DANIEL: ABIDING UNDER PAGANISM

1. DANIEL: ABIDING UNDER PAGANISM

2. Daniel: Abiding Under Paganism • Introduction A. What? B. Why? (Relevance) C. Terms • Historical Contexts A. Biblical - BC B. Contemporary - AD • The Text - Biblical Lessons • Conclusion

3. Influence of Christianity on Western Civilization • “No other religion, philosophy, teaching, nation, movement—whatever—has so changed the world for the better as Christianity has done.” • Paul Maier, How Christianity Changed the World, Alvin Schmidt, pg. 9. • “The liberty and justice that are enjoyed by humans in Western societies and in some non-Western countries are increasingly seen as the products of a benevolent, secular government that is the provider of all things. There seems to be no awareness that the liberties and rights that are currently operative in free societies of the West are to a great degree the result of Christianity’s influence.” • How Christianity Changed the World, Alvin Schmidt, pg. 248.

4. “History books are filled with the rich details of men and women whose lives were changed by Jesus Christ and impacted the world through ideas found in Scripture in a wide array of disciplines. To deny the influence of Christianity on Western Civilization is to deny history altogether. Although at certain times there loomed dark areas in church history by those who deviated from the faith the overall positive contributions far outweigh the negative. There is no mistaking the fact that Christianity has changed the world for the better.” • “Influence of Christianity on Western Civilization,” Cheryl Stansberry, pg. 16.

5. http://2012books.lardbucket.org

7. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) • “He knows not how to rule a Kingdom, that cannot manage a Province; nor can he wield a Province, that cannot order a City; nor he order a City, that knows not how to regulate a Village; nor he a Family that knows not how to Govern himself; neither can any Govern himself unless his reason be Lord, Will and Appetite her Vassals; nor can Reason rule unless herself ruled by God, and (wholly) be obedient to Him.”

8. Charles baron de Montesqueiu (1689-1755) • “It is not enough for religion to establish a doctrine; it must also direct its influence. This the Christian religion performs in the most admirable manner, particularly with regard to the doctrines of which we have been speaking. It makes us hope for a state which is the object of our belief; not for a state which we have already experienced or known: thus every article, even the resurrection of the body, leads us to spiritual ideas.” • Book XXIV. Of Laws in relation to Religion Considered in Itself, and in its Doctrines

10. JOHN ADAMS • February 22, 1756 entry in his diary: • "Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God....What a eutopia, what a paradise would this region be."

11. PATRICK HENRY • In May, 1765, speaking of American Independence, he wrote: • “Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed upon us. If they be wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone shall exalt them as a nation. Reader! whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.”

12. JOHN HANCOCK • In the anxious days leading up to the Revolutionary War, in a call to prayer and fasting, on April 15, 1775, he said: • “In circumstances dark as these, it becomes us, as men and Christians, to reflect that, whilst every prudent measure should be taken to ward off the impending judgments…All confidence must be withheld from the means we use; and reposed only on that God who rules in the Armies of Heaven, and without whose blessing the best human counsels are but foolishness--and all created power vanity.”

13. JOHN ADAMS • On June 21, 1776, in a letter to his grandson, who was a minister: • “Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue; and if this cannot be inspired into our people in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. They will only exchange tyrants and tyrannies. You cannot, therefore, be more pleasantly or usefully employed than in the way of your profession, pulling down the strong-holds of Satan.”

14. GEORGE WASHINGTON • From 1796 Farewell Address • “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

15. On October 11, 1798, in an address to military leaders: • “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

16. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE He observed and wrote about America beginning in 1831. As a foreigner he may be regarded as an outside, objective witness to the Christian nature of early America. Excerpts of his two-volume work, Democracy in America: • “Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.” • “In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.” • “Religion in America...must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief.”

17. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE “I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion -- for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.” • “In the United States, the sovereign authority is religious...there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.” • “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other…. Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts —the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.”

18. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE • “I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution.” • “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.”

19. ABRAHAM LINCOLN Excerpt from proclamation appointing a National Fast Day relative to the Civil War, March 30, 1863: • “Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. • “It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence on the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history that those nations only are blessed whose God is Lord.”

20. ABRAHAM LINCOLN Account of L. E. Chittenden of comments from a conversation in Summer 1864: • “That the Almighty does make use of human agencies, and directly intervenes in human affairs, is one of the plainest statements of the Bible. I have had so many evidences of his direction—so many instances when I have been controlled by some other power than my own will—that I cannot doubt that this power comes from above.”

21. GEORGE WASHINGTON • October 3, 1789 • "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor. ... Now, therefore, I do recommend ... that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed. ... And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions ... to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue."

22. DANIEL WEBSTER • February 3, 1852 • “If we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion,—if we and they shall live always in the fear of God and shall respect his commandments,—if we and they shall maintain just moral sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life,—we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country; and if we maintain those institutions of government, and that political union exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former examples of political association, we may be sure of one thing, that, while our country furnishes materials for a thousand masters of the historic art, it will be no topic for a Gibbon,—it will have no decline and fall. It will go on prospering and to prosper. But if we and our posterity neglect religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. If that catastrophe shall happen, let it have no history! Let the horrible narrative never be written! Let its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which no human eye shall ever read, or the missing Pleiad, of which no man can know more than that it is lost, and lost forever.”