The Discipline of a Nation

INTRODUCTION

When I was a child, I can remember days when my dad would show me that he was a faithful father by giving me gifts:

Mario 2 in 1988

A new drum set in 1997.

A 1987 Toyota Cressida when I was 16.

I also remember specific instances when my dad showed me he was a faithful father by disciplining me:

When I stuck my finger in a socket in 1987

When I broke my parents skylight with a rock in 1995

When I let a cuss word fly while playing baseball in the backyard in 1996

And when I look back on these things, I can tell you, that with years of retrospection, I view all of this as the faithfulness of my dad.

Both the gifts and the generosity, as well as the discipline and the punishment.

Both were the movements of a faithful father.

CONTEXT

This morning we see that God is a faithful Father to His people, as He disciplines them with exile in a foreign nation.

The Southern Kingdom of Judah has begun to be carried off into Babylon in multiple waves.

In the first wave, the Babylonians take the best and the brightest and that includes a young man named Daniel and his three friends—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

The Babylonians will seek to re-program them and turn them into co-opted, well-trained, foreign dignitaries in the Babylonian court.

Pressure will be on Daniel and his friends to fully assimilate into the Babylonian way of life.

Judah, their homeland, is 750 miles away—an eternity in the ancient world.

And yet—all of this is indeed, the faithfulness of God to His people.

OUTLINE

We will see this in the first five verses of Daniel today.

And as we do, we will have TWO OBSERVATIONS and TWO CAUTIONS.

OBSERVATIONS

1. Judah was unfaithful in covenant-keeping by backsliding (v. 1-2).

2. God was faithful in covenant-keeping through discipline (v. 2-3).

CAUTIONS

1. Do not be blind about backsliding.

2. Do not be callous toward correction.

TEXT—THESE ARE THE VERY WORDS OF GOD

Daniel 1:1–5 ESV

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 gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king.

OBSERVATION #1: JUDAH’S UNFAITHFULNESS (v. 1-2)

1. Judah was unfaithful in covenant-keeping by backsliding (v. 1-2).

We can see this by simply observing what is happening in the first couple of verses.

V:1: Jehoiakim was king of Judah.

In the third year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem.

They surrounded Jerusalem with Babylonian forces and took Jerusalem.

V:2: And not only did they take Jerusalem, but they took the holy things from the temple and they were placed in the land of Shinar in the house of Nebuchadnezzar’s god.

This is probably referring to Ziggurrat of Babel—a temple to the false god, Marduk.

HISTORY

This is history that we have some context for after our last series where we were spending time in the prophets.

In 931 BC, the united Kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms:

The Northern Kingdom of Israel

The Southern Kingdom of Judah

In 722 BC, the Northern Kingdom is fully taken from the land into Assyrian Exile

But God turns Assyria away from being able to do the same to the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

However, in 605 BC, a different foreign power announced itself in the most major way.

The Babylonians defeated the two biggest bullies of the Ancient Near East—Egypt and Assyria and they take control of the region.

This is when they come and lay siege to Judah and they make Jehoiakim a puppet king who rules according to their demands.

605 is the initial wave of exiles being taken away from Judah to Babylon

In 597, Jehoiakim tries to rebel and fails and then another wave is taken away—this is when Ezekiel went

And finally, in 586 BC, the Babylonians destroy the temple and the city and the final exiles are brought to Babylon.

“AND THE LORD GAVE”

That being said, it would be a massive mistake to think that all of this geopolitical moving and shaking in the Ancient Near East was just occuring because of land and power and kings and armies.

When the secular man approaches the history book, he might see it that way, but God’s Word protects us from making that mistake.

Notice how v. 2 begins— “And the Lord gave...”

This is the Lord’s doing.

The Hebrew word that translates to Lord here is Adonai.

It is a title that speaks to God’s sovereign rule and control over all things.

It tells us that He is the most powerful One in all of existence and that all other things that exist are in His hand.

And it tells us something about the events of history.

The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem happens because God ordains it.

If the Lord did not give Jerusalem into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, then Nebuchadnezzar would not have touched the land or the the vessels of the temple.

