Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last week, we started out this series saying that sometimes in order to remain allegiant to our God we will have to go Rogue.

And I ended by giving you an illustration of a Japanese government official in Lithuania, Sugihara, who despite his government telling him to not issue passports to Jews seeking refugees he went Rogue and did it anyway.

Although Chiune Sugihara’s visas saved thousands of Jews, after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which catapulted the United States into World War II, all refugee passage in and out of Japan ended, and the safety of its Jewish community became precarious.

Japan, after all, was by then a full-fledged wartime conspirator with Adolf Hitler and had to protect the solidarity of its alliance with this virulent anti-Semite.

What’s more, in January 1942 Hitler’s plan to annihilate Jewry was formalized at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin.

With the Final Solution installed as Axis policy, Nazi officials began to press their Japanese ally to extend that “solution” to Japan’s Jews.

Proposals involving death camps, medical experiments, and mass drownings at sea were forwarded to Japan following the conference.

To make sure Japan knew how serious Hitler was they sent Josef Meisinger, a colonel in the Gestapo known as the “Butcher of Warsaw” – a name given to him for ordering the execution of sixteen thousand Poles - to Tokyo.

Upon his arrival in April 1941, Meisinger began pressing for a policy of brutality toward the Jews under Japan’s rule—a policy he stated he would gladly help design and enact.

Uncertain at first of how to respond and wanting to hear all sides, high-ranking members of Japan’s military government called upon the Jewish refugee community to send two leaders to a meeting that would influence their future significantly.

Can you imagine how deflated you would feel to have just escaped one death sentence to just find yourself under another sentence of death?

What would you do?

Would you run to God, run for your life?

The chosen representatives were both respected religious leaders, but respected in different ways.

One, Rabbi Moses Shatzkes, was renowned as a studious man, one of the most brilliant Talmudic scholars in Europe before the war.

The other, Rabbi Shimon Kalisch, was much older and was known for his remarkable ability to understand basic human workings—a social psychologist of sorts.

After the two entered the meeting room, they and their translators stood before a tribunal of powerful members of the Japanese High Command, who would determine their Jewish community’s survival and who wasted little time in asking a pair of fateful questions: Why do our allies the Nazis hate you so much?

And why should we take your side against them?

Rabbi Shatzkes, the scholar, comprehending the tangled complexity of the historical, religious, and economic issues involved, had no ready response.

But Rabbi Kalisch’s wisdom seemed to come from another source all together.

Not the kind of knowledge that comes from books but a kind of knowledge that comes from God.

He calmly responded, “Because we are Asian, like you.”

Although brief, the assertion was inspired wisdom from God..

The older rabbi’s response had a powerful effect on the Japanese officers.

After a silence, they conferred among themselves and announced a recess.

When they returned, the most senior military official rose and granted the reassurance the rabbis had hoped to bring home to their community: “Go back to your people.

Tell them we will provide for their safety and peace.

You have nothing to fear while in Japanese territory.”

And so it was.[1]

The lives of every Jewish person in Japanese controlled territories was in the hands of these two rabbis.

Both were incredibly intelligent men but separated the brilliant from the wise was not more data but divinely inspired wisdom.

Get ready because today we are going to hear a story about another Jew who was also put in a place where he had just escaped one death sentence to be put under another one.

Grab your copy of the Scriptures and say it together with me:

Ha-foke-ba, Ha-foke-ba, de-cola-ba.

Ha-foke-ba, Ha-foke-ba, Mashiach-ba.

Turn-it and turn-it everything you need is in it.

Turn-it and turn-it for the Messiah is in it.

Read Together With Me (On Screen Bible):

Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and paid homage to Daniel and gave orders that an offering and incense be provided for him.

In response the king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and the revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this secret!”

Then the king promoted Daniel and lavished on him many marvelous gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief over all the wise men of Babylon.

Moreover, at Daniel’s request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego over the administration of the province of Babylon, while Daniel remained at the royal court.

–

What is a Jewish exile, a young Jewish boy - maybe 17 - who believes in the God of Israel, doing up at the very top of this pagan government structure?

What’s he doing being a Babylonian wise man needless to say the chief of the wise men of Babylon?

