Living in Exile: Don't Hang Up Your Lyre

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, it’s great to have you join us in person for our worship service. I hope you all are doing well.

I have a couple of announcements to highlight this morning from your bulletins.

The men’s group will meet tonight at 6:30, discussing Lifestories by Mark Hall. There will also be a men’s prayer breakfast next Sunday. All men are invited to attend those.

We’ll also be holding our first security team meeting tomorrow evening. If you’re on the security team, please make every effort to attend that.

I spoke with Danny last night. He said that Brenda is out he hospital and has been moved to the Albermarle Health and Rehabilitation Center. She’ll likely be there for a month or so, probably a little longer, but she’s doing much better, and they all very much appreciate your continued prayers.

Sue, do you have anything this morning?

Opening Prayer

Father God, we gather here today under your care and protection. Thank you for your lovingkindness that never fails us. We thank you for those with us, that you would guide our thoughts and actions to bring you glory. Strengthen us and fill us with your peace. Help us to love as you do and to act wisely so that others will be drawn to your salvation and hope. May we love and serve each other as Jesus has shown us. May we build each other up and encourage each other as we give you all the glory. Fill us with the Holy Spirit to do your good work on earth. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Sermon

Last week we talked about how important it is for you as a Christian to understand that your real home is with God. Your real home is in what’s called the first heaven, and ultimately in the new heavens and new earth that John writes about in Revelation 21.

That means this world is not your true home. You’re just passing through on your way to what the Bible describes as “a fairer country,” which is a great way to put it. So you shouldn’t get attached to the things of this world, because the things of this world are fading away. Everything is. But in our true home, in that fairer country of heaven and on the new earth, everything will be constantly new.

But enduring this broken world until we get to heaven can be a hard thing. It’s tough living in exile, in a place that doesn’t usually share our belief and our faith. That’s one reason why the Bible gives us Daniel as an example to follow.

Last week, we learned how important it is to support our country and get along with everyone, but it’s more important to remain true to what God says. You have to draw those lines like Daniel did. Whenever our culture runs up against God’s commands, you always have to choose God, because He’s the one you’ll ultimately have to answer to.

Besides Daniel, there’s another major character in these first few chapters of the book of Daniel, and that’s king Nebuchadnezzar. And as we move on to chapter 2, we see that Nebuchadnezzar is deeply troubled about something. Let’s find out what it is. Turn with me to Daniel, chapter 2. We’re going to begin with verses 1-19:

In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king.

And the king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.”

Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.”

The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The word from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation.”

They answered a second time and said, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation.”

The king answered and said, “I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is firm — if you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you. You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation.”

The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king's demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

Because of this the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. So the decree went out, and the wise men were about to be killed; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them.

Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. He declared to Arioch, the king's captain, “Why is the decree of the king so urgent?” Then Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king.

Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.

Now skip down to verses 26-30:

The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?”

Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these: To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.”

And this is God’s word.

It’s hard to put into context just how powerful and wealthy Nebuchadnezzar was. We talk about wealth and think of someone like Elon Musk, who’s worth about 140 billion dollars. That’s so much money it’s hard for us to wrap our minds around it. But compared to the average worth of the average Babylonian, and even the average king, Nebuchadnezzar’s wealth would dwarf the wealth of anyone living today.

And when it comes to power and prestige, it’s hard to come up with anything greater than the office of the President of the United States. Whoever is president of our country is said to be the leader of the free world. That’s a whole lot of power, a whole lot of prestige, and it’s also a huge, huge burden.

Nebuchadnezzar had even more power and prestige than any of our presidents. Combine Elon Musk and George Washington, and you might be about halfway to how Nebuchadnezzar was viewed throughout the known world at that time.

He was the sole power over the mightiest nation on the face of the earth. Nebuchadnezzar answered to no one — or so he thought. It’s likely he even believed himself to be a god. But he was still very human, and we see that at the beginning of chapter 2. Because Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.

But this isn’t just any dream. What he really has is a nightmare. Verse 1 says that “his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him.” The Hebrew word for “troubled” means to be broken and disturbed. This nightmare is so bad that Nebuchadnezzar feels it in his bones. It’s so bad that he can’t sleep for the rest of the night.

Both in the ancient world and in a lot of cultures today, dreams have a huge significance.

Some dreams are just the mind trying to process things. But then you have others that mean a whole lot more — they’re warnings or messages from God. The Bible is filled with stories of God communicating with people through their dreams. Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t believe in the one true God — at least not yet — but he’s convinced that this is a message has come from somewhere beyond himself.

So when morning comes in verse 2, he does what all good kings of that time did — Nebuchadnezzar calls in his wise men. The magicians, the sorcerers, the philosophers and the scientists. The Chaldeans. There’s a special word for these people, one we talked about just a few weeks ago. They’re called magi. The wisest people in the entire kingdom.

