So today we're starting a new series in the book of Daniel called Daniel's World.
Daniel's a great book, also a great name if you're having a baby anytime soon.
Really strong name.
And today we're going to do chapter one, which is called A Long Way From Home.
When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man,
when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part,
when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man
that all the world shall be amazed.
Watch his methods, watch his ways.
How he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects,
how he hammers him and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him
into trial shapes of clay which only God understands.
While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands,
how he bends but never breaks,
when his good he undertakes,
how he uses whom he chooses
and which every purpose fuses him,
by every act induces him
to try his splendor out.
God knows what he's about.
That anonymous poem speaking about how God shapes and molds and uses unlikely people
in his world to bring him glory.
And this would be so true of Daniel and his three friends.
These people that we're going to take ten weeks to look at together.
How God used Daniel and his three friends to influence the most pagan nation on earth.
How God shaped, gifted and transformed Daniel to be his man
in the courts of four different emperors
and two different empires over a span of seven decades.
These men who refused to let a hostile society squeeze them into its mold.
Daniel a book that is vital in encouraging us to remain faithful to God
despite pressures to compromise and conform.
Daniel's Babylon, as we shall see, is very similar to our Edinburgh.
Our gods just have different names
and our temples are less clearly defined.
Daniel is a believing individual
swimming against the tide of the surrounding culture.
And so his story resonates with our experience.
We know what it is to be vastly outnumbered.
To be the only believers in our families, our workplaces.
To be the only believers in our friendship groups and social spheres.
Daniel and his friends, who from their teenage years
set their faces like flint to remain believers both publicly and privately.
In a society dripping with idolatry.
At great personal cost.
And so it has so much import for us today.
As we're called to glorify God both publicly and privately.
Even in a hostile culture.
Daniel is a unique book in many ways.
It's a book of two halves.
The first six chapters are six narrative stories.
The final chapters are four apocalyptic visions.
It's also written in two different languages.
Chapters one and the first bit of chapter two are in Hebrew.
Chapter two to the end of chapter seven are in Aramaic.
And chapter eight to the end of the book are back in Hebrew.
So in the middle of the book you have an evangelistic tract.
In Aramaic, which would be the language that most of the world spoke.
An evangelistic tract talking about the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar.
What a useful book this would be.
It's also a wonderfully accurate book.
We know lots about the Babylonians.
We have loads of extra biblical evidence that perfectly line up with what we read in Daniel.
They write their voracious chronologists.
They chronicle everything in this weird cuneiform language which Daniel and his friends would have to master.
So let me read Daniel chapter one for us and then we'll have a few thoughts.
Daniel chapter one.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.
Along with some of the articles from the temple of God.
These he carried off to the temple of his God in Babylonia.
And put in the treasure house of his God.
Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his courts, to bring into the king's service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility.
Young men without any physical defect.
Handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning.
Well informed, quick to understand and qualified to serve in the king's palace.
He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians.
The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table.
They were to be trained for three years.
And after that, they were to enter the king's service.
Among those who were chosen were some from Judah.
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
The chief official gave them new names.
To Daniel, the name Belteshazzar.
To Hananiah, Shadrach.
To Mishael, Meshach.
And to Azariah, Abednego.
But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine.
And he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself in this way.
Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel.
But the official told Daniel,
I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink.
Why should he see you looking worse than the other men of your age?
The king would then have my head because of you.
Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel,
Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah,
Please test your servants for ten days.
Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.
Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food
and treat your servants in accordance with what you say.
So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.
At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished
than any of the younger men who ate the royal food.
So the guard took away their choice food and wine they were to drink
and gave them vegetables instead.
To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding
of all kinds of literature and learning.
And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
At the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service,
the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar.
The king talked with them and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
So they entered the king's service.
In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them,
he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.
And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.
Let's pray.
Father God bless us as we look at your word.
Teach us and change us.
Glorify your son.
Father thank you that you are the same God who was with Daniel in Babylon
who's here with us this morning.
So Father help us we pray in Jesus name.
Amen.
First thing I want us to see is the deportation to Babylon.
Verses 1 and 2 are absolutely shocking.
It is the day that no one in Judah ever thought would come.
The sacking of Jerusalem was close a hundred years before during the reign of King Hezekiah.
Sennacherib, the Assyrian emperor, had marched on Jerusalem.
And then just as they were about to engage, Sennacherib unexpectedly withdrew and Jerusalem was temporarily spared.