How did this all happen?

We will investigate three questions:

1.

What did Daniel learn at Babylon university?

Daniel learned at Babylonian university that paganism is nothing but a religious cul-de-sac.

It can give no sure word from outside.

He is telling Israel that there is no need to be awed by paganism, despite its trappings and splendour, for it is nothing but empty and dark.

2. What is the meaning of the statue in the dream?

God uses the statue to reveal the weakness of the most valuable and powerful of human empires.

3. What is the meaning of the rock in the dream?

The rock in the dream reveals how sinful human beings are and how the only ultimate solution is the Messiah Yeshua.

What did Daniel learn at the Babylon university?

“In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams.

His spirit was troubled and sleep escaped him.”

(, TLV)

This little sentence is so important for understanding where Daniel is at in his life and what was happening in Babylon at this specific moment in time.

First, Daniel was finishing his education that was mentioned in , “at the end of three years.”

Some of you are thinking, “Wait it says it was just the end of his second year not third year.

Did they graduate early?”

No, we have to understand that according to Babylonian reckoning, a king did not count his first year as a part of his reign.

We have, then, the right time sequence, since it was the second year of his reign, but actually three years had transpired.

This may be a small detail, but remember how we said last week that Daniel is “true history” and “accurate history.”

If you skip past this detail you might think that Daniel is not very accurate and agree with the critics who say the Bible is contradictory but in reality we know Daniel is very accurate with his dates.

Second, the Babylonians would have been celebrating an important festival in honor of their King.

John Walton, an Ancient Near Eastern Scholar describes this festival:

Each year at the all-important Akitu, Babylon’s New Year’s enthronement festival, the gods fixed the destinies for the coming year, thus reasserting their power.

Authority was then transferred to the king as he took the hand of Marduk.

Then the deity took up his rest in the temple.[2]

In Babylon the Akitu was a twelve-day enthronement festival that was celebrated in association with the New Year.

It included renewal both of kingship among the gods and of the human king.

Part of it reenacted the conflict between Marduk and Tiamat that is preserved in Enuma Elish.

Most importantly for Daniel chapter 2, it was at this festival the chief concern was the destiny of the coming year to be declared.

No wonder the King’s spirit troubled him.

While the people were celebrating and no doubt declaring to the King that he would have great year ahead he was having a dream that said something so very contrary.

So let’s read what happens next (On Screen Bible Daniel 2:2-9).

“So the king issued an order to summon the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers and Chaldeans in order to explain to the king his dreams.

When they came and stood before the king, he said to them, “I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit is anxious to understand the dream.”

Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, “May the king live forever!

Tell your servants the dream, and we will declare the interpretation.”

The king answered the Chaldeans saying, “I firmly decree: If you do not make the dream and its meaning known to me, you will be torn limb from limb and your houses reduced to rubble.

But if you tell the dream and its meaning, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor.

So tell me the dream and its meaning!”

They responded a second time, saying, “Let the king tell his servants the dream and we will declare the interpretation.”

The king replied saying, “I know for sure that you are buying time since you see that I have firmly decreed that if you do not reveal the dream to me, there is only one verdict for you.

You have conspired to say something false and fraudulent, until such a time as things might change.

So then, tell me the dream and I will know that you can tell me its meaning.””

(, TLV)

Immediately, Daniel the narrator of this story, ushers us into the inner throne room of the king.

This was a frightening place.

One Babylonian scholar has said that Nebuchadnezzar used to keep caged lions next to his throne to demonstrate his power and authority and also to provoke fear in the hearts of his servants.

Here in the throne room of Nebuchadnezzar the best of the best of Babylon should have had an answer for the king.

The story quickly shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic in and the Chaldeans who probably represent the leading priestly caste in Babylon step forward to speak on behalf of all the magicians, sorcerers and astrologers.

They have no answer for the king because they were only trained in the art of interpreting what was seen.

They could interpret patterns in birds, in animal livers, in water splashes and in cloud formations but they could not access the unseen realm of dreams and see what was hidden and private.

The king is agitated and angry at the very religious institution he created.

He says, “You have conspired to say something false and fraudulent, until such a time as things might change” ().