Good Morning Friends,
“In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim
king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged
it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with
some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple
of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god.” (Daniel 1:1-2)
There is a great deal of pain in the first
couple of verses of the book of Daniel.
There is the pain felt by Jerusalem. It was a
horrible thing for a city to be besieged. The opposing army surrounds the city
walls and camps there. No one was allowed to enter the city and no one was allowed
to leave the city. A siege could last years. The enemy only had to wait
patiently until the food and water supplies of the city were gone and then
surrender came quickly. The people of Jerusalem had to be frightened by the
powerful enemy as they camped outside its walls -- fear that increased with
each passing month and no help coming from God.
There is the pain for King Jehoiakim of
Judah. It could not have been easy for a king to watch his people suffer. And
even if he was a king who did not care about his people, there had to be
horrible fear as he considered what lay ahead for him. Kings were never treated
very well when the enemy finally conquered. Jehoiakim knew the fate that
awaited him as soon as surrender was made unavoidable. In fact, it’s probably
the fear of the king that kept him from allowing an earlier surrender.
There is the pain of God, too. The book of
Daniel says that is was the Lord who delivered Jehoiakim into the hands of the
king of Babylon. God had come to the point where He gave up on His people. He
had warned about it for years through other prophets. Now the time had come for
hard discipline to be visited upon His own people, whom He loved deeply. It
could not have been easy for God to watch as His people suffered. Of course, it
was for their ultimate good -- they would come back one day from their
captivity – a repentant people, at least for a while.
The story told in the book of Daniel is a
story about how to live in the midst of pain. Since we all live in pain, there
must be some things for us to learn from the story!
His, by Grace,
Steve
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