And Nebuchadnezzar lays it all right out there in verse 5 — “The word from me is firm,” he says. “You’re the smartest people in the kingdom. I had a dream last night that I can’t shake. Tell me what the dream was and what it means.”

And the wise men say, “O king, live forever! We’re your servants. We’re happy to tell you what your nightmare means. Just tell us what your nightmare was about.”

“Nope,” Nebuchadnezzar says. “You tell me what the nightmare was, and you tell me what it means. If you do that, I’ll make you rich and famous. But if you don’t, I’ll have you torn limb from limb, and then I’ll tear everyone in your family limb from limb, and then I’ll make sure that all memory of your life is wiped from the face of the earth.”

So the magi try again, and they’re probably speaking really slow now: “O king, we can tell you all you need to know about your dream. You just have to tell us what … your … dream … was.”

“No,” the king says. “You guys say you’re so wise and know all these secret things. You’re just stalling. Show me that you really have all these special powers and that they’re not all just tricks.”

You can imagine what these magi are thinking here, can’t you? They really are wise, they’re knowledgable. And they either really do know some sort of dark magic, or their grasp of science is so advanced that the things they can do really seem like magic to everyone else.

But they can’t do this. They can tell the king the meaning of his dream, but they can’t tell him what the dream was. In fact, they say in verses 10 and 11, “There isn’t a person alive who can do what you want. Only the gods can, and they don’t talk to us.”

And Nebuchadnezzar loses it. He just snaps. He doesn’t have to listen to logic and common sense. He’s the king. Plus, don’t forget he’s still scared to death, and he’s probably cranky because he’s been up all night.

And why does Nebuchadnezzar want the wise men to tell him what his dream was? It makes perfect sense that he’d want the wise men to tell him what his dream meant, but why is he so adamant that they tell him about the dream itself?

Some scholars think that Nebuchadnezzar didn’t really trust his wise men. He thought they were all just smoke and mirrors. But I don’t think so. All through Daniel we see the Babylonian kings going to the magi for answers or advice.

There’s probably a much simpler reason why Nebuchadnezzar demands the magi tell him what he dreamed: he’s forgotten it. Nebuchadnezzar can’t remember what his nightmare was about.

You’ve had that happen, haven’t you? You got up some morning and you’re all out of sorts and you say, “I had the worst dream last night.” But when someone asks you what it was about, you have no idea. You just know it was terrible.

That’s Nebuchadnezzar. But the difference between you and him is that he’s the most powerful person in the world. He’s desperate, and he’s used to getting his own way. He’s just gotten a warning from heaven, but he doesn’t know what that warning means or even what that warning was, and these so-called wise men can’t help him at all.

So Nebuchadnezzar lashes out. In verse 12, he commands all the wise men in Babylon to be killed, and he does it for the same reason we often lash out too — for maybe the first time in his life, Nebuchadnezzar realizes he’s not in control. So he responds the same way we do, with angry outbursts and irrational actions.

Which brings us back to Daniel again, because the king has just sentenced all the magi to death, and guess what Daniel and his three friends are by now? They’re magi.

I’ll get to the way that Daniel responds to all of this in a minute. Right now I want to talk about the response itself.

In verse 14, we’re introduced to a soldier named Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard. But Arioch is more than that. His title means something else in Hebrew. It means “chief executioner.” This guy is a professional killer. But he’s also a professional soldier and a man of honor, because he seems to realize the order he’s been given isn’t a wise one.

Verses 13-15 don’t say it outright, but it seems like Arioch understands what the king really wants. It isn’t to have all the magi killed, it’s to find somebody who can tell him about this dream.

So Arioch goes to Daniel and shares everything that’s happened, and then Arioch says, “I know you and your friends are wiser than anyone else around here, but if you don’t figure out a way to handle this, I’m going to have to kill you all.”

So Daniel heads to the palace and tries to get an appointment before the king on the next day. Then that night, God gives Daniel a vision that tells him both what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was and what it means. Daniel heads right back to the captain of the king’s guards the next morning. Arioch gets Daniel in front of Nebuchadnezzar, and Daniel explains everything.

I didn’t include that dream or Daniel’s interpretation in today’s scripture, so I’ll give you a quick summary:

There was a great idol with a head made of gold, chest and arms made of silver, a stomach and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of both iron and clay. Then the idol was smashed, Daniel says, by a stone carved by no human hand. The wind carried all the pieces of the idol away, but the stone that struck the idol became a great mountain that filled the entire earth.

Daniel says, “You, O king, are the head of gold.”

And you can imagine Nebuchadnezzar sitting up a little taller on his throne thinking, “Well all right, maybe this dream isn’t so bad after all.”

