Stopping the Power of Darkness — Leonard Ravenhill

Faith Is Exercised When Every Other Prop Is Removed

And we said about faith, which is, we all preach about so much, but have, I think, so little. And I'm quite sure, like the brother said the other night, that the only way really to exercise faith is to get, as a lady came to me one day, let me put it this way, and she said, you know, I enjoyed the talk about faith.

And he said, I really, really would like to exercise faith, and I said, well this is wonderful. And she says, but how do you really exercise it? I said, well, I know one way, I don't think it's the most popular, but there's one way when you can really exercise faith.

He said, well, all right, let me just, just let me write this down. I said, you want me to write it down? I said, because this is the, this is the secret, I think, is to get into such a jam that you can't get out any other way but by faith.

Oh, I'll think about it, he said. I'm sure she wasn't too worried, really, about learning how to exercise faith. But you know, God very often cuts all the props away until we've nothing to lean on, and no one to lean on.

And as I say very often to myself, if I have God, I don't need anybody else. If I don't need God, I need every prop I can get to lean on. But if I have God, he's my all-sufficiency. There's no inadequacy in him.

Often when talking about John 15, a very wonderful chapter, as you know, I often say to people before ever you read John 15, you should read Ezekiel 15. Because in Ezekiel 15, you have a description of the vine, which tells us that it's no good for anything at all.

You don't make furniture out of a vine, you don't, the vine is there for one thing only, and that is to produce fruit, and out of fruit, of course, you get the wine. Now by the same token, I think if you're going to study Abraham, you can't skip the fourth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, because it's almost entirely about Abraham.

And I think that in that fourth chapter of Romans, you have one of the very best, if you want to call it a definition of faith, in Romans 4 and verse 20, it says, He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He promised, He was able to perform.

Now as far as I'm concerned, if you really get that and digest it, masculate it, it gets, as I say so often, truth is no good up here, you've got to get it in the bloodstream. And if you really can get hold of that with both hands of faith, as it were, and say, well I'm fully persuaded that what God has promised, He is able to perform.

And you know Abraham in this situation was up against a jam, because two verses previously, it says, remember he was a hundred years of age and his wife was about eighty, and God had promised them that they should have a child.

Well as I said yesterday, it must have been a bit disturbing maybe to, for her to go to her mother. You see, we read the story as though they weren't human, as though the kind of cardboard figures, there's Abraham and there's Sarah, and they weren't like me, they never had emotions, they never showed any shadow of doubt, they were never disturbed, sure they were human beings.

And when the Lord began to work and challenge them, as I said, it may be sound almost facetious that she would say to her mother-in-law, to her mother, well, mother we're going. Well where are you going?

Well I don't know. Well how far is it? Well I don't know. Well how long will it really take you to get there? Don't know. Well what kind of a country is it? Don't know. Who lives there? Don't know. Well that doesn't sound too positive, does it?

I mean, it's hardly positive thinking. Excuse me Mr. Peel, but there you are. It seems so negative, negative. Don't know, don't know, don't know. It was a challenge of faith. But then when later Abraham comes up and he says, you know darling, we're going to have a child.

Oh my mother will enjoy me writing home and telling her I'm going to have a baby and I'm 80 years of age. This is really something, isn't it? Now are you sure you got this straight? And he is 100 years of age.

But you know, I think, now you can put it in other language, but I believe God had to back off from Abraham because he couldn't win with him. That even when he came to the place where he was willing to slay his son, Abraham says, so what?

What's the problem? No problem in me killing my son because God will raise him up again. Oh boy, I can't win with this fellow. Because if I kill him, I've got to raise him up anyhow. He said, if I destroy my boy, he's able and willing to raise him up again.

So the Lord says, well you've passed the test anyhow, you're willing to give him. And I'm able to raise him up again if needs be. Again, coming to this tremendous situation. Again, we read it so easy, it doesn't mean too much to us.

But you know, sometimes that thing that looks like a mountain to you, to Abraham, would have looked like a moral hill. He'd have said, oh, what are you sweating and worrying about? There's nothing in there.

The God that I trust, right. I'm fully persuaded that he is able to do all that he has promised. I have a phrase in one of my books, and folk have written to me about it and said it's blessed them and hurt them and all the rest of it.

