Christian Devotional – July 1, 2026

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 38

The history lesson. Read Daniel 5:18-22.

There’s a saying that those who don’t know or study history are doomed to repeat it. This is a very appropriate saying for today’s reading. Daniel has to give the king a history lesson. We were just reading about this in Daniel chapter 4, so the lesson is very fresh for us, however, apparently the king’s son didn’t remember it. Now that the son is king, he’s doing all the things that his father was doing before God humbled him.

Daniel doesn’t start off by reading the message from God. Instead, Daniel starts off by reminding the king of the history of his father. The king should know this. It shouldn’t come as a surprise because the king would have known what his father went through during his reign. His father had even written a letter to his entire kingdom about what happened (Daniel 4) and so everyone would have known this story. Still, Daniel starts here as a way to remind the king.

Unfortunately, the new king was doing all the old, bad habits of his father. Daniel wants to make sure that the king understands this. And, Daniel wants him to know that he was going to be held accountable for knowing that these actions and attitudes were wrong. We are able to see all the things that others have done that were right and wrong. In fact, through the Bible, we see countless examples of ways to follow Christ and ways to avoid. Daniel tells the king that he should have known better, and God will tell us that we should know better as well. Are we seeing examples of sin and wrongdoing in the Bible, and do we avoid those examples in our own lives? We have a greater knowledge of what it means to live an obedient Christian life, so we have greater accountability for living out that knowledge every day. This king is going to be accountable for how he didn’t learn from that example. Are we going to make changes in our own lives based on what we have learned from others?