Daniel in Book Form

The Continuation of God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Millenial Studies

Lesson: 3-12

Genre: Lecture

Track: 158

Dictation Name: RR128B3

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture today is from the book of Daniel; the third chapter. Our subject; The Continuation of God. Daniel 3 The Continuation of God.

Daniel 3:  “1Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon.

 2Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

 3Then the princes, the governors, and captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

 4Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages,

 5That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up:

 6And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

 7Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of musick, all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

 8Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews.

 9They spake and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live for ever.

 10Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, shall fall down and worship the golden image:

 11And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, that he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

 12There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

 13Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king.

 14Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?

 15Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?

 16Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

 17If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.

 18But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

 19Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated.

 20And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

 21Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

 22Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flames of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

 23And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

 24Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.

 25He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

 26Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.

 27And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.

 28Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

 29Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.

 30Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the province of Babylon.”

The Babylonian philosophy was basically similar to that of our times. It held to an evolving universe. And this evolving universe was constantly changing in its expression. But in any and every age the high point of power at that moment was the incarnation of the powers or gods within the universe. The Babylonians worshiped (Baalien?) or Baal. That is the powers inherent within nature; impersonal blind forces that evolved and manifested themselves in age after age in the various powers and empires that appeared. And therefore there was for them no transcendence; no god above and beyond the world, apart from the world. The only god that could exists or the only gods that could exist were those that were a part of the evolving universe. This is the faith of all philosophers and religions other then Biblical faith. Now Nebuchadnezzar had read the interpretation of the dream he had in terms of his basic philosophy. And he saw the dream as revealing the future evolution of man and of empire; four great empires and then a fifth monarchy that was to cover the earth. And he was in his own thinking the head of gold; the crown of all this, the greatness and the glory. Failing to realize that the image said no matter how marvelous the dream is at the top it has feet of clay, and ultimately becomes nothing but dust, so that it is no more of chaff and the mighty appearance it gives is worthless. But Nebuchadnezzar saw the meaning of the dream in the context of his faith. It meant that although there were great kingdoms in the future he was at the very least its forerunner. Moreover he saw himself as the head of gold; great in God’s sight, powerful in terms of the purposes of this evolving power of the universe. Furthermore the world of his day had been handed over to him. He was the incarnation of the powers that be. Then the history of men was therefore meant in the history of men and derived all its meanings from him. Therefore Nebuchadnezzar could not be resisted without resisting history; without resisting the universe, without resisting whatever gods might be. The glory was in his hand. This faith is very similar to the reigning philosophies of our days.

Because the philosophies of our time whether they be democratic or Marxist are derived from two basic strands. One the evolutionary strand; Hegel and Marx and the other the strand from Rousseau. Now according to Hegel and Darwin evolution sees the blind unconscious forces of the universe expressing themselves in one form or another, trying to realize themselves. And for Rousseau this realization came about in that the people represented the broad base. The divine power emanated in mankind. And the will of the people was incarnate in their leaders so that the general will of the people manifested themselves in the leaders; an elite group who knew because they incarnated it what the people wanted or should want. So that they themselves knew better then the people what they wanted. Now this of course is Marxism. And in every form it appears. For example Mao Tse Tung has made it clear that democracy is basic and he has said that the reactionaries such as America are “Merely paper tigers” because the reason he says is that they are divorced from the people. Power is from below. It is evolving upward. Therefore he says the People’s Republic is very great. And the army of the People’s Republic is very great. The army he says must become one with the people so that they see it as their own army. Such an army will be invincible. But it is not the people themselves who must govern. So he declares in the sphere of theory destroy the roots of ultra-democracy, which is the people attempting to govern. Because how can they know what is best because their deity is incarnated in their elite leaders, in the dictatorship of the proletariat. And this of course is the theory of Western Democracy today. Only instead of calling it the dictatorship of the proletariat we call it the democratic consensus so that the president and his elite group know the democratic consensus. They express it so that they know better than the people below.

