The big message conveyed by the book of Daniel is
that God has His hand firmly not only on the life of individuals – as here in
Daniel’s life, but God has His hand firmly upon the events of this world. This
is a good book for us as we consider the future with anxious minds, wondering
what will happen to this world in which the Babylonian spirit continually
challenges our Christian faith. How shall we live in a world that has taken us
captive, continually forcing us to accommodate to its standards? The answer is
– No compromise on the essentials! May
the book of Daniel be of great
encouragement to us at this time.
The book of Daniel divides into two sections. The first 6 chapters are told in the third
person about Daniel and his friends and their experiences in Babylon. The last
6 chapters are a series of prophetic visions (in first person reports), similar
to those visions of John in the book of Revelation. The dating of this writing
(by conservative scholars) is around 530 BC.
OUTLINE OF CHAPTER 1
1. 1:1-2 A reflection on Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Jerusalem
2. 1:3-7 An introduction to Daniel and
His three friends
3. 1:8-16 A resolution
by Daniel and his friends to take
a firm stand on their principles
4. 1: 17-21 A description of the outcome
of their courageous stand
1. 1:1-2 A reflection on
Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Jerusalem
Our text
begins with an historical reflection of a time when God gave Jerusalem into the
hands of her enemies: “In the third year
of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah (608 – 597BC), Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the LORD gave Jehoiakim, king of
Judah into his hand…”.
Why did God give Jerusalem into the
hands of her enemies? This needs some explanation. Long before this, God chose a man called
Abraham. He promised that through Him all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. Abraham had a family and that family became a nation. That nation by
virtue of a severe drought had to move to Egypt, where it remained for 400
years. God called that nation out of Egypt to receive her promised land. They
were led out by Moses via the Sinai desert. In the desert they received
instructions concerning the nature of
true worship and with it a tent of God’s dwelling and a consecrated priesthood.
Under Joshua they eventually settled in the Promised Land. That land was
divided among their 12 tribes. Then the
time of the Judges followed. These were deliverers of Israel from her enemies
when there was no king in Israel. This
is followed by the period of the kings. The greatest king was David. Following
David’s death a king called Rehoboam made
foolish decisions and from that time onward the kingdom was divided in two. The northern
kingdom (capital: Samaria) was made up of 10 tribes, and the southern kingdom (capital: Jerusalem) was made up of 2
tribes. These two kingdoms developed a complicated relationship – and it was
mostly bad. Essentially the NK was ruled by wicked kings, leading to God’s
judgement (key prophet: Isaiah). The Assyrians dismantled the NK in
722BC. The SK continued for another 100 years. Their kings were a mixture of
good and bad. Evil began to dominate and
again God acted in judgement (key
prophet: Jeremiah). Over a period of
21 years (605- 586 BC) the Babylonians
under Nebuchadnezzar dismantled the SK and carried most of its people into
Babylonian exile. Babylon was found in ancient Mesopotamia. The ruins of the
city of Babylon lie in modern-day Iraq about 90 km’s southwest of Baghdad. The ultimate reasons for Israel’s demise were
not the mighty Assyrians, nor the powerful Babylonians. The primary reason
given is this: “And the LORD gave
Jehoiakim, king of Judah into his hand…” (1:2). The LORD had handed them over (echoes of Romans 2), because
Judah, like her northern sister had committed spiritual adultery and apostasy
from the living God.
The lessons from these first 2 verses are obvious. God does not ignore sin. Disobedience to God always carries a heavy price tag. Please note that God had been truly patient with Israel. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…”[1]. God always leaves ample room for repentance. Time and again, He sent His prophets to warn His wayward people (see Jer. 7:25). But the nation would not listen. They ignored, mocked, despised and even mistreated God's prophets. But He will not ignore sin. He is the consistently holy God who must, and who will deal with all sin, all that is opposed to His holy nature, in His time. God's patience means that judgement does not come immediately.
The story is told of a newspaper in the American Mid-West, which printed the letter of an atheist farmer who, to disprove the beliefs of his Christian neighbours, had devoted a certain portion of his land to the planting of corn, doing every bit of work on this section on Sunday. He wrote, "I find that in September I have more bushels of corn per acre on that part of my land worked exclusively on Sunday than my neighbours have on their land, which they did not work on Sunday. Doesn't that prove that there is no God?" The editor who was a Christian man responded, brief and to the point: "No! That does not prove that there is no God. It simply proves that God does not always settle His accounts in September."
Dear people fear God and hate sin. Remember that God hates
sin, and if He permits it to go unchecked for a while in your life it is simply
to give you an opportunity to repent. But there will be a day of accounting for
all who persist in evil (cf. Rom. 2:3 -
6).
And now we find ourselves zoomed into a small group of Jewish
young men that had been carried into exile. This is where we find ourselves now in the
book of Daniel.
