Persecution comes to everyone, no matter what social class, creed, gender or color moments of despair brought out by someone else or some system will come. Now, persecution usually comes because of one’s belief and though it usually comes from another bodily person, it does also come from our enemy of the soul; a spirit. Persecution or pressure is also a tool that God uses to draw his people to closer to him and to do what he has already planned. There are those few of us that do not respond to well to persecution and will give in and submit, but there are those of us who will press even harder and will not give in. Persecution most of the time will come unexpected and most of the time when all things are fine and dandy. King Nebuchadnezzar was a mighty king of Babylon and had his kingdom running smooth as it could be, even the captives slaves from the Jews were fine. One night the king had a dream, but the dream in the morning when he woke up was completely forgotten. The impact of this dream was so powerful that the king woke up tormented, but the funny thing was that he forgot the entire dream. So, he called all the wise men from this kingdom and tasked them to tell him the dream and the interpretation; something that was absurd for no other king in the history of man asked such a thing. And, so the persecution began, the king ordered to execute all the wise men in his kingdom, for no one could give him the dream and its interpretation; that is until Daniel understood the demand.
Daniel 2:17-18
17 Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:
18 That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
Daniel and his Jewish friends were living calm life at Babylon until the reason for urgency came about. God put this urgent feeling in Daniel and his friends to seek him. It is such as the state of the church; living a complacent and calm life, that now a days God is putting an urgent feeling for what is to come in us. It was as such urgency with the people of Nineveh in the times of Jonah as Daniel, that it took the threat of being destroyed by God through the preaching of Jonah for them to urgently seek God (Jon3:8). The same happened in the book of Acts when the first church was established, that they were calm and complacent with no problems. That Saul (Paul) ordered the execution of Stephan, and such brought out the Christians who were living complacently to go and leave their homes and preach the gospel (Acts 11:19). Paul spoke of this urgency of the day of salvation to the church in Romans 13:11 “This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed”. The purpose of the dream of king Nebuchadnezzar was to develop in him an urgency of the kingdom of God which was coming, like the day of Salvation mentioned by Paul, and it was not going to have an end like his kingdom would (Dan2:44) it will never die. The kingdom of God will never end, but the day of Salvation is really close to come, and so we need to be ready.