What was that?

Daniel 2:16 ESV

And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king.

It is easy to see why Daniel was so revered in his time. As a youth he possessed an assurance of God’s willingness to answer him that is beyond the greatest saints. At this point in the story the order has already gone out that all the wise men in Babylon were to be destroyed. Daniel did not attempt to argue his way out, after all he had not picked the job, but instead requested a meeting with the King. He did not wait for God to first reveal the dream to him, but assured of God’s answer, made the appointment ahead of time. THEN he goes home and asks his friends to pray for him and for God to answer. God does and the rest is history I suppose. Where is the place for the timid?

What of Daniel’s three friends Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah?  They made no arrangements to come before the king. Had it not been for the machinations of Daniel they would have likely remained in low level government jobs. We may think them timid, for simply following Daniel. Yet, as they grow and as the text continues, we find that they also are met with the moment when timidity must burn in the fire of conviction. Standing before Nebuchadnezzar, they let him know the limits of his power, and do so not with whimsy, flowery speech, but strong and powerful rejection of the King’s authority over the God they serve. And Nebuchadnezzar, in his anger would overheat the furnace and kill his own men as he sought to execute the sentence of death upon them. Where is the place for soft words?

Men of God are called to be fearless in God’s service. Not that they reject wisdom or discretion, but that they rely wholly and fully on God to accomplish his ends as they speak truth into the darkness. It was not with flower speech that Paul would come to Corinth and so the men of God do not seek to win converts by niceness and timidity but rather by frank and honest words. It is a lesson I must learn over and over. It is easy to fall into timid speech, speech clothed in qualification and flowery words, so as not to offend. As a man loses his hearing, he stops noticing all the small things that are supposed to inform him. The more that is taken from him the more he simply doesn’t notice. So, is the society that we find ourselves in. A small word here and there simply passes by ears that have been tickled so often they are numb.

We are not to be a people determined to be heard, a people only speaking in words and messages that will be heard by culture. But we are a people that is to speak truth plainly that we might be heard. The further gone a society is ,the more likely it will hear truth the way Nebuchadnezzar did from the lips of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, "heat the furnace seven times the normal!" Such is the effect of truth spoken to tyranny. By God’s mercy occasionally the tyrant will hear, more often God’s servants suffer. Loss of life, loss of funds, loss of family, loss of health, many are the sufferings of his servants in the cause of Christ. They killed the son, why would we expect them to honor the servants?

The people of God are called and commanded to speak truth, and a quiet word is no longer effective, our society is too much like the old man that refuses to put his hearing aids in!

Say what you mean, with no frills, and say it loudly. 

Coram Deo