It only happened because the Lord allowed it.

Psalm 33:10–11 ESV

The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.

The plans of the peoples of the nations are brought to nothing by God.

His plans, on the other hand, stand forever and cannot be moved, no matter how much someone may try.

So when we turn on our TV and we the events going on in the world, we know whose governing is behind it all.

We may not understand what He is doing and why He is allowing what He is allowing, but we know that His counsel stands forever and He is governing the affairs of the world.

BACKSLIDING AND BREAKING COVENANT

However, in the case of Judah, we do know WHY He allowed what He allowed and ordained WHAT He ordained.

The people of Judah had broken covenant with God.

To understand this, we have to remind ourselves of what God said to Moses and his generation when He gave them the Law and made a covenant with them at Sinai.

In giving the people His eternal Law, He was saying, “This is how you worship Me and this is how you treat each other as worshippers of Me.”

This is the Ten Commandments.

He also gave them hundreds of ceremonial laws and civil laws to teach the temporary, physical kingdom of Israel how they should worship and live under the Old Covenant.

If the people were obedient and kept these laws with love in their heart toward God, they would be blessed in the land that God gave to them, just like Adam would have been blessed if he had obeyed God in the Garden.

Deuteronomy 28:1 ESV

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

Deuteronomy 28:6–9 ESV

Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways.

But if the people hardened their hearts toward God and did not obey God and practiced idolatry and injustice, they would be exiled from the land, just like Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden.

Deuteronomy 28:15 ESV

“But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

And if you keep reading, God warns that He will:

Curse them in the city and in the field

Frustrate them in all they do

Cause them to be defeated by their enemies

Allow them to be besieged in their towns

And then listen to the clear warning:

Deuteronomy 28:36 ESV

“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.

Deuteronomy 28:64 ESV

“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.

See, when God gave Israel the land, they were supposed to drive false worship out of it.

This is the conquest that is laid at the feet of Joshua’s generation—cleanse the land by driving out the worship of false gods and all the injustice that the worship of those false gods brings with it (things like human sacrifice and sexual cultic practices).

But they never really get the job done.

And not only do they tolerate false worship, they participate in it.

While Hosea spoke more to the Northern Kingdom, you can see how gross this mixture of biblical worship and pagan practices was:

Hosea 4:13–14 ESV

They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.

The priests were actually sacrificing to Yahweh on the pagan altars in the high places and then participating in cultic sex practices with prostitutes.

These were the worship leaders of the nation.

Now are we understanding why God allowed what He allowed and ordained what He ordained?

Judah, like their northern neighbors had committed spiritual adultery again and again.

They had a perfect Father in Yahweh, but they rejected Him.

They had gone from being a nation who was delivered from a foreign nation and given the Law to being a nation who rejected the Law and now was being exiled away to a foreign nation once more.

Now they will feel God’s discipline.

OBSERVATION #2: GOD’S DISCIPLINE (v. 2-3)

This brings us to our second observation:

2. God was faithful in covenant-keeping through discipline (v. 2-3).

We can see God’s discipline coming down in judgment upon Judah in two ways in verses 2-3.

First of all, the vessels of the temple are taken to the house of a false god. (v. 2)

This is devastating stuff for the people to see.

In the Ancient Near East, when a people would lose a war, it was typically interpreted as, “We lost because their god/gods is/are more powerful than our God.

To see the cups and bowls and lampstands that were so intricately described and designed in Exodus 25-27 be carried off into a Babylonian ziggurat would have been horrifying.

It would have felt like the end of the world.

It would have left many even wondering, “Where IS Yahweh? Has HE forgotten HIS covenant with us?”

Secondly, the best and the brightest are taken to Babylon. (v. 3)

Nebuchadnezzar has his right hand man, a eunuch named Ashpenaz, bring some of Israel’s best to Babylon.

This includes:

Royal family members

Noblemen

Unblemished youths who were good-looking, skillful and smart

They were to stand in the king’s palace and receive the king’s education and eat the king’s food.

Again—this would have been devastating for Judah.

Not only have the holy things been taken away, but so have the holy people.

