they believed there was a benefit in doing it. In Ezekiel 14:3,
God said to the Israelites, “Son of man, these men have
set up their idols in their hearts . . .” The issue for
God was not so much the material idols before them but the emotional
idols in their hearts. An idol is not necessarily an image of
gold, but a cold or indifferent heart to God. It may be the
fruit of the womb, or a man’s wife; it may be the absence
of money, success, position, respect, food, leisure, physical
appearance, health, or pleasure. An idol is anything that occupies
the attention of your heart more than God. The hearts of the
Israelites went after other gods, and so God brought pain into
their lives. Have you ever suffered and felt it was too much
or too unreasonable?
Reading Jeremiah.
As we come to Daniel 9, we find that Daniel had been reading
in the scrolls of Jeremiah during the first year of Darius the
Mede, who was king over Babylon and the former empire of the
Chaldeans. Notice that he was “made king.” He was
made king by Cyrus the Persian, who was the king over the entire
Medo-Persian empire.
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In
the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median
descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans
- in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, observed in
the books the number of the years which was revealed as
the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion
of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by
prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and
ashes. (NASB) Dan. 9:1-3 |
The Hebrew word for books actually means “writings.”
In those days Daniel would have been reading a parchment scroll:
the book of Jeremiah. Daniel discovered that God had predicted
that the Jewish people who had been deported from Jerusalem
to Babylon would be in captivity for seventy years.
There
are two passages in Jeremiah that Daniel must have read. Here
is the first one. |
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