Can we assume that those whom God uses to perform signs, wonders and miracles are His people? that they are pleasing Him in their walk through this life? that they are members of His church?  Surely He would not use Satan’s people to fulfill His will.  As this series will prove, He not only can, but does use the ungodly to reach the ungodly.  All that glitters is not gold.  This is especially true in the spiritual realm.  God’s people know that what the church calls light is, more often than not, darkness.  God warned about this, stating that men would call evil good and good evil, that each would do what is right in his own eyes, that there is a way that seems right to a man, but that his way leads to death.  Let us return to ancient times to study a heathen king whom the Almighty used to teach other heathen some important spiritual lessons.  Let us remember that God does not change.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  Today He continues to use the heathen (goiim–Gentiles) to teach other heathen.  Today the teachees are called Catholics and Protestants.  The teachers are called ministers.

Following the defeat and enslavement of the Jews (tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi) by King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian (Chaldean) army, four young Jewish slaves, having proven themselves to be intelligent, honest and trustworthy, were placed in positions of importance in the king’s government.  Then something happened that threatened to cause their deaths, along with their fellow slave, Daniel.  We find that the Lord had sent King Nebuchadnezzar a frightening dream in which an enormous statue appeared.  The next morning the king could not remember the dream, but knew that it had frightened him.  His magicians could not tell him what he had dreamed, nor what it meant.  In a rage he declared that his spiritual advisors were all to be put to death.  Daniel’s God told him what the king had dreamed.  He also provided a glimpse as to its meaning, but only a glimpse.  Daniel did not understand the dream.  God told him that it was not for him to know.  He was to “seal up” what he had seen so that no one could examine it.  It would remain sealed (unknown) until “the time at the end” of the age.  Then, and not until then, He would tell His trusted ministers what the dream meant so as to alert His Very Elect that Christ’s return was soon to come.  Today His saints know that the statue represented four world-ruling kingdoms that would come on the scene in succession, then disappear.  The final (fourth) kingdom–the European Union–is forming rapidly.  Its formation points to the return of Jesus Christ to earth and the end of the world as man has known it.  All of the signs God gave us to warn of His coming have taken place, except three–the resurrection of the saints, the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord, which current events tell us are just over the horizon.  Here we find the Lord using a heathen king to speak to a heathen world.  Unfortunately, that world, though extremely religious, refuses to believe what God has shown her.  Back to the ruler of the physical world at the time of the Jews’ enslavement.

Unimpressed with Daniel’s God, Nebuchadnezzar king built a golden statue and demanded that everyone bow down to it.  Daniel’s fellow slaves in the government–Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego–refused to bow to it.  The king, enraged by their rebellion, had them thrown into a fiery furnace.  God miraculously saved them.  Once again He used use a heathen king to send a message to a heathen world.  Some time later Daniel was thrown into a lion’s den for disobeying the king.  His miraculous salvation is known by anyone who has ever gone to church.  Once again, God used one of Satan’s people to make a statement.  Having seen the light (temporarily), the king proclaimed that the God of the Hebrews was the true God Who had placed him (the king) at the head of the most powerful nation the world had ever seen.  Later he would be punished severely by that same God for his pride.  Again, God used the ungodly to teach the ungodly a valuable lesson.  Today God uses the ungodly to teach the ungodly.  The question is, are they listening?  All evidence says: “No.”

In future postings I will bring the theme of this series forward to New Testament times, including today’s religious world, in order to prove that God does not change.  He still uses heathen, myself included, to do miraculous things in order to teach their fellow heathen about Him. L.J.