The best and the brightest of the next generation—the hope of the future of Israel—have been taken to Babylon and now they are the hope of the foreign oppressor.

After all—that is why Nebuchadnezzar wanted Daniel and people like him.

Nebuchadnezzar would take the most impressive people from the nations he conquered and he would assimilate them into Babylonian service.

He would take someone like a Daniel, and after he had re-programmed him, he would give him power.

Then the conquered peoples would see someone who looked like them ruling over them and they would not want to rebel.

Truly, the King of Babylon was taking the best God’s people had to offer and then turning it on them and using it to keep them subordinate and dominated.

KEEPING COVENANT THROUGH DISCIPLINE

So why did God allow all of this?

Was it because He had forgotten His covenant?

No—just the opposite.

God allowed these things because He was keeping His covenant.

His faithfulness to Judah is what brought Him to discipline Judah in this way.

After all, this is no less than God had promised.

He had told them in Deuteronomy when the Law was revealed that if they were disobedient, they would end up in a foreign land under the rule of a foreign king.

He had told them that they would be defeated by their enemies and they would be a horror and a byword.

They would be living under a curse.

And now it was happening.

If they had been obedient, He would have kept them in the land and blessed them.

But because they were disobedient, they are cursed and exiled from the land.

In either action, God is keeping covenant.

In either action, God is proving Himself to be faithful.

And in either action, God has an aim.

His actions are not arbitrary or illogical.

His faithfulness expressed in blessing AND in discipline, both have one purpose in mind—-that His children would obey His voice in all that He commands.

And that they would do that with their heart and soul.

That their whole will and all their affections would be bent on obeying God.

Deuteronomy 30:1–2 ESV

“And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul,

And more than that, that they would have LIFE in Him because of the work of grace He does in their heart.

Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

LOVING US TOO MUCH TO LEAVE US IN SIN

God wants our obedience.

God wants our hearts.

And God wants us to have life.

And that means He loves us too much to leave us in disobedience.

To allow us to grow hardened against Him in our hearts.

And to allow us to venture off into death.

Therefore, just as a parent uses discipline to keep their child from disobedience and danger, God uses discipline to keep His children from disobedience and danger.

This is what He did with Judah in Babylon and this is what He will do with us.

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament put this on display:

Proverbs 3:11–12 ESV

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

And then, the author of Hebrews commenting on this says:

Hebrews 12:7–8 ESV

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

The Lord was purifying His people.

They had failed to get rid of the high places, so HE would get rid of the high places.

They had failed to be solely devoted to Him, so HE would put them in a place where they must turn to Him and rely upon Him.

He wanted their heart-felt obedience.

He wanted them to have life and have life in Him.

And so He used Nebuchadnezzar like a hammer to smash the pride of rebellious people

To do otherwise would go against the covenant He made with them in Deuteronomy 28.

And to do otherwise would betray His own faithful character.

It would have been unloving to leave them in their idolatry and injustice, and so God kept His promise and took action.

CAUTION #1: DO NOT BE BLIND ABOUT BACKSLIDING

Understanding these things, that is all we will do with Daniel today.

We will catch up with the prophet and his friends in Babylon next week, but before we leave today, I want to use our passage to issue two cautions.

1. Do not be blind about backsliding.

Clearly falling away from obedience in covenant with God has devastating consequences, therefore, we should be eager to avoid it.

We should see Him disciplining Judah and think, “I don’t want to end up like that.”

DISCIPLINE AND SALVATION

Now to be clear, we are not talking about Christians backsliding into the loss of salvation here.

The Scriptures could not be more clear:

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

If someone leaves the church and never, ever comes back, what is shows is that God never began the good work in them.

Anyone that God begins the work of salvation in will have that work completed.

God sees to it Himself.

No one steals from the hand of the Good Shepherd (John 10)

Nothing separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8)

However, saved people can be sliding people and I’m talking about sliding in the wrong direction.

If you don’t believe me, just consider Psalm 119.

After 175 verses of praying to God about the richness of His glorious Word and his desire to obey the Word, the Psalmist says:

Psalm 119:176 ESV

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

Sometimes the sheep go astray.

