Leave a Legacy

Daniel 1:21 “And so Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.”

Read Daniel 1:1 – 21

When Pastor and author, Dr. David Jeremiah, inscribes copies of certain of his books, he sometimes references this passage and leaves it at that, much to the puzzling of its recipients. They often report back to him, “Pastor David, this doesn’t make any sense!”

However, what David Jeremiah has succinctly inspired the reader to do is something of great significance. Tucked away at the end of the first chapter of Daniel is a statement that provides a great paradigm for all of our lives, if we understand it correctly.

Daniel was taken to Babylon as a captive, and brainwashed to be Jewish on the outside, but Babylonian on the inside so that he could represent to the people of Judah all that King Nebuchadnezzar desired. That was the plan. But Daniel, although he took on a Babylonian name and lived in Babylon for about 70 years never became a Babylonian. He never bent his will to the desires of a pagan culture, nor did he ever worship its gods or practice its ways. He was in Babylon, but not of it.

Instead, Daniel’s will was to serve and to worship the one true God, and that is just exactly what he did. So that when men seeking to destroy Daniel and his reputation sought a reason to defame him, the only thing they could accuse him of was that he worshipped his God too often! And so Daniel was able to remain true to his God, Yahweh, through the rules of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius, and finally of Cyrus. And it was under the rule of Cyrus that Daniel was able to see the return of the people of Judah from Babylonian exile.

God honored the faithfulness of Daniel, and his legacy is written forever in the pages of Scripture. So there is much to be said from this short little verse, and we should all aspire to be people of Daniel’s character, never bending to any circumstance that brings shame to the name of God, but rather to cling to the will of God to sustain us, so that all could be said of us is in our absence is that we worshipped God too much.

(Portions of this were borrowed from one of Dr. David Jeremiah’s radio broadcasts, ‘Turning Point’.)