“But,” Daniel says, “another kingdom is going to rise up and overtake you. And then another kingdom will overtake that one. And then one more kingdom will rise up, and that kingdom will be the mightiest of all. But even that one will fall. And in the days of that last kingdom, God Himself will begin another kingdom that will never be destroyed.”

Now, what’s the idol in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream represent? The idol is made up of four metals, and those four metals represent the four great empires of the ancient world. The gold represents the Babylonian kingdom. But then the Persian empire would be born, that’s the silver, and the Persians would defeat the Babylonians. Then would come Alexander the Great’s empire of Greece, the bronze. He would defeat the Persians. And then finally would come the iron and the clay, the Roman empire, and Rome become the greatest empire the world had ever known.

But just when Rome was at its most powerful, a child named Jesus was born in a nowhere place along the fringes of the empire. And that child would grow to become the great stone that smashed the idol in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Even as the greatest empire in history faded, the kingdom of Christ grew to a size that made even Babylon look tiny, and its king is far greater and more powerful than any human king could ever be.

Here’s the message of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and it’s a very simple one but one you should never forget — these kingdoms that rule the world, these powers that seem so great, God sets them up, and God takes them down.

Nebuchadnezzar’s power didn’t come from himself, no matter what he believed or what false gods he worshipped. Look at what Daniel tells him in verse 37: “You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory.”

That was God’s message to Daniel, and to Nebuchadnezzar, and to the people in exile, and to everyone sitting in this sanctuary today: God is in control, and His kingdom will overcome all others.

But what else does this story have to say to us living in these times? Let’s go back and look at how Daniel handles this entire situation, because he gives us the perfect model of how to react and what to do when it feels like everything is spinning out of control.

And everything sure does look like it’s spinning out of control for Daniel, doesn’t it? It all happens so fast. Here for years and decades and maybe even centuries, the rulers of Babylon had looked to the magi for counsel and guidance. But in the span of a single sleepless night, they’re all sentenced to death — Daniel included.

That’s the funny thing about life, isn’t it? Life seems so stable, so solid. Life feels like it’s just going to go on forever. But in the span of a day, an hour, even a second, your entire life can be turned on its head. That’s a terrifying thought. So what do you? You do what Daniel does.

Look back at verse 14. Arioch, the king’s executioner, comes to Daniel with news of what’s happened. Daniel replies “with prudence and discretion.” That’s what my translation says, the ESV. The NRSV says the same. The NIV says, “Daniel spoke with wisdom and tact.” King James, “counsel and wisdom.”

No matter what your translation says, it all means the same thing: Daniel spoke to the king’s guard and addressed this situation calmly, clearly, and with wisdom. And the only way Daniel could do that way was if he did … not … panic.

That’s rule number one in the Christian life. Don’t panic. As a Christian, you have absolutely no reason to ever panic, because you know what Daniel knows — God is in control. God is in control. That’s why Daniel doesn’t flee from the city and he doesn’t surrender either. He reacts calmly. He doesn’t panic.

Verses 17-18 tell us what Daniel does next — he gathers his friends and prays. Prayer is the most important thing you can do no matter where your life is. You have to be talking to God, and you have to be giving God room to talk to you. When Daniel prays, that’s when God reveals Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its meaning. How important is your prayer life? God doesn’t tell Daniel what he needs to know until Daniel asks for it in prayer.

Then when Daniel gets his answer, he praises God. Go back when you can and study verses 20-23. Notice the difference between what Daniel says there and what the magi say in verse 11. It’s night and day.

The magi say that only the gods could say what the king dreamed, and the gods don’t talk to mortals. But Daniel says there are no gods, there’s only one true God, and not only can that God be known, He speaks to us and reveals His will.

And that right there is where we as Christians run up against modern culture. Because our modern culture is just like Babylon’s — we have a god for just about everything. We have a god of money, and physical appearance, and gender, and power, and fame, and science, and technology, and entertainment, and most people worship more than one of those gods.

The only god our culture cannot abide by is the One who says He’s the true God, because if that’s true, that means all those other little gods we worship are fake and empty.

G.K. Chesterton — one of my favorite writers — once said that when people stop believing in the God of the Bible, it’s not that they start to believe in nothing, it’s that they start believing in anything. That’s so true. But you can’t say that, because that goes back to what we talked about last week. If you start throwing around words like “truth,” you can get labeled as intolerant. But what does our culture mean by “tolerance”?

Because there’s legal tolerance. Legal tolerance says everyone has the right to their own religion and their own free expression? As Christians, we’re all for that.

And there’s social tolerance, which says everyone has to respect everyone else’s right to whatever opinions they hold. As Christians, we’re all for that too.