Sometimes they need to be sought.

They have not forgotten God’s commandments completely—but they forgot them momentarily.

And once they remember the commands, they cry out for rescue.

This is why God disciplines His backsliding children.

He wants us to stop going astray.

He wants us to remember His commands.

And He wants us to cry out to Him and to be reconciled to Him.

He wants us to come home like the young man in Luke 15 who realizes that he is sick of a life in the pig pen, and he wants to come home.

Judah wanted the gods of the nations, so God sent them into the nation of a false god.

He did this so that once they got there, they would realize they didn’t want those false gods after all.

He wanted them to cry out.

God wanted to use their misery to bring about their remorse and their repentance.

Babylon was the pig pen that God used to wake up His backsliding children and call them home.

Knowing that God will use discipline in this way to respond to our backsliding should motivate us to want to avoid the backsliding all together.

WATCHFULNESS

And that means that we have to be watchful.

After all, the reason that we backslide in the first place is because we grow spiritually lazy.

We don’t typically end up as straying sheep in the wilderness out of nowhere.

Instead, it is the result of a bunch of small decisions that add up into spiritual malaise.

It was a decision to not read the Bible one day that led to not reading it for seven days.

It was a decision to be prayer-less one day that led to being prayer-less for a month.

It was the decision to click just that one link that leads to a full on addiction.

It was the decision to hear just one bit of gossip that embroiled you in a situation you wanted to parts of.

The band Casting Crowns famously has a song where they sing, “It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away...”

JC Ryle agreed:

Men and women fall in private long before they fall in public.

JC Ryle

Therefore, the Christian has to be watchful. We have to be vigilant.

Romans 13:11 ESV

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

Be alert and be awake.

We are living in the days in between the 1st and 2nd Coming of Christ.

In light of that, we of all people, should be spiritually tuned in and tuned up.

We are not spiritually sleepy because we know that this is the time to build the Kingdom and this is the time in which the attacks will come.

Which is why Peter says...

1 Peter 5:8 ESV

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Satan is not able to keep the Gospel from reaching the nations, but he is still active.

And he is a lion that wants to eat.

The church is the representative of Christ on the earth.

He failed in killing Jesus, so now he wants to kill Jesus’ bride.

Satan wants your flesh between his teeth.

So like someone walking through the safari in the middle of the night, you better be watchful.

HEZEKIAH’S SIN

We see an example of a lack of watchfulness in the events leading up to Babylonian Exile.

When the Chaldeans initially send their scouts to Jerusalem, King Hezekiah allows his pride to get the best of him.

2 Kings 20:12–15 ESV

At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. And Hezekiah welcomed them, and he showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” He said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

Hezekiah makes the mistake of showing all the valuable items that Judah had.

To understand the error, we need to know that in the world of ancient foreign affairs, nothing was free.

When the envoys gave the gift to Hezekiah, it wasn’t just a congratulations on not being sick anymore.

It was a thinly veiled request to gt Judah’s help against Assyria.

And when Hezekiah shows all his resources to the Babylonians, it was like he was saying, “I can be a useful ally.”

Hezekiah had just seen God miraculously deliver Judah from the Assyrians.

But now, instead of continuing to depend on Yahweh, Hezekiah is turning to Babylon.

Again—you want the nations, into the nations you will go.

And so Isaiah issues a prophecy against Hezekiah:

2 Kings 20:16–18 ESV

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

Hezekiah—a man that we would count to be one of the few faithful and godly kings of Judah, let his guard down.

He got caught up in the moment.

It must have felt good to show off all the goods and say, “I can be a player at the grown-up table.”

But that pride was a rejection of the Lord.

And God’s discipline was going to be received as a result.

We never know when the envoys of the world are going to come and stir up our hearts to sinful pride.

And we never know what that pride will give birth to.

We have to be vigilant. We have to be watchful to avoid backsliding.

We trust God each day and demonstrate that trust in small decision after small decision.

This is what watchfulness looks like.

Watchfulness is not taking obedience for granted as you seek to be obedient.

Stay on guard.