Now this was basically Nebuchadnezzar’s faith. The inherent forces of the universe had manifested themselves in the Babylonian empire. And all this power that was incarnate in the Babylonian empire expressed itself in him. So that he was its voice, its power, its being. And therefore this great image; 3 score cubit and 6 cubit, 90 feet by 9, was erected in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. And people were summoned to come and to worship it. To recognize the greatness, the divine power, and glory of Babylon and of Nebuchadnezzar in particular.

For those who refused a burning fiery furnace has been set aside. Now the fiery furnace was not a new thing but a common instrument of punishment for the worse capital offences. It was common to Babylon and to the world of that area. In that area it persisted at least through 1662 when in Isfahan the fiery furnaces were used for any violators of the states food and price controls. It has been used much more recently further east in the far east when in the 1920’s in one country in particular the student communist movement demonstrations and riots were broken up when the furnaces were stoked for a day or two with some of the students. It dampened the student rebellion.

Now Nebuchadnezzar was told that three of his officers, Daniel was apparently away on official business so he was not involved on this occasion, but that three of his high ranking civil service officials; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had refused to come and worship the image. And he was very angry at this and sent for them. But he showed them his esteem for them in that he gave them another opportunity. In effect what he did was to offer these three men an opportunity for compromise. And he considered it a favor to them. From the perspective of Nebuchadnezzar compromise was an opportunity. To the Godly it is death. And so he reasoned with them and he said, “Don’t you realize what the issues are? The alternatives are death or submissions. And what point is there in resistance? Because after all I incarnate the present powers in the universe. For who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” Here the thesis was stated baldly, “Who is that God that will be able to deliver you out of my hands? There is no court of appeal beyond me. I am the ultimate power. There is no power beyond me.”

This is the thesis of Marxism. This is the thesis of democracy and that is why the Supreme Court denies that there is a higher court; the court of God or a higher law; the law of God. All the power in the universe is incarnate in its present form in the powers that be.

“Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” Nebuchadnezzar therefore was presenting to them intelligent reasoning. But there answer was, “We deny your premise. We believe in a sovereign God. You are saying in affect that our cause and our course is folly and that we are helpless and that there is no God able to deliver us. But we worship a sovereign God; a transcendent God. A God totally unbound by man and our God whom we serve is able to deliver us. But if He does not, be it known unto thee oh King that we will not serve thy gods Nor worship the golden image which Thou hast put up.” Nebuchadnezzar had said that god is with me incarnate in my social order. There is no other god except that which is evolved and manifested itself in me. I am the synthesis of all the divine forces in history. And these three men affirmed the transcendent God; declared that He was able to deliver them but that He was not obliged to deliver them because He was not bound by any prayer of man, nor any hope of man, nor any wish of man. That He was absolute Lord and Sovereign.

We are told that Nebuchadnezzar at this answer was full of fury. This was as direct an insult on his entire thesis of his kingship and his empire as one could make. And so he had the men immediately bound and thrown into the fiery furnace. The heat of the furnace was so great that the soldiers that went near to throw them in were killed by the heat. But then to his amazement he saw the three men not dead but walking in the midst of the fire and one with them. “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? Low I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire. And they have no hurt. And the form of the fourth is like the son of God.’ Then Nebuchadnezzar came near the fiery furnace and spake and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come fourth and come hither.” And there was not even the smell of smoke on their clothing nor any harm even to a hair of their head. It was total deliverance.

Nebuchadnezzar then issued a decree declaring that no one was to speak against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He did not change his opinions. He simply said here in effect is an unaccountable force in the universe connected with these men so let’s take a hands-off policy with regard to this matter. Let us not tamper with it because it is dangerous to our future. Therefore it is forbidden to all men within the empire because there is no other god that can deliver acts of this sort. But there was no submission to that God.

The message of Daniel 3 is very relative to our time because the faith of Nebuchadnezzar is the faith of every state in the world today; virtually every country. These nations today see themselves as the incarnation of whatever divine force there is in history and as a priesthood. And this is not a new thing. It is simply a revival of that which occurred towards the end of the middle ages. The reformation for a time forestalled and defeated it but it has revived itself again. Towards the end of the Middle Ages the State claimed to be god on earth. Fredrick the second, one of the greatest of the Medieval emperors, the Hohenstaufen holy Roman Emperor saw the state as the incarnation of whatever God there was and his basic faith was pantheistic. And he saw the true priesthood of this evolving natural force in the universe to be the state so that we see not only in him but in others progressively an imitation of the priesthood in the civil service. We have it to this day in that the judges wear clerical garbs clerical gowns. This is to signify that they are priests. Because it was the claim in the medieval period that they represented the true priesthood of the universe and therefore their judges, their civil officials, anyone who was an officer of the empire was to be garbed with priestly garb.