Over the preceding century, the geopolitical scene had totally changed.
Sennacherib, the emperor of Assyria was the big man.
He was the one in charge.
But a hundred years later, Babylon is the big power.
They are the unrivaled superpower in the world.
And their position had been swelled, particularly through a coalition with the Medes,
who are going to turn up a little bit later on in the book of Daniel.
This unstoppable force, this Babylonian war machine,
had in 612 BC decimated Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire.
Seven years later, Babylon had struck the decisive blow against the Egyptians
at the enormous battle of Carchemish.
They are now the unrivaled superpower in the world.
The undisputed champion of the world.
The Tyson Fury of the global scene.
Having dispensed with Assyria and Egypt,
the Babylonian war machine fixes its gaze on minute Judah.
Judah standing all alone.
605 BC, the northern territory of Israel had been conquered
and decimated by Assyria many years before
and consigned to the pages of history.
So in 605 BC,
the third year of the ineffective puppet king,
King Jehoiakim,
Nebuchadnezzar having conquered all that stood in his way,
now besieges Jerusalem.
The outcome is a foregone conclusion.
It is a highly skilled, mechanized, battle-hardened, gargantuan Babylonian force
coming up against parochial Jerusalem.
It is challenger tanks versus pea shooters.
And Babylon is bound to win.
And as we read in verse 2,
Jehoiakim is defeated.
Jerusalem is occupied.
And the temple articles are plundered and placed in the treasure house of Marduk,
King Nebuchadnezzar's chief god in Babylon.
This is a crushing blow to the Jewish people.
What does it say about everything they believed?
What does it say about their gods?
Their god who was supposed to be supreme and in charge.
The only real god in the whole world who made the heavens and the earth.
What does it say that these pagan hordes have just destroyed
and robbed
his nation's capital?
Perhaps Yahweh wasn't that big a deal after all.
Perhaps he was just a tribal deity for a small people
who told great stories to improve their self-esteem.
What does it say about God that his people have just been utterly routed
by the Babylonians?
And not only that, but what does it say about God's promises?
That God's people living in the land that God had given him,
who had placed his name in a very symbolic and special way in Jerusalem.
What does it say now that that has the Babylonian flag hoisted up?
The Jerusalem flagpole.
And what about the promise of a king?
The promise that a Davidic king would reign on David's throne forever,
ushering in peace and prosperity on earth.
And now King Jehoiakim, who was a rubbish king,
gives way to no king.
Not just not a Davidic king, but no king at all.
Was it time to write God off?
Was it time to say that Yahweh had utterly failed
and had made promises beyond his ability to deliver?
And just to top it off, it wasn't any invading party,
it was the Babylonians.
The Babylonians from Babylon or Babel on.
That place that symbolically shakes its fist at God.
That place from Genesis 11 that said,
let's build a tower for ourselves.
That reaches up to heaven to make a great name.
Utterly defiant of God.
And though it seems to be a great tower in their eyes,
what does it say in Genesis 11?
That God had to come down to see it.
It was so small in his eyes.
That tower on the plains of Sheena.
If you look at the footnote in verse 2,
these he carried off to the temple of his God in Sheena,
it's the same place.
Almost like going back to square one.
Almost like God's dealings with his people
over the last millennia have been utterly in vain.
Now they find themselves back on the plain
under the heel of a people who have got no time for Yahweh,
no time for his promises
and real hatred for his people.
Had it all been utterly in vain?
Well, to the secular historian,
it makes perfect sense.
The dog with the biggest teeth gets the biggest dinners.
The one with the biggest army conquers the biggest territory.
The conclusion was obvious.
Of course Babylon overran Judah.
It's to be expected.
But this is not how Daniel saw it.
This is not how he writes his book many years later
as he's reflecting on this.
Eighty years in Babylon court.
What does he say?
Look with me at verse 2.
And the Lord and Yahweh delivered Jehoiakim,
king of Judah,
into Nebuchadnezzar's hand.
The first thing Daniel says about his God in this book
is that God is in charge.
God is sovereign.
He's involved.
Daniel doesn't just inform us of what happened.
He tells us why it happened.
Why did it happen?
Because God allowed us.
The God of the universe allowed his people to be vanquished
by the Babylonians.
Daniel is a Bible guy.
He's been well taught by his parents.
He was nurtured during the wonderful reformations
ushered in by King Josiah.
Daniel had heard the words of Jeremiah ringing in his ears
who had warned Judah a few years before Nebuchadnezzar arrived.
God warns Judah through Jeremiah
telling them to do what is just and right
with the warning.
But if you do not obey these commands,
declares the Lord,
I swear by myself that this place will become a ruin.
For this is what the Lord says about the palace of the king of Judah.
Though you are like Gilead to me,
like the summit of Lebanon,
I will surely make you like a wasteland,
like towns not inhabited.
I will send destroyers against you,
each man with his weapons,
and they will cut up your fine cedar beams
and throw them into the fire.
People from many nations will pass by this city
and will ask one another,
why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?
And the answer will be,
because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God
and have worshipped and served other gods.
This was not purposeless suffering as a result of chance
in a pointless, rudderless universe.
This isn't the result of might is right.
This was discipline enacted by the sovereign Lord
for his glory and the ultimate benefit of his beloved,
but wayward people.
Daniel was a Bible guy,
and it enabled him,
it enables him to remain faithful to his sovereign Lord,
even when it seemed everything was crumbling around his ears.
It means that even when he is taken as a prisoner of war
to the capital of a distant land
for a radical program of social education and indoctrination
into Babylonianism,
he will not capitulate,
because he understands the ways and the will
and the discipline of the sovereign Lord.
If we too interpret our circumstances through the lens of God's word,
resting in its truth,
understanding the God who reveals himself to us,
then it will ensure we will not be swamped,
even when what we see with our eyes
doesn't line up with what we believe in our hearts,
even when it involves suffering,
we'll still be those who can say,
God, you're in control and I trust you.
Isn't that what we learn in the book of Job,
who loses everything?
And yet, what does he say?
I'm better for it because I now see you better.
I now see you, Lord, and understand your ways more.
If there's one thing we learn from Daniel chapter 1,
it is that we're to build our lives
on the unshakable truth of God's eternal word.
And this will enable us to stand firm
even when the storms blow and the floods come up.
First thing we see is the deportation to Babylon.
And then they arrive in Babylon
and they undergo a process of assimilation.
Look at verses 3, 4, and 5.
Look at the criteria you need to reach
in order to be deported.
From the royal family or nobility,
young men without physical defect,
handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning,
well-informed, quick to understand,
qualified to serve in the king's palace.
Think I'd probably be able to remain at home.
But this was part of Nebuchadnezzar's genius.
He would take the top 1% of a conquered civilization,
he would deport them to Babylon,
he would then indoctrinate them with all things Babylonian.
He would assimilate them into the Babylonian society,
and then he would send them back
to be vice-regents of the conquered nation.
It was a political bit of genius
that he shored up his conquered territories.
Daniel and his friends are selected,
and the package they receive is remarkable.
A three-year scholarship at the Babylonian University,
the most highly reputed educational institution
in the ancient world.
Then they would be fast-tracked to the top
of the civil service.
Not only that, but they would get full board and lodging
consuming food that was literally fit for a king.
It's a pretty good deal.
15-year-old, full scholarship,
highly reputed institution,
banqueting like a king.
And the city of Babylon would make Jerusalem
look like a small market town.
It would be like moving from Edinburgh
to the city of London in scale terms.
The architecture was awesome in every sense of the word.
Nebuchadnezzar, whose wife was from the countryside,
had built the hanging gardens of Babylon
so she could walk out of the palace and feel at home.
This, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world,
just so your wife could feel at home
in a sprawling metropolis.
That's real love.
Nebuchadnezzar's palace was a picture of opulence and grandeur,
with his throne room being 50 feet by 160 feet,
which is enormous.
Protruding out of the skyline was the ziggurat Etimanaki,
the cubic skyscraper,
which is called the foundation of heaven and earth,
with its seven platforms rising 100 meters in the air
as a reimagining of the ancient tower
that once stood on this site
in a culture just as defiant as the one back in Genesis.
Around the city was 120 feet high wall,
80 feet thick.
He could ride a chariot around the top
and it would go all the way around
the 56 mile diameter of the city.
Entrance into the city was through one of the gates
dedicated to various gods,
the most famous of which is this one,
the Ishtar Gate,
which you can see the actual gate,
which has been reconstructed
in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin.
Has anyone seen that?
Pete Buvert,
he'll tell you how impressive it is,
with its blue tiles and pictures of lions
all over it.
Babylon was dripping with idolatry.
Within its walls were 1,197 temples.
Every emotion,
every phenomena,
every bit of produce would have its own gods.
The temples were libraries,
training institutions,
trade guilds,
and cultural centers all rolled into one.
It was a city submerged in idolatry,
drowning in idolatry.
The pinnacle of the year was the spring festival,
where King Nebuchadnezzar would go out
in front of all his people
and would be slapped by various priests
until the tears ran from his face,
showing to everyone that it was in fact the gods
and their priests that were in charge,
not the king at all.
As Daniel and his friends roll into Babylon,
imagine the awestruck wonder
at beholding such a sight of civilization.
A culture centered on learning,
making great strides in astrology,
science, literature, architecture,
and the arts.
Everyone on their wrist
has a mark of the genius of the Babylonians
who invented the sexy decimal system,
which splits minutes into 60 seconds
and hours into 60 minutes.
That is preserved by us today.
Daniel and his friends were in Babylon
to become Babylonians.
They would be fully immersed in the culture,
affronted by the idolatry
and indoctrinated with the learning and language.
They were there to be rewired
from their antiquated Hebrew ways
into the cutting edge life
of Babylonianism.
And look at verse 6.
The curriculum starts with
their names being changed.
As they matriculate at the Babylon University,
they're told that they need
some better identifying names.
To name someone is to show your power over them.
And so their names are changed.
And it's not just for convenience.
It's an attack on their very identity.
Daniel, whose name means
Yahweh is my judge,
has his name changed to
Belshazzar,
which means Marduk,
the chief god of the Babylonians.
He protects my life.
Yahweh is judge too.
Marduk protects my life.
Hananiah, whose name means
the Lord shows grace,
has his name changed to
Shadrach,
which means
I am under the command of Aku.
Aku is the moon god.
Again, totally changed.
Mishael,
there is no one like Yahweh.
And his name is changed to Meshach.
There is no one like
Aku,
the moon god.
Azariah,
whose name means
the Lord is my help,
has his name changed to
Abednego,
which means
servant of Nabu.
And Nabu,
in case you were wondering,
is the prince of the Babylonian gods,
the son of
Marduk.
Every part of their life
in Babylon
is designed to strip away
their witness
and dismantle
their identity.
Daniel and his friends
are powerless
to stop their name
being changed.
They also give themselves
fully to their studies,
engaging wholly
and heartedly
in their learning,
understanding
and gaining wisdom
with the aim
of mastering the subject.
Look at verse 20.
In every matter
of wisdom
and understanding
about which
the king questioned
these men,
he found them
ten times better
than all the magicians
and enchanters
in his whole kingdom.
Literally
ten hands better.
They could do
everything
better
than even
the most established
professors,
priests,
enchanters
and magicians.
so well
had they taken
to their studies.
But the reason
wasn't so much
their industry,
it was their devotion
to Yahweh.
Because verse 17
says,
but to these
four young men
God
gave
knowledge
and understanding.
However,
Daniel and his friends
are in Babylon,
they are learning
about Babylon,
but they never
are of
Babylon.
Their hearts
continue to beat
wholeheartedly
for Yahweh
even when
saturated by
their surrounding
culture.
May that be
true for us.
We as Christians
are immersed
similarly in exile
and a different
version of Babylon,
bombarded by
worldviews from
every side
that are an
affront to our
identity in Christ.
A society
that tries to
strip us of
our confidence
permits only
a privatized
faith and
relentlessly tries
to squeeze us
into its
secularized
anti-theistic
mold.
So what do we
need?
We need the two
things that Daniel
and his friends
have,
discernment
and devotion.
Discernment to
understand that
nothing is
neutral or
objective,
that everything
is proselytizing
a worldview
in our culture.
Every film,
every news report,
every article,
every advert,
every political
standpoint,
all of them
are sponsored
by different
modern day
versions of
the king of
Babylon.
We need to
be discerning,
not necessarily
shutting our ears
or adversely
our eyes,
though that might
sometimes be
necessary,
but using our
God-given
discernment not
to be naively
taken in by
their message
and assimilate it
into their way
of thinking.
An example
would be
children going
to school
and they're
told repeatedly
that they are
the products
of matter
plus time
plus chance
and have no
dignity or value
and are just
like the animals.
They're just a
little bit further
up the evolutionary
chain.
We must be
those who offer
them the true
minority report
that they are
known,
loved and made
in the image
of the creator
God and are
therefore those
of intrinsic value,
dignity and
worth,
not allowing our
children to be
assimilated.
We need
discernment.
Our workplaces
tell us that it
isn't appropriate
to talk about
God at work.
Again, we need
discernment.
Why should the
public propaganda
of secularism
demand an absolute
silencing of
believers?
Persecution is
when believers
are punished for
speaking about
their faith.
Assimilation is
when believers
don't talk about
their faith,
having swallowed
wholeheartedly
the worldview
that it's not
appropriate.
When we do,
just privatize
our faith.
We'll do it
on Sunday
and behind
closed doors,
but never publicly
before a watching
world.
We also need
devotion.
A Red Hawk
deep devotion
to the Lord
our God.
A heartfelt
faith in the
truth of God's
word and a
sheer dependence
on the grace
of our God.
Unless our
heart is beating
wholly for the
Lord Jesus,
we will easily
be assimilated
and swamped
by the competing
worldviews propagated
in our society.
And our identity
will be eroded
in the process.
The final part
of Daniel chapter
one is taken up
with the stand
that him and
his friends take.
Keeping with
the sound,
the postulation,
the taking of
a stance
in Babylon.
It seems like
a really weird
thing, doesn't
it?
Seems like a
really weird
thing out of
all the learning
and the name
changing,
out of being
deported from
your home in
Judah,
that the thing
you're going to
take your stand
on is your
food.
And commentators
write endlessly
about what is
going on
in this
scenario.
And they offer
things like this.
perhaps they
didn't eat
the food
because of
the Jewish
food laws.
They weren't
sure of the
origin.
They thought
actually Nebuchadnezzar
might be partial
to a bit of
rock badger,
which they
weren't allowed
to eat,
and therefore
we won't eat
it because we
can't trace
where it's
come from.
And rather
than defile
Yahweh,
we'll just
eat veg.
The problem
with that is
they also
refuse the
wine.
And there's
nothing in
Leviticus 11
and 12
about the
food laws
saying that
wine,
under any
circumstances,
makes you
defiled.
Which brought
them to the
second view.
Perhaps they
didn't eat
the food
because it
was offered
to idols.
That would
be very in
keeping with
the teaching
of Deuteronomy,
and particularly
Deuteronomy
chapter 6.
I'm sure that
is part of
what is going
on.
But so
imbibed with
idolatry is
Babylon,
that there is
a God of
agriculture and
farming.
there is a
God of
produce and
vegetation.
So to
think these
vegetables
weren't also
offered to
the gods
first,
is probably
not the
case.
Ishtar,
the one that
gate is named
after,
has a real
part to play
in farming.
And almost
certainly the
farming guild
would offer
their produce,
their veg,
to her
first,
before it
made its
way to
Daniel and
his friends.
So perhaps
they were
just making
a point.
Perhaps this
was just
their only
means of
protest.
Well it's
a bit weird
going on
some kind
of hunger
strike,
but not
doing it
publicly,
but going
to see the
person in
charge of
you and
saying,
I don't
really want
your meat,
please can
we just
have
veg and
water?
Oh and
if it
doesn't
work then
in ten
days we'll
revert to
exactly what
you want
us to
eat.
No
problem.
So I
wonder what
are they
doing in
their
vegetarianism?
Well here's
the kite I'd
like to
fly.
What if
their
vegetarianism
is a
means of
them showing
their dependence
on God
to supernaturally
intervene in
their situation?
What if
they were
disciplining
themselves and
reminding
themselves that
the source of
their health
provision and
sustenance
wasn't
ultimately from
Nebuchadnezzar
and his
plethora of
gods but
was from
their God
Yahweh the
God who
is over
all?
Let me
try and
show you
where I
get this
from.
They only
eat vegetables
for ten
days and
are then
set to be
compared with
their peers.
The official
is fearful.
Why is he
fearful?
Why should
he see you
looking worse
than the other
young men of
your age?
Worse is a
word for
scrawny.
Why should
he see you
looking thin
and emaciated
amongst your
peers?
And then
verse 15.
At the end
of the ten
days they
looked healthier
and better
nourished than
any of the
young men who
ate the
royal food.
That phrase
healthier and
better nourished
is a bit to
our 21st century
sensibilities.
It says they
were fatter and
fuller in
flesh.
It seems
that in
Babylon
overall diameter
was something
you were
looking for.
And so it
seems to
my eyes that
they said
let's just
eat vegetables.
Trusting that
God was able
to take
vegetables and
supernaturally
intervene in
order that they
would outperform
their peers in
their kind of
anti-weight
watchers kind
of society.
