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Fundamentals of Christian Education
a living connection with the God of all wisdom. “In all matters of
wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found
them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were
in all his realm.” Daniel’s history is given us for our admonition upon
whom the ends of the world are come. “The secret of the Lord is
with them that fear Him.” Daniel was in close connection with God.
When the decree went forth from an angry, furious king, commanding
that all the wise men of Babylon should be destroyed, Daniel and his
fellows were sought for to be slain. Then Daniel answered, not with
retaliation, but “with counsel and wisdom,” the captain of the king’s
guard, who was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon. Daniel
asked, “Why is the decree so hasty from the king?” He presented
himself before the king, requesting that time be given him, and his
faith in the God he served prompted him to say that he would show
the king the interpretation. “Then Daniel went to his house, and made
the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:
that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this
secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of
the wise men of Babylon. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in
a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.” (Read
Daniel
2:20-28
.) Here the interpretation was made known to Daniel.
The close application of those Hebrew students under the training
of God was richly rewarded. While they made diligent effort to secure
knowledge, the Lord gave them heavenly wisdom. The knowledge
they gained was of great service to them when brought into strait
places. The Lord God of heaven will not supply the deficiencies that
result from mental and spiritual indolence. When the human agents
shall exercise their faculties to acquire knowledge, to become deep-
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thinking men; when they, as the greatest witnesses for God and the
truth, shall have won in the field of investigation of vital doctrines
concerning the salvation of the soul, that glory may be given to the God
of heaven as supreme, then even judges and kings will be brought to
acknowledge, in the courts of justice, in parliaments and councils, that
the God who made the heavens and the earth is the only true and living
God, the author of Christianity, the author of all truth, who instituted
the seventh-day Sabbath when the foundations of the world were laid,
when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted