THE DOERS OF THE WORD

 

(Art: Daniel's Answer to the King by Briton Riviere 1890)

I don’t think we understand how important we are in making the Plan of Salvation work to everyone’s advantage. When we read scriptural prophecies we tend to think that God will miraculously make things happen or that someone else will suddenly appear to fulfil the promises God has made when in fact it is the ordinary people like us who are ‘the doers of the word’ that are instrumental in God’s hands of making marvellous things come to pass.

Daniel of the Old Testament is a good example of making things happen. Daniel lived in Babylonian captivity in service to heathen kings for most of his life. He was very much devoted to the God of Israel and had Israel's welfare at heart. He eagerly hung onto the Lord's promise that Israel's captivity would last only 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10).

I mentioned in my previous post on Cyrus that historians attribute Daniel with the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 44:28-45:1-5). Imagine this man who loved God, being so familiar with the scriptures and knowing of a man called Cyrus who would free the Jewish nation, see him walk through Babylon’s gates! How could he not use his position in government to tell him of the prophecy that contained his name?

When Cyrus sent the first wave of the Jews to Jerusalem and they began rebuilding the temple, they encountered bitter opposition from the Samaritans who reasoned that they should be involved in the project. Samaritans were Assyrians who intermarried with left-over Israelites in Samaria, following the conquest of the Ten Tribes. Because they were not pure Israelites and had practiced a variant religion of Jehovah worship heavily intermingled with pagan and other unauthorized religious practices, the Jews refused.

 

In retaliation the Samaritans influenced the Persian kings who succeeded Cyrus to halt the rebuilding project for 17 years. In steps Daniel again. In the first year of King Darius, Daniel again petitioned the Lord about Jeremiah's prophecy. Daniel 9:17-19 shows Daniel's prayerful concern for the unfinished temple and the city of Jerusalem. The Lord answered Daniel and raised two prophets in Jerusalem: Haggai and Zechariah.

 

You might wonder how prophets could finish construction of anything. You might wonder why God didn't send someone with political clout, negotiation expertise or even military power....but instead he sent two of his servants to finish the job....and finish they did....Haggai alone showed the Jews exactly why they were not able to finish the project. He taught them that all temporal problems arise out of spiritual weakness and that if they would put God first, they would extricate themselves from abject poverty they were in which was their main problem.  It makes for compelling reading.

 

These two prophets instructed the governor Zerubbabel, the high priest Jeshua and the Jewish people how to complete the temple in spite of persecution, poverty and governmental red tape (Haggai 1:1-5, 12-14; Zechariah 4:9, Ezra 6:14). Even though these two prophets got the job done, in reality, this began with Daniel, the doer of the word.

 

“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass……[and] by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.”  (Alma 37:6,7)

 

We might be the small and simple things but He is the mighty one who fulfils……

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

THE GATHERING

 

Israel’s exodus from Egypt was epic. So momentous and powerful was it that it has been remembered as an unparalleled act of God’s power to this day but something much bigger is yet to happen to show the mankind who is in control of this project we call ‘earth’.

Subsequent Prophets to Moses both in the Near East and the Americas spoke often of the Exodus to keep this momentous deliverance of Israel fresh in people’s minds. They used the event as remembrance of Jehovah’s power and His mercy toward the covenant people. I am reminded of Nephi bringing Moses to his brothers’ remembrance when faced with the challenge of recovering the brass plates from Laban (1 Nephi 4:2,3).

Besides the Exodus, another sensational and dramatic example of Jehovah’s deliverance is found in the book of Daniel. I was reading the other day of Daniel’s prayer for forgiveness on behalf of the exiles in Babylon and I was enthralled with the beauty of his words through which he acknowledged Jehovah’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt (Daniel 9:15).

And herein is the beauty of it all. Daniel prayed because he knew that God would deliver the exiles from Babylon too and he knew it because of Isaiah’s prophecy (2 Chr 36:22-23; Isaiah 44:28; 45:1).

It is suggested by historians that when Cyrus conquered Babylon, he found Daniel there in his governmental capacity,  and that Daniel  pointed out to him the prophecy of Isaiah that was given 140 years before the fall of Jerusalem, that the Lord would raise up a mighty king who would free the Jewish captives in Babylon and allow them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the holy city. Isaiah even named Cyrus by name.....180 years before he even appeared in Babylon.

Astonishing isn't it? It certainly was to Cyrus because he sent out the proclamation amongst the Jews in Babylon that ‘the Lord God of heaven….had charged [him] to build Him a house in Jerusalem’ (Ezra 1:2) and asked who among all of God’s people wanted to return home. He actually offered freedom to anyone who wanted it. Proof that God always accomplishes His purposes in miraculous ways because nothing is beyond His power. It was no parting of the Red Sea but think about it…a Persian king liberating the Jews….just for some perspective - ancient Persia is modern day Iran.

In our day, the Lord will perform another miracle of restoring those that are lost. As early as 1831 the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that the translated Apostle John was fulfilling a mission among the Ten Tribes preparing them for their journey to Zion (“Essentials in Church History, p 126).

This will be an event of enormous proportions, greater than the dividing of the Red Sea. So much so that ‘the boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence…’ (D&C 133:31-33). 'The boundaries of the everlasting hills' being North America (Orson Pratt, in “Journal of Discourses”, 18:167-68; see also Genesis 49:26).

So great will this event be that ‘it will no longer be said “The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt but, the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands whither he had driven them…” (Jeremiah 16:14,15) because “this is the blessing of the everlasting God upon the tribes of Israel …”  who proclaims:

“I am he who led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; and my arm is stretched out in the last days, to save my people Israel.” (D&C 133: 34; 136:22)

We will come to Zion

With songs of everlasting joy

To worship our Lord and our King

And to Him forever our praises we will sing. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Joyful by Graphic Arts Design)

SURVIVING BABYLON

 

Imagine if the Saviour and heavenly messengers appeared to you and greeted you like they greeted Daniel of old: “O Daniel, a man greatly beloved” (Daniel 9:23; 10:11,19). Why such an endearing greeting? Because Daniel’s righteousness was greater than the morally corroding influence of the city of Babylon in which he lived.

Daniel was only a youth when he was taken to Babylon during the first siege of Jerusalem in 605 B.C. He was trained there for service in King’s court. Because of his purity of faith which linked him closely to God, he rose to the status of incredible power becoming an Advisor to five kings and the Governor of all the Jews in Babylonia’s exile.

King Nebuchadnezzar was the beginning of Babylon’s greatness and glory. Using slaves from various areas of the empire, he inaugurated a massive building program to make Babylon the greatest city in the world.

From raising an artificial mountain and constructing hanging gardens with terraces, to walls surrounding the city that were so massive that one story houses were built on top of the walls on either side and even then there was space enough between the rows of houses that could permit four chariots to drive abreast (Samuel Fallows, ed., The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia and Scriptural Dictionary, s.v. “Babylon”, pp 208-9; 204-5)

The grandeur of Babylon was incredibly impressive but with such opulence and wealth also came moral decay, wickedness and iniquity. Will Durant, a secular historian wrote that “even Alexander [the Great], who was not above dying of drinking was shocked by the morals of Babylon (Our Oriental Heritage, p 244).

Babylon became the antithesis of godliness. The very name of this city became the symbol for worldliness, spiritual wickedness and Satan’s kingdom. Scripturally it is known as: “the great whore” and “the mother of harlots and abominations (Rev 17:1; 5; D& C 133:14; 1:16; 1 Nephi 13:5-9; Babylonia and the Conquest of Judah, Old Testament Student Manual p 244).

We, of the last dispensation live in ‘spiritual Babylon’. Satan has increased his influence in great strides seeking to destroy us.

Joseph Smith prophesied that he saw in our day “men hunting the lives of their own sons, and brother murdering brother, women killing their own daughters, and daughters seeking the lives of their mothers….(History of the Church, 3:391). Are we there yet???

President Ezra Taft Benson said in 1979 that our generation “will be comparable in wickedness to the days of Noah…but there is a major difference this time. It is that God has saved for the final inning some of his strongest children, who will help bear off the Kingdom triumphantly. And that is where you come in, for you are the generation that must be prepared to meet your God…..

“We follow a perfect leader – not just one who tells us to do what He thinks we should do, but the only one who can say that we should be as He is in everything…..” (In His Steps, BYU Speeches, 4 March 1979)

May we rise to become like the ‘perfect leader’ we follow to survive our Babylon and to be of such righteous influence whilst in it that those around us will call us “servants of the living God”, even as King Darius called the beloved Daniel (Daniel 6:20). And may we who center ourselves on Christ receive His approbation and hear Him say to us, even as He said to Daniel of old: “thou art greatly beloved”……

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Daniel: Prophet of God, Companion of Kings)

THE KINGDOM OF OUR CHRIST

 

 

The humble beginning of the Church is amazing, isn’t it? The Church was organised on 6 April 1830 with just six members in David Whitmer’s home. As of March 2024, the total membership of the Church reached 17 million members worldwide.

Reading this week about the organisation of the Church in Section 20 of Doctrine and Covenants reminded me of the prophecy within a dream of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C.

This dream was about the latter days in which a 'stone was cut out of the mountain without hands' (Daniel 2:45) which consumed all the other kingdoms of the earth. We know of course that this stone is the Kingdom of God on earth, meaning the Church.

The visions of Daniel as opposed to the King's dream should, however, hold a particular interest for us because they go further than the establishment of the Church.

The first recorded dream which Daniel had talks about a beast with ten horns, meaning the Roman empire which becomes replaced by ten powerful European nations. What is particularly interesting is that Daniel saw another horn come up on this beast.

This horn is described as a 'little horn' (Daniel 7:8) and does not seem to represent an earthly government or nation so it does not seem to have any political or secular power. However, it does have a terrible power of its own.  This is the power of an anti-Christ who would rise up and who would make war with the saints of God until the time of Christ's Second Coming (Daniel 7:20-27).

What must have pointedly struck at the heart of Daniel is in verse 21 which states that this power prevailed against the Saints....until the Ancient of Days, meaning Adam, shall come to Adam-ondi-Ahman to hand over the kingdom to the King of all kings, to Him to whom the kingdom rightly belongs (v 22).

Why is this a sad story if Christ triumphs in the end? Because when the anti-Christ’s power wages war against the Saints, many of us will be lost (Daniel 11:32-35).

With the ‘Come Follow Me’ programme, the Church has placed the responsibility of our testimonies upon our own shoulders, attempting to prepare us for a worse time to come when the saints will be persecuted and many of us will not stand and keep standing we must, not just for ourselves but to preserve the kingdom of our Christ. It is for Him the Kingdom exists.

Consider Elder LeGrand Richards' take on this:

"When I was president of the Southern States Mission, one of our missionaries preached on that dream of Nebuchadnezzar in one of our meetings where we had some investigators, and I stood at the door to greet them as they went out. A man came up and introduced himself as a minister and he said, 'You don't mean to tell me that you think the Mormon Church is that kingdom, do you?'

“I said, 'Yes sir, why not?'. He said, 'It couldn't be.' I said, 'Why couldn't it?' And he said, 'You can't have a kingdom without a king, and you don't have a king, so you don't have a kingdom'.

“'Oh', I said, 'my friend, you didn't read far enough. In the seventh chapter of Daniel, Daniel saw one like the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, "and there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him" (Daniel 7:14).

'Now', I said, 'my friend, tell me how can the kingdom be given to him when he comes in the clouds of heaven if there is no kingdom prepared for him? That is what we Latter-day Saints are doing." 

- (In CR Oct 1975, pp 76-77 or Ensign Nov 1975, p 51)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art by Walter Rane)

IT IS UP TO US

Jeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem

by Rembrandt

The biggest heroes of the scriptures are the ones that make things happen. They are workers who understand that God's will is up to His children to put into effect. When we read scriptural prophecies we tend to think that God will miraculously make things happen or that someone else will suddenly appear to fulfil the promises God has made.

Daniel of the Old Testament is a good example of making things happen. As we know he lived in Babylonian captivity in service to heathen kings for most of his life. He was very much devoted to the God of Israel and had Israel's welfare at heart. He eagerly hung onto the Lord's promise that Israel's captivity would last only 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10). It is suggested by historians that when Cyrus, the king of Persia, conquered Babylon that he found Daniel there in his governmental capacity,  and that Daniel  pointed out to him the prophecy of Isaiah that was given 140 years before the fall of Jerusalem, that the Lord would raise up a mighty king who would free the Jewish captives in Babylon and allow them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the holy city. Isaiah even named Cyrus by name.....210 years before he even appeared in Babylon. Astonishing isn't it? It certainly was to Cyrus because he freed the Jews and allowed 50,000 of them to return to Jerusalem. The rest chose to stay until Ezra's second party of 17,000 some years later after the construction project was completed. It is significant here to note that Daniel who so loved his homeland and his heritage did not choose to return to Jerusalem but chose to remain in Babylon to continue to serve God in a foreign land. The point is this. Daniel in all likelihood played a huge part in this historical event. This theory can be supported by another example of Daniel's doing.

When the Jews returned to Jerusalem and began rebuilding the temple, they encountered bitter opposition from Samaritans who reasoned that they should be involved in the project. Because Samaritans were not pure Israelites and had practised a variant religion of Jehovah worship heavily intermingled with pagan and other unauthorised religious practices, the Jews refused. In retaliation the Samaritans influenced the Persian kings who succeeded Cyrus to halt the rebuilding project for 17 years. In steps Daniel again. In the first year of King Darius, Daniel again petitioned the Lord about Jeremiah's prophecy. Daniel 9:17-19 shows Daniel's prayerful concern for the unfinished temple and the city of Jerusalem. The Lord answered Daniel and raised two prophets in Jerusalem: Haggai and Zechariah. You might wonder how prophets could finish construction of anything, right?? You might wonder why God didn't send someone with political clout, negotiation expertise or even military power....but instead he sent two of his servants to finish the job....and finish they did....Haggai alone showed the Jews exactly why they were not able to finish the project. He taught them that all temporal problems arise out of spiritual weakness and that if they would put God first, they would extricate themselves from abject poverty they were in which was their main problem.  It makes for compelling reading. These two prophets instructed the governor Zerubbabel, the high priest Jeshua and the Jewish people how to complete the temple in spite of persecution, poverty and governmental red tape (Haggai 1:1-5, 12-14; Zechariah 4:9, Ezra 6:14). Even though these two prophets got the job done, in reality, this began with Daniel and was his doing.

President Kimball prayed and petitioned the Lord repeatedly regarding the priesthood for the black members of the Church. I am sure President Nelson did the same regarding the many changes he has brought in since his calling. They didn't sit back and think things will happen out of thin air. The state of Christ's Kingdom when we present it to Him upon His coming will depend on us. The Church as an administrative body takes care of the physical entity of the Kingdom but we, its' member body take care of its spiritual condition. We must consider this our responsibility because we will be the ones to usher in the Millenium. The scriptures state that at the beginning of the Millenium Satan will be bound and will have no power for 1,000 years. This loss of power will not be because God will bind him in chains and throw him in a dungeon but because we, God's saints and disciples of Christ, will be so spiritually strong that he will simply have no power over us and will therefore no longer have a role to play. We will simply make him irrelevant.

When the Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild, the first thing they built was the altar of the temple, even before the foundation of the temple was laid (Ezra 3:1-6). They knew that the altar was the heart of the temple and the temple was the heart of the Jewish religious life.  Our temples today dot the earth, and all without much sacrifice from us. Our temples set us apart from other religions, they make us a 'peculiar people' to the world and a 'peculiar treasure' to the Lord (Exodus 19:5). They provide us with spiritual backbone through our obedience to its covenants. It is in the temples of our God that we will be armed with His power to bind Satan and to become a holy people (D&C 109:22); and it is in the temples that we will find refuge from the storm that is yet to come upon the saints of God in the last days. Consider Elder Featherstone's words:

"Before the Saviour comes the world will darken. There will come a period of time where even the elect will lose hope if they do not come to the temples. The world will be so filled with evil that the righteous will only feel secure within its walls. The saints will come here not only to do vicarious work but to find a haven of peace. The covenants and ordinances will fill us with faith as a living fire. In a day of desolating sickness, scorched earth, barren wastes, sickening plagues, disease, destruction and death, we as a people will rest in the shade of trees, we will drink from the cooling fountains. We will abide in places of refuge from the storm; we will mount up as on eagles' wings; we will be lifted out of an insane and evil world. We will be as fair as the sun ad clear as the moon. When the Saviour comes He will honour His people. Those who are spared and prepared will be a temple-loving people. They will know Him. Our children will bow down at His feet and worship Him as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. They will bathe His feet with their tears and He will weep, and bless them for having suffered through the greatest trials known to man. Let us prepare them with the faith to surmount every trial and every condition. We will do it in these holy, sacred temples." (Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, Manti Temple, April 1987)

May we worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords in our hearts, in our homes and in our temples that we may possess God's power and ever remember that "we have a labour to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay to conquor the enemy of all righteousness." (Moroni 9:6)

KING OF ALL KINGDOMS

I love history. I particularly love finding connections to people across the span of time. Many prophets of old were given to know us and our day through visions and dreams and God given revelations. One such prophet was Daniel who was taken to Babylon around 605 B.C. Daniel lived in captivity for 70 years and served 5 heathen kings. Because of his righteousness he rose to such prominence that he was made governor of all the Jews in Babylon. He prophesied and interpreted dreams of kings with boldness and worshipped the God of Israel without fear. He is mostly known for surviving the lion's den into which he was thrown, for which survival king Darius called him 'Daniel, servant of the living God' (Daniel 6:20). So in Daniel we mainly see immense power, until we read the recordings of his own dreams and visions which pertained not only to his time but to the time which we the latter-day saints live in. Then we see a man heavily burdened with knowledge which tugged at his heart for the scriptures record that Daniel was grieved in his spirit, that the visions of his head troubled him and his countenance changed in him forever (Daniel 7:15, 28).  What could have brought such grief to so great a man?

Chapter 7 of Daniel is a record of a dream that Daniel had of four major ancient empires: Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman. We know from Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a great image in chapter 2 that the Roman empire was destroyed and replaced by a powerful European group of ten nations. This dream was about the latter days in which a 'stone was cut out of the mountain without hands' (Daniel 2:45) which consumed all the other kingdoms of the earth. We know of course that this stone is the Kingdom of God on earth, meaning the Church. The visions of Daniel as opposed to kings' dreams should, however, hold a particular interest for us because they go further than the establishment of the Church. The first recorded dream which Daniel had talks about a beast with ten horns, meaning the Roman empire which becomes replaced by ten powerful European nations, as already mentioned. What is particularly interesting is that Daniel saw another horn come up on this beast. This horn is described as a 'little horn' (Daniel 7:8) and does not seem to represent an earthly government or nation so it does not seem to have any political or secular power. However, it does have a terrible power of its own.  This is the  power of an anti-Christ that would rise up and that would make war with the saints of God util the time of Christ's Second Coming (Daniel 7:20-27). What must have pointedly struck at the heart of Daniel is in verse 21 which states that this power prevailed against the saints....until the Ancient of Days, meaning Adam, shall come to Adam-ondi-Ahman to hand over the kingdom to the King of all kings, to Him to whom the kingdom rightly belongs. Why is this a sad story if Christ triumphs in the end? Because when the anti-Christ power wages war against the Saints, many of us will be lost (Daniel 11:32-34). With the latest changes, the Church is placing the responsibility of our testimonies upon our own shoulders, attempting to prepare us for a worse time to come when the saints will be persecuted and many of us will not stand. We will not stand if we do not take this responsibility to heart and center ourselves on the Saviour of the world and His Kingdom. This can already be seen by many who have recently left the Church, whose testimonies were not able to survive the subtle manipulations of the anti-Christ power of our day.
There is another important reason why we need to spiritually invest in ourselves. Without us, there is no kingdom. We, the saints of latter-days are preparing the kingdom in which Christ will reign. Consider Elder LeGrand Richards' take on this:

"When I was president of the Southern States Mission, one of our missionaries preached on that dream of Nebuchadnezzar in one of our meetings where we had some investigators, and I stood at the door to greet them as they went out. A man came up and introduced himself as a minister and he said, 'You don't mean to tell me that you think the Mormon Church is that kingdom, do you?' And I said, 'Yes sir, why not?'. He said, 'It couldn't be.' I said, 'Why couldn't it?' And he said, 'You can't have a kingdom without a king, and you don't have a king, so you don't have a kingdom'. 'Oh', I said, 'my friend, you didn't read far enough. You just read the seventh chapter of Daniel, where Daniel saw one like the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, "and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him" (Daniel 7:14). 'Now', I said, 'my friend, tell me how can the kingdom be given to him when he comes in the clouds of heaven if there is no kingdom prepared for him? That is what we Latter-day Saints are doing." (In CR Oct 1975, pp 76-77 or Ensign Nov 1975, p 51)

When the heavens opened and John the Beloved saw the Saviour appearing on a white horse whose eyes were as a flame of fire, he also saw that upon His head sat many crowns (Revelation 19:12). These crowns no doubt will represent that He is the King of all kingdoms. And these crowns will be adorned with valuables without price, meaning those who have overcome and endured with faith, those who will welcome Him as their King, those of which the Saviour has said "they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels......." (Malachi 3:17). We shall be His  and He will be ours, the begotten Father of our spirits, the Saviour of our souls, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.....

IF I PERISH, I PERISH

This week's Sunday School lesson is about three valiant Jewish exiles who lived in Babylon during the 70 years of Jewish captivity. We are all familiar with their stories of courage which landed them in a fiery furnace and a lion's den. When Judah was about to be sacked by the Babylonians, Jehovah promised to Jeremiah He would spare them if any righteous could be found in all of Jerusalem but such was not the case. Judah had sinned and broken her covenants with God. Out of this sinful and idolatrous nation, King Nebuchadnezzar carried off into Babylon (about 605 BC) the choicest Jewish youths to be trained for service in the king's court. Four such youths among them were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It is not clear whether these youths were disposed towards the God of Israel before their arrived in Babylon or whether they learnt from the sins of their fathers and turned their hearts toward Him once they found themselves in a strange land where with others of their nation they became zealous about the God they once worshipped. Because of their righteousness and commitment to the covenants which they made with the God of their fathers, they were endowed with spiritual and temporal gifts and were given miraculous protection from their enemies.