I've never
seen a fat
vegetarian and
therefore it
seems that God
has so intervened
that they look
fatter and
fuller in
flesh even on
this diet of
veg and
water.
It must be
supernatural
intervention.
If you're
banqueting at the
king's table
breakfast, lunch
and dinner and
you're doing
that for ten
days you might
put on a bed
of timber I
think and
yet the guys
eating veg are
fuller and
fatter in
flesh.
If that is so
then what an
interesting application
for us.
What choices
are we making
or my making
or you making
in your life
to show that
our ultimate
dependence, our
ultimate security,
our ultimate joy
is bound up
with God.
My fear is that
we're all too
self-sufficient,
too self-sustaining,
just doing what
we can do and
never trusting.
Our society
says that
security is to
be found in
money in the
bank for the
rainy day.
And therefore I
wonder is the
way we use our
money a way to
show that our
ultimate dependence
is on God.
To be generous,
to hold it
loosely, to
not stockpile the
blessing we
receive but be
a reservoir of
it funneling to
other people.
A way of
showing that by
the use of our
treasure that our
treasure is not
our treasure but
Jesus is our
treasure.
Our treasure says
that academic
success is of the
most paramount
importance to
forge a good
future for
yourselves.
So when
coursework,
revision and
studying comes,
it takes priority
over everything
else.
even gathering
together on a
Sunday is
forsaken for
time in the
library.
Is committing
to local church
at the sacrifice
of a few hours
of study a way
of showing that
actually our
future is not
ultimately bound
up in our
ability to
comprehend
textbooks but
is bound up in
a red hot
devotion to the
Lord Jesus.
Worshipping him
through our
work, not
worshipping our
work.
our society
pedestals
family and
silos family
life away
from and over
everything else.
Is having a
permeable family
life, open
homes and a
sacrificial
investment in
our wider
church family,
a way of
showing that
our supernatural
family formed
in Jesus is
of equal and
eternal worth
when placed
alongside our
natural families?
God
is the
ultimate source
of our
faith in
Jesus Christ
is the
ultimate source
of our
identity, the
ultimate source
of our worth,
the ultimate
source of our
security and the
ultimate fountain
of our joy.
What for us is
going to be like
the vegetables of
Babylon?
How we do life
differently to
show all that we
have in Jesus?
us.
Daniel and his
friends lean
wholly on Yahweh
to intervene and
provide in their
lives in a way
that marks them
out from their
peers and
testifies to
God's goodness
to them and
his sovereignty
over them.
The deportation
to Babylon,
our God, is
sovereign and
in control.
The assimilation
by Babylon,
our God, they
say, is the
source of our
identity.
The
postulation in
Babylon, our
sovereign Lord,
is our hope
and our help.
And see how
God intervenes.
He intervenes in
history, verse 2.
He intervenes in
relationships, verse
9.
He intervenes in
the life of the
individual, verse
17.
He's interested in
the big stuff and
the little stuff.
He does global
politics at the
same time he does
your individual
academics.
Behind the
relaying of
history, there is
the sovereign Lord
who is working
out his purposes
in and through
individuals in
the course of
his history.
And this
phrase in
verse 2 and
verse 9 and
verse 17, God
gave, just
building up as
this small story
in the story of
God's enormous
intervention, that
it would be this
God who gave
his only son to
transform absolutely
everything.
God who intervened
most decisively in
the person of the
Lord Jesus given
by God in order
that those who
have been in
exile in Babylon
for all of their
lives would have a
home forever with
God.
Daniel is a tiny
story in the
unfolding story of
God and his
sovereign plan to
redeem a people for
his very own
possession.
who will worship
him alone above
the competition of
this hostile
society.
Let me pray.
Father God, thank
you so much for
this story of
Daniel.
Thank you how it
speaks so relevantly
to where we are as
people in this
place in history.
Thank you that it
speaks of your
sovereignty and your
goodness.
Thank you that it
speaks of your
absolute control over
absolutely everything.
And so Lord, I
pray we would trust
you as Daniel did.
we would seek to
show that trust to
the watching world.
And Father, through
it, you might use us
to influence many in
the way that you used
Daniel for such a
long period to make a
real difference in the
society in which you
placed him.
So Lord, we would say
you are our trust,
you are our hope,
the source of our
identity and the
fountain of all of
our joy.
So Lord, would you
keep your rightful
place in each of our
lives.
For the glory of your
Son, we pray these
things.
Amen.