Neither one of those is what culture usually means by tolerance, though. When our culture preaches tolerance, usually it means a tolerance of the mind, of our thinking. We’re supposed to have a mind that never finds fault with anything. We’re not supposed to question anything that the culture says. And as Christians, we can’t agree with that. Because if culture demands that we think everything is right as long as it’s a personal choice, that also means we can’t consider anything to be wrong. That’s when the truth starts to get muddled, and that’s where our society is right now.

That’s why our culture just absolutely cannot accept the message of the Bible. Because the culture says everyone’s god is the same as any other, and truth is whatever we want to be true. Every person gets to decide what’s right and wrong.

So how do we respond to that? We do what Daniel did. We don’t panic. We answer with calmness and wisdom. Look through every page of the Bible, you won’t find a single instance of God’s people acting angry, or hateful, or talking down to a nonbeliever. Not once. The only people Jesus ever got testy with were the religious people who thought they knew everything about God.

We know there is a God in heaven, and that He’s the one true God, and that He raises up kingdoms and brings them down, and that He sent His Son to bring about a kingdom that will never end. That should make you confident as you go out into the world. It should also prepare you for trouble.

The problem with a lot of the exiles in Babylon was that they weren’t prepared for the trouble, so they began doubting the one true God they’d always believed in. When that happened, hopelessness was the only possible result. That’s where a lot of Christians are today. They look at the state of our nation, the division, the anger, the mistrust people have for one another, and they just want to throw up their hands and give up.

Hopelessness should be the last thing we give in to as children of an all-powerful God. But many of the exiles did. Turn with me very quickly to Psalm 137. Psalm 137 was written by an unknown person in exile in Babylon, and I want you to look at the first four verses:

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a foreign land?

Those exiles looked at where they were, stuck in a foreign land under foreign rule, and they remembered the good old days in Judah, and they sat and wept. They hung up their lyres, their harps, because the Babylonians would make fun of them and their God. The exiles thought there was nothing more for them to sing about, nothing to give them a sense of joy and purpose and peace.

But do you think Daniel was one of those people? No way. Not him, and not his friends. Sure, they wept over the loss of their country. But for Daniel there was always a reason to sing, because God was in control. There was always a purpose to fulfill, because God was in control. There was always peace to be found, because God was in control.

That’s why he could work hard and stay faithful when almost everyone else sat and wept. Daniel knew Babylon wouldn’t win because Babylon wouldn’t last. The only kingdom that will last is God’s.

Too many of us are hanging up our harps. We’re looking at our culture and moaning about everything like it’s the end of the world. We’re worried that the Christian church in America isn’t going to survive. Really? Did the Jews survive the exile? Did the early church survive Rome? Earthly kingdoms come and go. God’s kingdom is forever. That’s how we can stay hopeful and calm instead of angry and anxious. We don’t have to get so caught up in this chapter of the story because we know how the story’s going to end.

I read a story a while back about a man named John Charles Walsham Reith. “Lord Reith” was his title. He was the first Director-General of the BBC, which is sort of like Britain’s version of CNN, only a lot bigger and more prestigious.

One day in a meeting, someone told Lord Reith that he should stop with all the Christian programming. This was in the 1960s. Times were changing, this man said. People didn’t care about religion anymore.

Lord Reith stood up in that meeting, told that young fellow to sit back down, and told everyone there, “The church will stand at the grave of the BBC.”

Daniel would have loved that. He would have completely agreed. And the same goes for any news organization, any corporation, any government, any nation. The church will outlive them all, because the kingdom of God will never end. That’s what we have to remember, especially when it starts looking like churches everywhere are in trouble. That’s not when you hang up your harp and walk away, that’s when you commit even more, you dig your heels in even more, you stand up even more, because you — you — are being used to build the only kingdom that will never end.

God is in control. That’s the lesson of Daniel chapter 1, that’s the lesson of Daniel chapter 2, and that’s the message of the entire Bible. God will always take care of you. He took care of Daniel and his friends. When we leave them here at the end of this chapter, they all have important positions in Babylon. They’ve all been promoted again. But the good times won’t last. There’s an even greater threat coming their way, and we’ll get to that next week. For now, let’s pray:

Father so often we find ourselves panicking and worrying and fretting over the things that happen to us, and the reason we do that is because we forget that as Christians, we’re supposed to have an eternal perspective. We’re supposed to look at this world through the lens of heaven. We’re supposed to live this mortal life in the light of eternity. So help us, Father, to answer the doubtful with kindness and compassion. Help us to remain hopeful always. And help us, Father, to never panic, knowing that You are in control of all things, that Your wisdom and power reign over all creation, and that by Your grace we are made partakers in a holy kingdom that will never end. For it’s in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.