Intro to Daniel
As I prayed and considered what would be helpful for our church going into the Fall, I could not get away from the book of Daniel. Daniel, who multiple times over risks his life to stand up for truth, refusing to worship anyone but God. In the face of one of the most powerful kingdoms of that time, in the presence of the king of that kingdom, Daniel was willing to die before worshiping an earthly king. See, Daniel knew who he belonged to. He knew that he was secure. He knew who he was because he knew whose he was. Daniel was able to keep his eyes on the One True King, and refused to let culture dictate where he directed his worship. We are talking about immense cultural pressure to shift his worship. Cultural pressure to change who he was and what he believed. Cultural pressure to distort truth, and even at times disregard truth altogether.
This is the world we are living in, in 2024. Immense cultural pressure to distort the truth, and at times disregard truth altogether. Cultural pressure to change who God created us to be. Cultural pressure to worship celebrities, political candidates, and even ourselves. Cultural pressure to fall into the trap that says, “your truth is the only truth that matters!” Cultural pressure to take our eyes off the One True King and place our hope somewhere else. A pressure to believe that one candidate will be the Savior of the USA and the other will be its ultimate end.
And perhaps the most tragic part of all is what these culture wars have done to the church, to those who call themselves Christians.
Jesus said in John 17:20-21, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
In the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, when Jesus is coming to the Father the night of His arrest, one of the things that He prays for is unity amongst believers. “For those who will believe in me, Lord make them one.” Why? “So that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
In other words, our unity as believers provides testimony to the world to the truth of the gospel. Unfortunately what we have seen over the last 5 years or so in the US has been counterproductive to kingdom work. Rather than unity in the church we have seen great division in the church. Churches taking public stances on political and social justice issues, causing many people to leave the church. Families splintered by different beliefs on issues of morality. Churches changing doctrinal issues to be more inclusive, even if it means twisting Scripture to fit a specific narrative. When we think about where we are as a culture, and how the enemy has successfully driven a wedge between many Christians, surely this grieves the heart of God. In my reading this week preparing for this morning, I came across an article in which the author compared what we see today to what was going on in the church at Corinth in the New Testament.
1.. Some Follow People Rather Than Jesus
In 1 Corinthians 1:11-13, Paul says, “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”
Now, I understand that the comparison begins to fall apart when we understand that those being followed were pastors and church leaders. But I think we can draw lines of correlation, specifically when we consider the current election cycle.
Because it seems like America is losing its grip on morality, and in many ways it is, what we can tend to do is place an unhealthy amount of hope in a specific person. When we do that, it can create great anxiety and fear in the world of “what ifs.” What if he doesn’t get elected? What if she doesn’t get elected? What will America look like in 4 years? Will my kids be safe anymore? Will I be safe anymore? What about the economy? What about public school systems? What about our borders? What about my freedom? And we walk these scenarios out in our minds and while it is ok and right to be concerned about the future, concerned about specific candidates, concerned about safety, and freedom, and the economy, it’s NOT ok to latch so tightly onto a political candidate that we lose our grip on the One who is actually in control, the Sovereign Lord of the universe who set all things in motion, and who grants authority to all world leaders in all of history.
Paul tells us that in Romans 13:1, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”
The church in Corinth had begun to latch on to people rather than Christ, and it caused division in the church. Daniel was told to latch onto an earthly king instead of holding fast to the True King. In the same way we can latch onto earthly leaders instead of holding fast to the Lord.
2.. Some Are More Comfortable with Tradition than Truth
Tradition being defined as “an established or customary pattern of thought, action or behavior.” Today, these patterns of thought, action and behavior have been redefined by culture to match feelings rather than moral truth.
Paul addresses this with the believers in Corinth as well. In 1 Corinthians 1:10, he says, “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” Some translations say “that you speak the same things.” Be united in what you say, in how you think, in your discernment. And again, the reason for this is so that “there won’t be any divisions among you.”
Paul addresses this in a more specific way when he writes his second letter to Timothy. Read 2 Timothy 4:1-4. Paul was talking to Timothy about a time that was coming and I believe we are living in it, right now. Change it to the present tense. “The time is here. People are not enduring sound teaching.” In other words, they are growing tired of solid, biblical teaching. Why? Because absolute truth doesn’t mesh well with relative truth. It doesn’t mesh well with feelings-based truth. People are accumulating teachers to fit their own passions, their own feelings, their narratives of morality. People are turning from listening to truth, and wandering off into myths, into fallacies, into false doctrine. “I don’t like what the Bible has to say on the issue of gender, or the lgbtq+ community, or abortion, so I’m going to go find a church that will preach a doctrine that matches what I feel is right.”