It's the phrase where I happen to say that I think that we, as a generation of Christians, we're unbelieving believers. And then about three weeks ago I picked up Marie Monson's book. She participated in the Shang Tung revival.

And I was reading through this very rapidly for a certain reason, and she said, I came to the conclusion that we are unbelieving believers. So in the mouth of two witnesses it's established anyhow. And I think that one of the most embarrassing things when you and I get to the judgment seat, and really that's going to be something, isn't it?

Judgment, Promises, and Christian Inheritance

Hmm? When the whole game is finished, when the Lord isn't going to measure how high your church steeple is from the ground, or how big your Sunday school crowd was, I think when you and I stand naked and bare, I can't lean on my darling wife, she can't lean on me, you on someone else.

Though I do agree, of course, I believe that when the two become one flesh there's going to be some sharing in this. Because the word of God says that those who stayed at home got the same reward as those that went to battle.

But you know when we stand at the judgment seat, I think one of the most embarrassing things will be for the Lord to say, look at all these exceeding great and precious promises and most of you never even inherited one of them.

I don't know if you've been to Scotland, but Scotland, like other countries, the capital cities there, Glasgow particularly, has big areas of slums. I think it's called the gobbles there. It's an accepted fact, as ridiculous as it may sound, that in Scotland there are multiplied millions, if not billions, of unclaimed dollars.

Because people are never bothered to trace their ancestry. Somebody left somebody a million dollars, it's been accumulating, compounding the interest, it's getting bigger and bigger, and there are people living in slum property with rats and cockroaches and all the other rotten things around, who should be living up in the country in one of those castles.

And having five thousand or ten thousand acres of land and all the shooting and fishing rights and servants, but they're never bothered to sort the thing out, they're never bothered to trace and see if really I do inherit these things.

You see, now you can't inherit things because you're a child. Paul makes that very clear in his work. If a boy goes along and says, well I'm ten years of age, my father's John Smith, I've got photographs, here's the doctor who brought me into the world, here's my Aunt Mary, she identifies me, and I've got everything I need and now I've come for my daddy's ten million dollars, and they say, no sir, because there's a cause in this world that says you're not to inherit this money until you come to maturity.

Now because you're a child you can't inherit. Paul makes that very clear in Romans, I forget the chapter there for the moment. But he says you must come to maturity and then we can inherit. You know why the world is so stricken outside?

Because the church on the inside has failed to inherit. We haven't claimed our rights in Jesus Christ. To most people Christianity is escaping hellfire and a husband that doesn't spit on the rug and doesn't beat you up and doesn't get drunk and he's a nice guy.

And we're all sweet because our pastor says we're sweet. We pay our tithes and as a matter of fact we gave him a colored TV. I remember one hour and I went in to where the preacher preached a lot against TV and then at Christmas the people in church didn't know what to do so they bought him a colored TV and he took it and that solved the problem.

See the pastor has one now so he can't say all about our TV and that's alright he took it. Some of the promises in the word of God they shake me to my toes. I can't get over that word where it says we're heirs of God.

Now that takes my breath away. But after it says we're heirs of God it says we're joint heirs and we're joint heirs with Jesus Christ and Jesus said that he had everything that he asked of the Father.

Now why are we living in poverty? As I said the other day there's nothing God can do for the world I live in. He can't give us another Bible it's complete. He can't give us another Calvary. Jesus finished everything including destroying the power of the devil.

He can't give us another Holy Spirit. God has done everything he can do. It depends on our appropriation. Sure I believe in the sovereignty of God but as my good friend Duncan Camelot often says not independent of human personality.

God takes human personality and weds it to his will and then he performs. And so here we are we're faced with these what the Bible doesn't call promises it doesn't even call them great promises it calls them exceeding great and precious promises.

Faith, Prayer, and the Limits of Presumption

And if I can get Hebrews 11 and I've done this now I'm not ashamed to tell you this. I remember at Teen Challenge come into a series of challenges there and I would say to my secretary I'm going out and I may not be back today but if you do need me ring across to the house I'll be in my room.

And I would just go lay on my bed. I told you I used to say there's only one way to pray only one way to seek God and that's face downward. There's a scripture that says that if you search for it. And I don't like to lay on the cold floor it's not good anyhow but I always lay flat when I pray I lay across the bed.

And I have laid on the bed after I've opened to Hebrews 11 6 and stuck my finger on it and defied the world and the flesh and the devil and I've said God is and he is a reward of them that diligently seek him.

But before that it says without faith it is impossible to please God. Now as I said yesterday faith is not a magic carpet and faith is not a wishing well. It is not right to say that faith can do anything.

Faith cannot do anything. And I quote it again if you won't hear that if a bunch of us pledge ourselves to live the next week just in fasting and prayer shut up in a room spending day and night in intercession and fasting and believing for the conversion of the devil he still won't be saved however much faith we have.

There are certain things that God says will not happen. By the same token if you go pray around the grave of John Wesley we could do with him right now and we certainly need Luther to come along and shake the church of Rome for a change but what are you going to do?

Go around his grave and believe for him to be raised up? Oh no no no no. Oh no. We were in a church not long ago and the pastor in this very fine church got plenty of money had a very fine congregation I preach there often and one Sunday morning he stood up and announced that he was going to leave and it scared the people.

Some people came to me afterwards and said well what do you think what are we going to do? Won't the church fall apart? Well if it can it should. If it's built around the pastor then it should fall apart.

If it's built around Jesus Christ it won't fall apart. Well what do you think of it? Well I said I can only say one thing that comes to my mind now that when God buries Moses he raises up Joshua. This is the divine order.

But God I'm sure in these days is looking for men and women of faith. I had the privilege more than once of preaching in the Bible School of Wales. Some of you must know how many of you had Reese Harrell's Intercessor?

You read that? Well you should read it. One of the greatest books of our generation written by a fellow I've known for about 40 years Norman Graham. And after speaking in the college to the students and staff little Mrs. Harrell says Brother Raynell come here please.

And we walked up this great staircase. You could drive an automobile up it. It's very wide and we went up and turned left and turned right and then we stood on the veranda of this great old mansion used to be owned by a lord or a millionaire or somebody.

And as we looked down there was a great block of granite I suppose maybe eight, nine, ten feet long. There used to be an equestrian statue on it. That is a statue of a man on a horse. Now I don't know whether they did like the scripture says the horse and his rider they cast into the sea but anyhow they pulled the thing off and thrown it away.

And they chiseled deep into the block of stone by Jehovah Jireh. Now it's exciting to talk about faith. It's more exciting to exercise it. But it's pretty scaring sometimes when you think of what men dare to do.

Faith Reckons, Risks, and Rests on God

And yet in one sense there's no sweat and no anxiety about it. I've said very often and I say it over and over again to myself there are three things that faith does. First of all it reckons on God. He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

So faith reckons on the faithfulness of God. God said it, I do it. I phoned the other day about some insurance for driving this automobile. And they said we'll send it. But you're covered from this very moment.

Now I have nothing to prove that I'm covered. I haven't a piece of paper, I haven't anything. But I take the word of the girl in an office up in Ohio that at that moment she covered that automobile and I'm reckoning on the faithfulness of that group.

The first thing that faith does, it reckons that God is and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And then what does faith do? Faith risks. Or if you like to put the second thing is that first of all it reckons, then it risks.

It ventures out on God. So you reckon, then you risk, and then you risk. Why did Mrs. Reeshouse take me upstairs? She said, Brother Ravenhill, isn't this a lovely place? And I said, it's a marvellous estate.

The Welsh woman smiled and she said, you know, Brother Ravenhill, many people in the world, hundreds of thousands of people have read books by Norman Grubb. And they know, she said, that Daddy, meaning her husband, that Daddy bought this estate with a shilling in his pocket.

A shilling being about 12 cents at that time. And he went down to an office in town and he said he would buy this estate which, I don't know what it costs, I think I'd say $100 ,000. Now when he went in the office they told him he couldn't have it because he said, that man going out has just bought this place for the Roman Catholic Church and you can't have it.

Now we've got some other, we've got another estate up there called Skitty Fowl, you can have that. He said, the Lord told me I was going to have Durwen Fowl. That's the Welsh name for it. And the lawyer said, now you can't have Durwen Fowl.

Now look there, you see, you see, it's signed already, the document's signed. And you can't have it. Here's the cheque, see there's the cheque. It didn't dry yet. That man put a down payment on this estate, you can't have it.

Now I've got some other pictures round here, look I can show you a lot of, you see I've got estates like this. Now, now, what place would you like? And he said, Durwen Fowl. I've just told you, you can't have Durwen Fowl, the Roman Catholic Church.

Look, look, if you're not, if you don't agree with what I say, he said, here look, this is the, these are the conditions of the estate. Now you take it and read it. And he pointed to the office going up, one of those nuts from religious purposes.

So he sits there reading it and he says, well praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. What kind of stuff in an office? It's bad enough in church, but in an office. He said, say Mr. Lawyer, did you read this?

I read it through a dozen times. Would you just read that little thing there? Yeah, I read it. And under no conditions whatever must this estate ever pass into the Roman Catholic Church. Well that's funny.

I've read that half a dozen times. I never saw that before. Well now he said, is your document valid? He said, no it isn't. Are you going to buy it? You see, before he went he got a promise from God, from a strange obscure part of the Word of God, that God would give him so many wedges of gold.

And all he did was find out how much a wedge of gold weighed and then the current value of gold. And he worked it all out. And he says, thank you Lord. Now what if God tells us, you know, you're not to strain your faith.

You're only going to the measure of your faith. All men do not have faith. You hear somebody say over the radio, now every man has faith. Don't worry about that. You get in an aeroplane and sit down and he goes north and you know you're going south.

And he goes north and you don't ask any questions. You don't say, hey pilot, just a minute, just a minute. You just show me your certificate. You may be a garbage man in that uniform. I don't know whether you're a pilot.

Now show me a pilot's license. Now that's all right. Now show me the license for the plane. That's all right. Now just a minute. I noticed a man out on the wing there and he was talking. I'm not sure he filled up with gas.

You just let me walk out on the wing and take the cap off and dip in the tank and then I want to go to the other. Oh, wouldn't that be a wonderful performance if everybody did. You sit in a plane. As far as you're concerned, it's okay.

As far as the pilot knows, there might be something wrong with it or he fears there might be. One great fellow in the air industry once told me, he said, if you knew how little your life was hanging on, you'd never get in a plane anyhow.

Well, I don't like them. Flying's for the birds as far as I'm concerned. But anyhow, you don't check up like you sit in a plane. But that's natural faith in a natural man. It's got nothing to do with spiritual faith.

Because the apostle Paul says in the second letter to the Thessalonians, all men have not faith. Faith is the gift of God upon my repentance. And once I have faith, then I can exercise my faith.

Less than you exercise yours.

We don't all have the same measure of faith. This man had a measure of faith. He got a promise from God. He says to the man, I'll buy the estate. He goes home and he's, boy, I'm going to have a time of praise now.

And he got down there and started praising the Lord. And do you know what happened? As soon as he started praising the Lord, the Lord said, shut up. Did you ever hear the Lord say that? Maybe you didn't think he talked English like that, eh?

Did the Lord ever tell you to shut up? In other words, he says, I can't get a word in anyways. Why don't you shut up and listen to me? It's more important that you listen to me than I listen to you anyhow.

So he shut up. And he said, now Lord, what's wrong? He said, what are you going to pay for a derwent vows? What? Oh, he said, I promised, um, yeah, I promised I'd pay, for argument's sake, $120 ,000. Fine.

How much did I promise you? $100 ,000. That's all right. The Lord said, I'll pay my $100 ,000, you pay your $20 ,000. I don't have $20 ,000. $20 ,000 is nothing to you. Look out for my $1 ,000 here. Sure, they're mine, but they're not yours.

All that I'm giving you out of my resources is $100 ,000. That's all. That's all I promise. That's all I'm giving you. Now you'll find that, oh, I can't do that. Well, go back and tell the man in the office that you can't do it.

He'll think I'm a fool. Oh, he said, don't worry. He thinks that already. You don't need to bother about that. All you have to do, go back and tell him that you can't. So he went back and told his story.

And the man says, what do you mean? He said, well, God won't give me the money. Well, why didn't you sign it? Well, he promised to give me $100 ,000, but I can't get the other $20 ,000. Now, he got an assurance from God, but he tried to step over what God had promised him.

And God says, no, I'm not here for you to pull strings on me. You can't commit me to $20 ,000, never mind $20 ,000. Well, would you write to the owner of the building and see if he'll do something? Because I want this for a Bible school, and right now they have 350 children there.

I think Jimmy Stewart sent his children there at one time. They have 350 students, and every one of those children and students there are the children of missionaries. Nobody else can get in the school.

He wouldn't take my children. I tried to get them in once. He said, you're not a missionary. And here I am trying to get all the heathen in America saved, and I'm not a missionary. But anyhow, he wouldn't take my children either.

Well, Lord, what will I do? He said, write and tell the man, Lord so-and-so, who owns the building, will you? And he wrote to Lord so-and-so. Now, he was going $20 ,000 over what God had promised him.

But when he humbled himself and saw the face of God and obeyed God, this Lord so-and-so, who had expected about $175 ,000 for the place, and was chagrined that even the Roman Catholic Church was going to get it for $150 ,000.

Now, he was going to get it $30 ,000 less than the Roman Catholic Church, and he was getting a kick out of that. But he just couldn't put pressure on God for the last $20 ,000. So when they wrote to this Lord so-and-so and told him what was happening, he wrote back and said, in the circumstances, I'll be very happy to let the estate go for $80 ,000.

And instead of being $20 ,000 in the hole, he was $20 ,000 in pocket. Why? Because he obeyed God and he humbled himself. You know, it's amazing what we, what, what. You, you can't tell what God's going to do if you really obey him.

A brother came to me last night. He's not here this morning, I guess. And he said, Brother Ray, you know, you were here last May, we had the meetings in the other building there. One night we had a great break, and you remember a lot of men sought God.

And they wept and they prayed. And he said, it took me three or four hours, if I remember his words, it took me three or four hours to get really cleaned out with God. But God met me and changed my life.

Not only that. I think I'm right in quoting his figure. He said, we've been married for 16 years and my wife has had her epileptic fits regularly. And as soon as I got right with God and prayed, God healed her and she hasn't had a fit this year.

Since I know it's over there in the concrete or somewhere in one of these buildings, and I got straightened out with God and God immediately began to work in my family. Why? Because he obeyed God, that's why.

You can go beyond what God wants you to go and Satan will harass you if you don't watch out. And he'll tell you that God is unfaithful. God is unfaithful. You were unwise in the thing that you did. He didn't want you to go to $120 ,000.

Resting in God and Walking in His Word

Now faith will reckon on God, God's faith will risk on God, and then faith will rest on God. Now this epistle is a fantastic. It talks about a rest for the people of God, but lots of God's people are so restless, aren't they?

You know, we preach on parts of text. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And boy, we go after the sinner on that. Hey, but wait a minute, cross the bridge to the other half of the text.

Take my yoke upon you. Oh, I thought you got rid of your bondage. Sure you do. That bondage to this bondage. My freedom, Madam Guillaume said, my freedom is thy grand control. When I am free, then I make a mass of things.

When I'm in bondage to the will of God, a delightful bondage, my freedom is thy grand control. Here's a, here's a train going down a railroad track. I remember asking a man on one train, we were crossing the continent.

I said, what is this train doing now? He said, this is the straightest piece of the track, and we're touching about 90 miles an hour. So I said, I hope you keep on the track. Now there's a train with all its energy and all its might, but that train is only safe when it runs on the track they've laid down for it.

And I don't care how much energy you have, how many baptisms of the Spirit you have, how many gifts of the Spirit, you're only safe when you run down the track that God has laid for you. And that's inside of his word.

You know, heresy is truth you push too far. I believe in sanctification, I believe in entire sanctification. I don't believe in sinless perfection. My wife and I went to a conference two years ago, and they, it was a wonderful place, and we said to the lady who runs the place, you get a lot of wonderful people here, and she said, we certainly do, and we get some strange ones.

She said, we had a bunch just a few weeks ago that came in the loveliest kind of people you could meet. They were marvelous. Oh, how they prayed, how they thanked, how, how the gifts of the Spirit operated.

And, and, and when they'd gone through one meeting, I thought, well, this is going to be the greatest thing that we've ever had around here. And then she said afterwards to the leader, you know, I just discovered one thing that you didn't do that everybody's done all the years I've had a conference here.

