Digital Logos Edition
This commentary on Daniel the Prophet by H. A. Ironside, published first in the early years of the 20th century under the title Lectures on Daniel the Prophet, is still well-liked and widely-read today. Its enduring popularity nearly a hundred years later, attested to by the continuous reprinting of the book, can only be explained by its straight-forward, clear and persuasive exposition of the author’s thought.
Known best for his world-wide preaching ministry, H.A. Ironside’s commentaries on every book of the New Testament and of the Old Testament Prophets are considered by Tim LaHaye and Michael D. Stallard to be, “some of the warmest and most cherished devotional commentaries in the history of dispensationalism.” Derived from stenographic recordings of his sermons and later edited into book form, their style “is characterized by devotional exposition, the simple outline of complicated issues, a creative ability to provide fresh wording and illustrations aimed at warming the heart and changing the life, and a continuation of the heritage of simple Bible readings that were emphasized in the Niagara Bible Conferences of the late nineteenth century” (Lahaye, Stallard).
(from the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology)
Popular Bible teacher, evangelist, pastor, and author. Born in Toronto, Canada, “Harry” Ironside moved with his family to California in 1886. There at the age of fourteen he was converted and began to preach. After a brief period as a Salvation Army officer, Ironside resigned because he no longer accepted the holiness view of “entire sanctification.” He joined the Plymouth Brethren and started what would become a highly successful itinerant ministry of preaching and teaching. Though essentially self-taught, he was always in high demand as an expositor at Bible conferences and institutes. From 1925 to 1943, he served as a visiting professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. From 1930 to 1948 he was pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, a position that earned him considerable criticism from the Plymouth Brethren, who reject the idea of “one-man ministries” and of receiving a stipulated salary for preaching the gospel. During a preaching tour of New Zealand, Ironside suffered a fatal heart attack and was buried in Auckland in January, 1951.
In addition to his itinerant and pastoral ministries, Ironside is best known for his prolific literary output. He produced close to a hundred major books and pamphlets, mainly on expository and prophetic themes. Ironside was a major figure in the popularizing of dispensationalism among American evangelicals and for the most part followed the views of the Scofield Reference Bible.
“What a lesson for us—that purity of heart and faithfulness to God come before enlightenment in divine mysteries! I” (Page 22)
“Mark you, the only way to go on with God is by being faithful in little things. He who honors the Lord by conscientious adherence to His Word in what some would call minor details is likely to be exercised about greater things.” (Page 18)
“Singularly enough, as we might consider it, God connects this with their failure to keep the sabbatic year. He had told them, when they came into the land, that every seventh year must be His. For 490 years they had not kept one sabbatic year.” (Page 13)
“But there was a second and greater reason still why God chose to give His heritage over to the power of the Chaldeans. For centuries idolatry had been gaining ground among them. They had turned away from Him, the living and true God, to serve the false gods of the heathen. Now Babylon was the home of idolatry; so thither the Jews were sent, that they might learn to loathe the idols they had loved. And we find the lesson was well impressed. Ever since the captivity the Jewish nation, whatever its other sins, has been free from this great evil.” (Page 15)
“The rule is that ‘the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.’” (Page 19)
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