During the 70 years of Jewish captivity in Babylon, Daniel served 5 kings remaining in Babylon even after most of his countrymen had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple and nation. It would seem strange that a devout Jew such as Daniel would choose to remain in a foreign land and not return to Jerusalem but I believe there was a purpose for this for "......he was raised to positions that enabled him to spend his life in service to the kings of the land. He became the Lord's minister to those rulers. He was made chief of the wise men, chancellor of the equivalent of a national university, ruler of all the Hebrew captives, and as governor of the province of Babylon, one of the chief rulers in both the Babylonian and Persian Empires" (Old Testament Student Manual, 1 Kings-Malachi, p. 297). So honourable and righteous was Daniel in his personal and professional life that he endeared himself to King Darius to such an extent that the King preferred him above all the presidents and princes and he 'thought to set him over the whole realm' (Daniel 6:3). This attachment to the King ignited a lot of jelousy among the presidents and princes who sought to discredit Daniel in some way by hoping to 'dig up some dirt' on him. When they could find no fault in him they devised a plan by which they knew they could trap him and put him away for good. From their observation of Daniel, they knew that he was so committed to the worship of his God that he would not break that commitment under any circumstances. In other words, he was true to his covenants in every way. The trap which they set was to get the King to pass a decree that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days save King Darius, shall be cast into the den of lions. They then ensured that once the King signed the decree that he also signed a document stating that this law could not be changed. The trap was set and the victim caught. Daniel, as was his usual habit, continued to pray to Jehovah three times a day, facing Jerusalem, with his window open for all to see. Daniel was arrested for breaking the law and King Darius was devastated. The scriptures record that 'he laboured till the going down of the sun' to deliver him (Daniel 6:14), fasting and spending a sleepless night and when the morning came he went to the lion's den with haste to test his own belief that Daniel's God would deliver him (Daniel 6:16). Addressing Daniel as a 'servant of the living God' (Daniel 6:20) Darius called to him to come forth and was 'exceeding glad' (Daniel 6:23) to find him alive and unharmed. What can we learn from this? The usual lesson is that the Lord protects those who are loyal to Him and this truly is so but a further lesson lies herein. Looking at Daniel's life one cannot help but see that he was sent to Babylon and used by God to be his advocate with kings who presided over exiled Judah. This was Daniel's mission and God's purpose. Was Daniel successful in this? King Darius was certainly convinced enough to proclaim Daniel's God 'the living God' an made a decree that in every dominion of his kingdom 'men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God and steadfast for ever....' (Daniel 6:26,27). Daniel's story proves to us that God has a plan for each of us: "When we say God has a plan, he truly has a plan - not simply a grand scale, but for each of us as individuals, allocating some special talent to this dispensation and some to another. I regard God as the perfect personnel manager, even though he must work with and through all of us who are so imperfect. I assume, gladly, that in the allocation to America of remarkable leaders like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, the Lord was just as careful. After all, if you've got only one Abraham Lincoln, you'd better put him in that part in history when he's most needed - much as some of us might like to have him now" (Neal A Maxwell, Deposition of a Disciple, p. 46). We find another valid example of this concept in Queen Esther who had to marry King Ahasuerus of Persia in order to avert annihilation of all Jews in Persia and Media (Esther 1-10). Her story of intrigue and suspense reads like a modern day action drama series.

We can learn something about keeping covenants from Daniel's companions, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They too had risen to prominent positions within the governing body of Babylon and as such inspired jelousy amongst the other rulers of the provinces and in particular the Chaldeans (Daniel 3:8). When King Nebuchadnezzar erected a massive golden image for his people to worship, his three Jewish rulers were not found among the worshippers. The Chaldeans thought it their duty to report this to the King who summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and promptly reminded them that if they do not worship the designated image with his people they will be basically fried in a fiery furnace. He went further to assert his power by saying: "...and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" (Daniel 3:15). Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego were not perturbed. With boldness and daring they answered: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter" (Daniel 3:16). In other words, we are not going to weigh our words hoping not to offend you for we don't care if we do! They then made it known to the King that they would never worship his golden image and serve any of his gods even if they stood to perish. Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego had learnt something valuable in exile, that the covenant which their fathers had made with the God of Israel that they would have no other gods before Him is not to be broken. They knew this is what led them into exile and servitude to other nations. They therefore chose to perish rather than break the covenants which they made to worship Jehovah. Their spiritual resilience paid off. King Nebuchadnezzar, seeing the three Jewish rulers come out of the fiery furnace unharmed, acknowledged the God of Israel as 'the most high God' (Daniel 3:26) and made a decree that whoever should speak against the God of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego should be put to death.

God is a keeper of covenants. We find proof throughout the scriptures that He keeps His promises. Whereas the House of Israel had forsaken Him as their God, He has not forsaken the House of Israel. He will never break the covenant which He has made with Abraham that through his seed all nations of the earth will be blessed. This promise includes gathering the scattered Israelites who He longs to bring back. In the Book of Mormon we read: "Yeah, and ye need not any longer hiss, nor spurn, nor make game of the Jews, nor any of the remnant of the house of Israel; for behold, the Lord remembereth his covenant unto them, and he will do unto them according to that which he hath sworn" (3 Nephi 29:8). The question begs to be asked: if God always keeps his covenants with us, are we prepared to keep our covenants with Him? Even at the point of death? Would we gladly step into a fiery furnace before we would break the laws of obedience, sacrifice, chastity and consecration that we have covenanted we would keep? Is there a Daniel among us or maybe an occasional Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego?  These men could not be turned out of the path defined by their covenants or by their sense of right and wrong. We too can be like them and face the fiery furnace saying like Queen Esther did with all her daring: "If I perish I perish" (Esther 4:16).