You didn't open the Bible in your service. Oh, no, we, we gave the Bible up two or three years ago. We believe in direct revelation now. You see, when that which is perfect is come, that which is, and the Bible is only part revelation, and we've given up that, and we have direct revelation.

I don't believe it for a moment. Because the word of God said that heaven and earth shall pass away, but his word shall never pass away. Before long they'll, they'll skid right down, they'll be in a mess before too long.

Because the word is a lamp to our feet, the word is a light to our path. The word is a rod of correction, the word is the source of inspiration. And you can't be smarter than God. God has revealed himself by his Son, and he's revealed himself through his word, and he reveals the word through the Holy Spirit to inspire the word.

Justification by Faith and the Evidence of Works

Now, we're not going to deal here again with Abraham. We mentioned a little about him yesterday, and then we mentioned again about Noah. And you remember that we said that Abraham, on one level, he's justified by faith, but it says according to James, that's what Paul says, he's justified by faith.

But, uh, uh, James says that, uh, that, um, that, um, Abraham was justified by works. He was justified by works when he offered his son and was willing that God should take that son, but he was justified by works in the evidence he could give to the world outside.

Now, if we're, if we're right vertically, we should be right horizontally. If we're justified by faith before God, there should be works, real works of the Spirit through us that justify the faith that we have in works and in the fruits of the Spirit.

Otherwise, all we do is stand up, and I say the kids now, they're bored to death for the simple reason all you and I try to do is somehow safeguard God's reputation and preach about a man who died 2 ,000 years ago and think we're almost sprouting wings because we believe in the virgin birth and the physical resurrection.

And I remind you very respectfully, the devil believes in them all, but he isn't a Christian. The world is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity, it's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity.

The Full Gospel, Spiritual Gifts, and Revival

And I say again, if you're an honest interpreter of the Word of God, you've got to come to Hebrews 2 and get down to verse 4 as well as verse 3 on how shall we escape. If we neglect, how shall we escape?

The reason that we're in the mess that we're in, we're trying to escape the responsibility of preaching a full-on gospel. Because in verse 4 there, it says, God bearing the witness with signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Now, who are you to despise God or his gifts? You give me one scripture where you can outlaw gifts of the Spirit or fruits of the... Can you give me one? I say again, I get chills when I go to some conferences.

Somebody goes, well brother, glory to God, I thank God I believe on this old book from cover to cover. And in the next ten minutes he spends explaining why the gifts are not for today and why revival isn't for today.

And the young congregation sang just to give him a bit of a pep before he stood up. They sang, got any rivers you think are impossible? Got any mountains you can't tunnel through? God specializes in things thought impossible.

And then he spends time telling you why it can't happen. Now, what does the word of God say? The word of God says, and this is a terrible thing, that if you and I take anything out of the word of God, he'll take our place, our names, out of the book of life.

You say, Brother Raymond, I would never take a pair of scissors and cut anything out of the word of God. Well, preach, I want to tell you something, for the last three years you've been taking it out because you never preached it and it's the same thing.

If you shut up on it, if you try and find some fancy interpretation, if you run to some book because this brother taught it, it doesn't make it right because anybody preaches it. You've got to test it by the word of God.

And I'm absolutely convinced that many reasons for the bankruptcy in our churches these days is that we do not follow through on the things of the Spirit of God. They're not just gifts of the Spirit, they're gifts of the Lord Jesus.

Because when he rose again, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now, I'm not going lopsided on those things, but I want him to see again a full-on gospel that everything Jesus died for should be manifested in his church today.

And when such things happen, you don't have any dead meetings, you don't have any problems with money, you don't have any problems at all if we follow what God says in his holy word. You believe that God is?

He is a reward of them that diligently seek him. You believe that these promises are all underlined by an infallible, holy, eternal God? Let's skip over. We've said a few things about Abraham. Then we come to Noah.

Moses, Civil Authority, and Obedient Faith

That's a very, very interesting story. But this morning I thought we'd look at another character here. In verse 23 of Hebrews 11, it says, Moses, when he was born, was three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.

Now, I know what some people will say if you say that you're not responsible to the state. First of all, they'll thumb back into Romans and say now you've got to be in subjection only up to a certain point.

See, it's very easy to raise your hat to heroes of faith, isn't it? It's something else to be in their situation. Supposing Daniel had subjected himself to the laws of the state, what would have happened?