That is how we stay out of Babylon.

That is how we stay out of the pig pen.

That is how we stay out of the wilderness.

Be watchful and walk humbly with God.

CAUTION #2: DO NOT BE CALLOUS TOWARD CORRECTION

So that is the first caution—Don’t be blind about backsliding.

Now our second and final caution:

2. Do not be callous toward correction.

There is a way in which we can respond to the correction of the Lord that is hardened and rebellious.

We know that from the warnings issued in Proverbs and Hebrews...

Do not despise the Lord’s discipline (Proverb 3:11)

Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor be weary when reproved by him (Hebrews 12:5)

To despise discipline is to reject it.

To regard it lightly is to not take it seriously enough

To be weary of it is to run from it

All of these are not just improper reactions to God’s discipline for us.

These are sinful reactions to God’s discipline.

So when we do receive the discipline of the Father, we want to avoid these reactions and instead, we want to embrace it.

And this is where we have to return to discipline as a form of covenant-keeping.

If come to God’s disciplinary action in our lives and we don’t see His discipline as the faithfulness of a loving Father, we are going to be prone to those sinful reactions that we talked about.

We will think that God has lost the plot and He doesn’t know what He is doing and we will reject Him and dive further into our sin.

We will think that God would never discipline us because He is too much of a teddy bear and we will write off the idea that He could be disciplining us at all.

We will think God is mean for disciplining us and we will mistake His faithfulness for harshness and we will run away from Him and into the world.

Instead of these reactions, we must approach the discipline of God with the same aim that God has in the discipline.

His aim is to stop us from going astray...

...To wake us up to remember His commands...

...And to compel us to cry out to Him and to be reconciled to Him.

So then, if we sense that the discipline of God is at work in our lives and in the circumstances we are experiencing, the best thing we can do is to stop and examine ourselves and see if we are out of fellowship with the Lord.

Is there some glaring area of disobedience we are trying to ignore?

Is there some ongoing sin that has been creating distance between you and God and you want to act like everything is fine?

Have your spiritual disciplines fallen away? Is God getting your attention back on His Word and on Him in prayer?

And if we ask these questions and we find that we are indeed in sin and that God is likely disciplining us, there is only one thing left to do—REPENT!

If you realize that God is so kind, that He has disciplined you to get you out of sin, then repent of that sin and return to your faithful, covenant-keeping God!

After all, the Word tells us that it is the kindness of God that leads us to turn away from sin.

It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.

Romans 2:4 ESV

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

The kindness of the discipline of God is intended to lead you to repentance.

This was the case with Judah in Babylon.

This is the case with us in our Christian lives.

God’s fatherly discipline in your life has the purpose of bringing you back to Him.

So when His discipline enters your life, don’t fight the purpose.

Turn from sin.

CONCLUSION

As we close up this morning, we can see a picture of the response we need to the discipline of God in Psalm 137.

This was a Psalm written about the time in which Judah was in Babylon.

The first three verses explain how difficult the days of Exile were.

How they were mocked by their captors...

Psalm 137:1–3 ESV

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!”

But then, the Psalmist makes a declaration.

Though it is hard to sing about Jerusalem in Babylon, he will not forget it:

Psalm 137:4–6 ESV

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!

Jerusalem was the place where the temple was.

The temple was the place where the presence of God resided with the people of God.

It is where the people went to worship God according to His prescriptions and to find joy in Him.

It is where they kept the Law and received the blessing of God’s promises.

In saying that he would not forget Jerusalem, the Psalmist is saying that he will not forget the entirety of the covenant of the Lord.

He will not forget the worship of God.

He will not forget the people of God.

He will not forget the promises of God to the people of God

Though he will not sing for his captors, he will not forget God.

Instead, He will remember the God of the covenant.

He will be faithful to Him.

And so you can see how God has gotten what He wants from His exiled people.

His faithfulness expressed in discipline is a kindness that has drawn repentance out of His children and compelled them to be faithful to Him once more.

Are you under His discipline today?

It is but His kindness to you.

Repent and join God in the aim that He has to bring you back to Himself—the faithful God of Promise.