3:6,7
The beast in Revelation waged war on God’s people. Here anyone who did not fall down and worship was to be “immediately thrown into a blazing furnace. And so people of all nations and peoples of every language fell down and worshipped the image. We need to realise that the vast majority of people are ruled by fear, and they will go along with all sorts of nonsense out of fear or delusion. Sometimes in the church we seem to rely on the “good Christian sense” of people. When a society has a basically Chrisitan foundation, as the West had for a significant length of time, this may be reasonable up to a point (but only up to a point). When a society has abandoned its Christian roots, as we have, it is foolish to make this assumption. The only hope we have this for society is the power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit.
3:8,9
Daniel and his friends had been promoted, and the dream incident of chapter 2 caused envy of the Jews, even though the actions of Daniel had saved the lives of all the wise men. There is nothing new about people singling out the Jews, and they do so out of envy. We see it today, especially in relation to the Middle East. So these astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews, and pretended to honour the king. In reality they were only interested in themselves.
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