But the church also claimed to be an incarnation of God, a continuation they said of the incarnation of Jesus Christ and a priesthood. And the school made the same claim, so you see in that era continuing to this day the claim that of the school to represent the true inherent deity of the universe and the true priesthood of that evolving force. And so the graduates of any university began to put on gowns to indicate at graduation that they were now the true priests of the universe. That by their gowns they signify that the meaning of the world incarnated itself in their minds, the meaning of the universe was going to be expressed in and through them. And this is why of course the intellectuals of this day pontificate when they speak. They are the voice of whatever gods may be.

The reformation declared that Christ alone is the incarnation providing the ancient Catholic faith, the Biblical faith, that Christ alone is our true and great high priest. In Him we are members of His body. In him we are priests unto God. In Him we have the blessed assurance that time and eternity are controlled not by church, state, or school but by the sovereign and omnipotent God.

Thus as we face the Nebuchadnezzar’s of our day who are intent upon destroying our Christian past. Who have effectually infiltrated and capture the churches with their humanism and who seek to destroy to burn up our Christian past. It is not they with their fiery furnaces who control the rod but the God of Daniel, your God and mine. And this God is our God forever and ever. Therefore will not we fear though the earth be moved though the mountains shake with the swelling there of. For the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.[ 28:44]

Let us pray. Almighty God our Heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art the God of Daniel, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and our God. We thank Thee that our destiny is not the fiery furnaces that the world prepares for us, but Thy holy, glorious, and delivering purposes. And so our God we cast our every care upon Thee knowing Thou carest for us.

In Jesus name Amen

(Questions are quiet and hard to understand, so what was said is approximated)

[Questioner] Did Nebuchadnezzar recognize Christ in the fire?

[Dr. Rushdoony] It was of course Christ who was there. But not that he recognized Christ as Christ but that he recognized that here was one that looked like the son of God. In other words He was God like in his appearance. This was what it meant to Nebuchadnezzar.

[Questioner] When Christian speak of Mary as the mother of God, sometimes they use the word… is this worship?

[Dr. Rushdoony] In the creeds where we in the English read mother of God the true reading is in the original Theotokos and this means the bringer forth of God. So that mother of God is a mistranslation and a misconception. But what the creeds declared that she is Theotokos the bringer forth of God is the correct form and the true faith.

[Questioner] The Catholics and other religious groups…

[Dr. Rushdoony] No, with that we cannot agree.

[Questioner] I found myself in a spot, and I wanted to ask you, I was talking to somebody on the subject of Christian Science, there was a child in her family, not her own but in the family, and she was the one who came and talked to him, and the next day he was healed, and the whole family was converted… What do you make of this, because I was saying well she has this power, and they were saying do you think she is a witch, and I don’t know, maybe there was another reason he was healed, but is it Christ or Satan, which is it? Does Satan have the power to heal?

[Dr. Rushdoony] Well first of all in that case we cannot be sure that there was healing. You hear a great deal about such things. And I’ve heard a great deal through the years about healing through various cults and groups and it doesn’t usually bare close examination. So that is one point. Second there are on occasion things that are remarkable healings connected with occultism and they do have very often dangerous after effects. In that there can be physical healing but mental deterioration. And we don’t know enough about the relationship between the mind and body to understand everything here. But there are definitely cases where there are startling instances of healing that are clearly demonic. And Dr. Cook who has made a study of this has cited another of these in connection with occultism but of the deadly after effects. We do know this. There is quite a startling correlation between very, very serious mental disturbances and physical health. In other words to be very specific some people who show very extreme and almost I would say and in some cases definitely demonic disturbances will have nothing wrong with their body until say through social pressure or psychiatric work they are forced to a measure of moderation and conformity. And then their body breaks out in some ailment or another of a serious sort. So that a basic sickness there will transfer itself from the body to the mind or vies versa so that when it’s in the one the other seems relatively untouched. Now normally in most of us the mind and body seem closely related but in these people there seems to be almost a schizophrenic separation between the two now we don’t know too much about things in this area but there are definitely some peculiar things if we follow after the healing manifestation we are going to be in the same old predicament as Nebuchadnezzar. We are going to look to the highest point of power we can see. And this healing is the highest point of power in my experience. Therefore I am going to worship in terms of this act of healing.