And then, what some churches have done is redefine what the Bible says in terms of these major issues. Whole denominations have split over these issues, and some are currently in the throws of debate and redefinition of doctrine.
This was true in the church in Corinth. And it was true of what was being thrown at Daniel and his friends as well. There was great pressure to forsake what they knew to be true and “wander off into myths.”
Our goal in walking through Daniel is to draw connections to the cultural pressure coming at Daniel and his 3 friends, how they dealt with the pressure in continuing to seek the Lord above everything else, how they stood fast in truth, and the cultural pressure coming at us, and hopefully along the way learn to hold tightly to the Lord in the midst of that pressure. Cool?
Now, I want to spend the rest of our time together looking at the historical context of Daniel, and set the stage for jumping into chapter 1 next week.
Historical Context of Daniel
We need to start back in Exodus when God made a covenant with Israel through Moses, the Mosaic Covenant. The conditions of the covenant are fairly simple in theory; if Israel is obedient, then God will bless them, but if Israel is disobedient, God will punish them. In Deuteronomy 28, we see what the specific blessings and punishments are. We don’t have time to read that whole chapter, but what you’ll find is this:
If you obey…
God will set you high above every other nation on Earth.
Everything you do will be fruitful, your children, your crops, your livestock, your work, your lives.
Your enemies will be defeated before you.
You as a people will be holy, set apart, abounding in prosperity, and the rest of the world will see it and understand why.
If you disobey…
Everything you do will be cursed, your children, your crops, your livestock, your work, your lives.
The work that you attempt to do will be frustrating. The sun will shine hot and the ground will be too hard to till. It won’t rain, it will be dusty. There will be fever and illness and all of these things will either kill you or drive you out of the land.
Your enemies will defeat you and cause you to scatter in 7 different directions.
There’s a whole lot more, but here’s what I want you to hear this morning:
Vs. 36-37 - “The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone.”
Vs. 49-50 - “The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.”
Vs. 64-65 - “And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.”
We need to skip ahead in history. After Moses comes Joshua, which is when Israel finally entered the promised land and had great victory in conquering and claiming the land. After Joshua came a period of judges. The last judge of this period of history is Samuel. At the end of Samuel’s tenure, the elders of Israel come to him and demand that God give them a king. This is rejection of God as their King, but the Lord allows it to happen, and this is where the monarchy begins.
Fast forward more now, past Saul, David, and Solomon. During the reign of Rehaboam, the son of Solomon, a great disagreement led to a great division and the kingdom of Israel split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. 10 tribes in the North, and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the South. The Northern Kingdom, called Israel in Scripture, almost immediately instituted a form of Baal worship, idol worship. About 200 years later, around 740 BC, the Assyrians came into Israel and began to conquer the people. 20 years later, they took the capital city of Samaria, and took tens of thousands of Israelites captive north into Assyria. At the same time they were bringing in people from other conquered lands to live in the land of Israel, which became more well known broadly as Samaria. Side note, this is where the hatred between Jews and Samaritans originated. One commentator notes, “The descendants of these foreigners and the remnant of Israel were later simply called “Samaritans.” During the time of Christ, the Samaritans were despised as an “unclean” people because of their mixed ancestry and rejection of temple-based worship.” So this was the Northern Kingdom.
In the Southern Kingdom of Judah, in around 605 BC, the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, came up from Babylon and made the king of Judah his servant. 3 years later, the king rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, King Neb came up and put an end to the rebellion, taking a number of Jews back to Babylon with him, and taking control of the land of Judah. Among those Jews were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. This is what’s known as the “first deportation.” This is where we find ourselves in the book of Daniel.
All of this ties back to the covenant that God made with the people of Israel through Moses. Obey and blessings will come, disobey and punishment will come.
Babylon was a place of idol worship, a polytheistic belief system of many gods. It was pagan, worldly, and evil. If you didn’t get behind their way of life, there were consequences. We’ll see that eventually when Nebuchadnezzar goes into Jerusalem in 586 BC and destroys the temple and burns Jerusalem to the ground. It’s said that they were the most powerful empire at that time and one of the most powerful of the ancient world. You didn’t mess with Babylon.
Conclusion
As we prepare to walk through Daniel together, I want us all to understand that the culture in which we live is not much different than the culture in which Daniel all of a sudden finds himself. It’s not much different than the culture that the church of Corinth found themselves in. It’s a culture that has progressively turned their backs on God. It’s a culture that values self over others. It’s a culture in which there is a disregard for truth and a confusion of morality.
Instead of having a last challenge of application, here’s what we are going to do. We are going to pray together. We are going to pray as a church family for this series. We are going to pray for each other. We are going to pray for unity.