2. 1:3-7 AN INTRODUCTION TO DANIEL
AND HIS THREE FRIENDS
The Babylonian strategy was to take the cream from every nation they had conquered, and to assimilate these into the Babylonian civil service. Ashpenaz (1:3) here was a eunuch in Nebuchadnezzar’s service. His job was to train some of the captured Hebrew young men. Here were four of them. They were to enter into a comprehensive programme of re- education, whereby the whole spectrum of Babylonian learning was going to be instilled into their young minds. Their names were changed.
DANIEL -"God has judged" becomes Belteshazzar, "keeper of the hidden treasures of Bel"; HANANIAH - "God has been gracious" becomes Shadrach, "the inspiration of the sun", which the Babylonians worshipped. MISHAEL -"He that is the strong God" becomes Meschach, "of the goddess 'Shach'. AZARIAH - "The Lord has helped" becomes Abednego, "the servant of the shining fire", which they worshipped also. Babylon already has their bodies captive and now it wants their minds too. Nebuchadnezzar wants them to dress as they dress in Babylon, and speak as they speak in Babylon, and behave as they behave in Babylon, and even eat what they eat in Babylon.”[2] For this purpose he chose these young, intelligent, agile, fertile minds, the young trees whose stems he could bend. The Roman Catholic denomination of the Jesuits had a saying, “Give me the child for the first seven years and I'll give you the man.” The problem was that these young men (boys) had spent their first 7 years instructed by the law of God and. They knew the God of the law.
3. 1:8-16
A resolution by Daniel and friends
to take a firm stand on their principles
Nebuchadnezzar chose not only to re-educate these youths, but
to also rename them. He also commanded that they should receive food from the
king’s table. Now it is significant that with all these changes Daniel chose to
draw a line in the matter of food: "Daniel resolved that he would not defile
himself with the king’s food or the wine he drank ..."(1:8). He did not object to being trained in “the literature and language of the
Babylonians” (1:4). When they
were given new names (1:7) he said
nothing. After all, they knew their real
names, whatever else someone else chose to call them. But when it came to the
matter of food (1:5,8) he would not conform.
What was the issue here? Apparently, every Babylonian kingly meal began with an
act of pagan worship, and so they refused to eat this food on grounds of their
reverence for the God of Israel. [3] This food was dedicated to false gods and therefore it was defiled. Daniel chose a hill to die on.
Now they ran a very great risk of offending the king and the
Babylonian court officials, but Daniel graciously insisted, that they should be
tested, whether they would in fact be any worse off, if they did not eat the
King's food. As Daniel resolves to honour God in this situation, so God
undertakes for Daniel in that situation. Ashpenaz is sympathetic to them 1:9 - a great hurdle crossed!
4. 1: 17-21 A description of the outcome of
their courageous stand
Truly, the great principle and promise contained in 1 Samuel 2:30 is in operation here: God
says: “Those who honour me, I will
honour; but those who despise me will be despised.” God honours Daniel and
his friends for their courageous stand. The vital lesson found here is simply
this: Nobody loses out by refusing to compromise. They did not lose Ashpenaz’s
respect; they kept their heads; their health was excellent, and they had
received so much more from God in terms of supernatural wisdom and
understanding (1:17). From God's
point of view - they had been faithful in little; so He could trust them with
much in the future. If Daniel had not
stood firm at this point, if he had compromised, could he possibly have stood firm later in the fiery furnace (3:8ff) or in the lion’s den (6:1ff) ?
“And Daniel was there
until the first year of King Cyrus” (1: 21). This final verse
of the chapter is fast forwarded. Let’s get perspective. Who was Cyrus? He was
a Persian ruler who took over Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian kingdom in
539BC. The mighty Babylon of the beginning
(1:1-2) is now gone at the end of this chapter. Nebuchadnezzar
is dead and gone and Daniel, God’s servant now in his 80’s is still there. Kings
are coming and kings going, world empires are rising and falling, but Daniel still there
until the first year of King Cyrus. 70 years later here is still there! He has outlived his enemies.
We shall see in future
chapters that this young man of
God, Daniel, who had been taken as a prisoner to Babylon would have an
extraordinary influence in that empire.
And what an unforgettable year that first year of Cyrus
was, when an edict was passed that God’s people could return to Jerusalem in
accordance with the prophecy made by Jeremiah [Jeremiah 25:8-14 ; 29:10-14].
The greatest reason why
God’s people still existed in Babylon, and why the faith of Israel had
not been extinguished is because there
was a man like Daniel who had kept the faith, who had not
compromised, on whose legacy by the grace of God men and women
- women like Esther and men like Mordechai would build
their faith.
Through the grace of God Daniel knew some things better than
the greatest men in all the world. May you too know your God better in 2023
.
No comments:
Post a Comment