But there is a God in Heaven

Date: 6th century BCE

Occasion: During the life of Daniel while Israel was in exile in Babylon.

Outline: Narratives about Daniel and his friends in Exile (Chapters 1-6) Visions about the nations (Chapters 7-12)

Theology matters

How we approach and interpret the bible matters. A world view that is materialistic in nature, that is where all that exists is matter and motion, is a world where miracles cannot exist, and a world where prophecy can only be a hoax. If you don’t believe that miracles exist, then this will impact you view of the so called prophetic and apocalyptic section of Daniel and even the dating of the book.

I don’t want to spend too much on the dating of Daniel, but because a large portion of modern scholarship reject the old date of some time in the 6th century during the life of Daniel while he was in captivity. They reject that it cold have been written in the 6th century because of the prophecies surrounding the person “Antiochus Ephipany” in chapters 9 and 11.

This seluciud king of Syria from 175-164 bc went into the Jerusalem temple and desecrated the Jewish temple by sacrificing a pig upon the altar of God in honor to Zeus. He took on the name Ephiphany which means “god manifest”

The proponents of a later date believe that the stories were collected and put together just after his death in 164 bc. Since no one could possibly know such things it must have been written after the fact. This was very common even into the NT era that a person would write under a pseudo name in order to gain credibility. It would like me writing a book and in order to get people to read it I said I was Dan Frain or Steve Toth. I don't know I am trying to think of the smartest men our there.

The problem is that the scriptures and historical evidence however tell a different story. The reason I want to spend some time on this is because modern scholars have made a big deal of this and it is prevailant in our culture.

The number one reason and if this were the only reason it would be more than enough to reject a 2nd century as date as opposed to an earlier 6th century date is that Jesus tells us who wrote it.

Matthew 24:15 ““So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),”

We could actually stop there and any serious Christian would take Christ’s word over anyone’s.

2. The septugiant which is the Greek translation of the Hebrews scriptures, if you remember from the book of Hebrews that the writers relied heavily from and even quoted from the septuigant. This was one of the indicators that the recipients were Hellenized Jews, those who were heavily influenced by the spreading Greek culture. This bible we know was translated at least in part by the 3rd century BC and most definately by the 2nd century. The septuigant including Daniel was most probably written before if not right at that same time.

3. Around the year 1946 a young boy named Mohammed Edh-Dhib was sheperding his herd of goat looking for one of them. He began throwing rocks into the caved he thought it might have taken refuge, but of hearing bleeting he heard a clunk, the sound of breaking pottery. This led to the greatest discover perhaps in the 20th century. The finding of the dead sea scrolls led to the discovery of thousands of fragments and copies of manuscripts some dating back to the 3rd century BCE. In these scrolls was a copy of all 12 chapters of Daniel which almost every one agrees dates back to 115 bce. This does not mean that Daniel was written in 115, it means that Daniel was in wide circulation by then. This would simply not leave enough time for it to have been written in 165, less than 50 years. Remember that there were no printing presses, not photo copiers, not internet, no modern mail carriers.

All of this is to say that you are going to find that people are blinded by thier own presuppositions and thier own world views? This is just one attempt for otherwise very smart men to use a bunch of fancy words and theories to undermine the authority of God’s word. Did Moses write the Pentateuch?, did Isaiah write his book? All attempts to deny the supernatural divine authorship of the bible. They have led countless astray and I don’t want any of us to be duped when some one brings this up in a conversation, because it will happen.

TRANSITION: From the Christian world view where God is sovereign over the affairs of human history Daniels prophecies are not a problem. We may have problem understanding and interpreting theme as we will find out in the later chapters, but its not a problem. Jesus walked on water, healed the sick, lame, and blind, Jesus rose from the dead, prophecy is no problem. There is no reason at all to doubt that Daniel wrote in the 6th century.

God’s sovereignty matters.

We all remember well the story of the Exodus and the 10 plagues, how Moses had this showdown with Pharoah’s magicians where they threw down their staffs and they turned into serpents like Moses and Aaron’s staff, but Aaron’s staff swallowed up Pharoah’s. Phaoroah himself was considered a god. At Mt. Carmel Elijah had a showdown with Baal, the God of the Cannanites. where they setup the altar with the sacrifice and then poured enormous amounts water on it and the Lord sent down fire to consume the sacrifice and lick up every last drop of water. There was Dagon the god, of the Philistines who stole the Ark of the Covenant and placed in the temple of Dagon. Dagon’s statue fell and broke before the ark.

So in the book of Daniel we see through out the book God declaring His absolute sovereignty over the gods of Babylon, Marduk, Bel, Nebo. God is true king of Kings, sovereign over Nebuchadneezer, Belshazzar, Daruis. Time and time again there are reference to the “gods” as the Babylonians refer to them, as opposed to YHWH the true and living God. He is the one who both gives dreams and gives thier interpretations.

Daniel 2:27–28 “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:”

God humbles Nebuchadneezer, so that he gives praise to Him, God takes the life of Belshazzar for boasting by taking out the vessels stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem, God delievers S,M,A from the flames of Neb furnace. He shuts the mouths of the Lions when the jealous rulers tried to trap Daniel concerning worship of his God.

“The Lord gave Jehoiakin king of Judah into his hand”

Our identity matters

Alexander the Great who himself live only 33 years from 356-323 bc conquered the vast majority of the known world. He was a military genuis but inspite of all that he conquered the world not through sheer might or by the sword, You have probably heard the saying “you can take the girl out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the girl” but you actually can. But you actually can it takes longer but you can learn to assimilate entire cultures and change their core identity over time. For Alexander the battle was won with the in the sword but the war is won with the pen and tongue. By the time that Christ came on the scene, almost the entire known world was speaking Greek or at least influenced by its culture.

this book teaches all of us us how to life the life of exile. Even the Israelites when they were able under Cyrus to go back and rebuild the temple, and if we remember from Hebrews, that the temple and city that Abraham was looking for was not that temple, it was the greater temple not made with hands. So even the Jews in rebuilt Jerusalem were technically an exilic people. The problem that we face is that we find our identity in cultures of this earth rather than our heavenly one. Even the Jew’s when confronted by Christ as we studied the book of Acts, and in John the people were worried because Jesus threated the very core of thier identity, they very traditions of the elders.

These and many more are themes that we will explore in depth as we go through the book of Daniel. How do we live faithful lives as citizens of God’s kingdom in an earthly culture that sometimes is at odds. There is a way Daniel , S,M,A are examples of it. They were able to balance that life. They took on new names, Belteshazar, S, M, A. And yet amongs themselves never forgot thier names given them by birth which reminded them of their true heritage they had in God. SO TAKE COMFORT

Where do we find our true identity?

We struggle with it here. Every time some one steps into this door do we feel that our little church and all of our comforts and friends and things that we have worked hard for are going to change, are going to be threatened, our culture changes every time someone new comes in some one who looks different than us, has a different skin color than us, it scares us because we are threatened but we must not be we must realize that our culture is not in America, or Maryland, or rural eastern shore Maryland, or Grace community, our culture our identity is in Jesus Christ. We could all fundamentally be changed we could be invaded by the CCP and be forced to speak Chinese and our core identity not be changed.

How many of us have heard such things as “dare to be a Daniel” deriving merely moral principles that we should be brave and courageous like Daniel or David, but while there is some truth to this, the real point is to remind us of Christ. In the midst

“It is important therefore to be reminded at the same time of the one greater than Daniel, who has perfectly lived exilic life of service and seperation for us, Jesus Christ.” Ian Duguid