Daniel served in the administration of one of the most wicked governments in history. He went to a pagan school that would appall American Christians. He let himself be renamed after the false god of Babylon. His book wasn’t a rant against the evils of Babylonian society. Daniel’s book was a tribute to the presence, authority, and grace of the King of kings.
Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. He is the risen Lord, with all authority in heaven and on earth. And he loves us, and laid down his life for us. If God is for us (and he is!), who can be against us? It’s not the end of the world until he says it is, and even then you shouldn’t be afraid, if your faith is in him. We live in a peripheral, temporal nation; Jesus’ Kingdom is central and eternal. Christian, don’t ascribe so much significance to a single election. Let the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ’s presence, authority, and grace give you peace and endurance as sojourners in a strange world.