[Questioner] Until maybe someone more powerful comes along.

[Dr. Rushdoony] Then they’ll worship that. But we are not to worship that. We are not to worship in terms of power but in terms of truth knowing that the true power of the universe is in God, and God speaks through His word. So that those who follow in such an instance like this can five or ten years from now be involved in something else you see. Because they are following the highest manifestation of power for them, power related to them. What it does for them. And of course the medieval stories of Faust have precisely this aspect. Faust promised that the highest power they would see in their lives would be manifested for their behalf if they would sell their souls. Or rather the devil promised vows; that the powers would be manifested for him if he sold his soul to the devil. What did he want? Was it gold or was it women or was it pomp and circumstance? Power would flow to him at that point you see because he was worshiping power. And this is what the healing cults get into. They do worship power and the amount of serious mental disturbances in any and every healing movement are tremendous.

[Questioner] But I’m not seeing… Satan isn’t the only power that heals, God does heal…

[Dr. Rushdoony]

Yes and there are many, many evidences of such healing. But you see there is a difference between worshiping God and worshiping healing. Now the religion of the American Indians is nothing but healing. They had no religion apart from that. Their religion is centered around the medicine man. And that is why when I was among the Indians the thing that would draw any and every Indian was a healer. He could come in the name of any religion but if he promised healing every Indian was there overnight because this was the only kind of religion they recognized. What’s in it for me? Is it going to help me overcome sickness? And the great Indian cult of the last century, the Ghost Dance religion, was centered around the promise of the Ghost Dance Messiahs who had picked up a smattering of Christianity so that they had borrowed a few ideas from it. And their idea was if we dance the ghost dance the right way we are going to live forever. All the Indians dead are going to return. A big wind is going to come and pick up the white men and drop them in the ocean. And the buffalo and the antelope and the elk will be back and the grass will be knee deep in all the hills of America if we dance the sun dance you see. This is all they understand. The one man in America above all others who is popular in Indian reservations is Oral Roberts. They listen to him constantly because this is their old medicine man kind of talk. It is their kind of religion. It is not Christianity. [ 40:06]

[Questioner] Indiscernible

[Dr. Rushdoony]No, no, we are commanded to pray for the sick and we are told that God will answer and very often does. So that we are to pray for healing and we would be amiss we would be sinning if we were sick and did not pray for healing for ourselves and for others.

We do want to end a little earlier today but before we do I would like to call your attention to a very interesting book since we are on the subject of healing. Confronting the Cults by Gordon R Lewis, published by Presbyterian and Reformed publishing company for $2.95. Now there are many, many books published that deal with the cults. And many of them will give you more specific information on the cults then this book will. But the value of this book is precisely this. That it will give you the framework of thinking so that you will be able to understand what a cult is. For example just on the most elementary level he points out that there are two things that characterize every cult. First, it adds something to the Bible. In other words it has an extra revelation or a higher revelation. So this is the first mark of every cult. It has a new source of truth. It may be spirit as was the spiritualist. Or it may be the book of Mormon. It can be anything. But, they have another source and a higher source of truth then the Bible. The second thing that characterizes a cult is that it will take a subordinate aspect of religious faith and make it paramount; whether that subordinate aspect may be right or wrong. They’ll take that and make it paramount. It may be something with respect to eating or to the day of worship or something else; anything. But this is made paramount rather than the essentials of the faith. So it is important in that respect as this book gives you the basic theological and philosophical perspective for understanding what cults are. Well with that we stand adjourned for today.