Sermon Tone Analysis

Response to Human Government Daniel 4

Daniel 4

Introduction: I’m so glad to be here with you all today!

I am thankful for the opportunity to present God’s word this morning.

Please turn with me to the book of Daniel chapter 4. Yes, those of you that know me knew we were going to an Old Testament passage this morning!

Did you expect anything less?

And we are not just going to any Old Testament passage!

We are going to an obscure one!

While you are turning there, Erika and I were recently watching Mysteries at the Museum.

We love that show.

My siblings however think Erika and I are old and boring to watch lame documentaries.

In a recent episode we watched an account of an eye glass case and a manuscript, both with a bullet hole in it.

They belonged to President Theodore Roosevelt, who was on the campaign trail for his third term in office.

Many people were against a president having a third term.

One man, a Saloon keeper was adometly against Roosevelt and against him running for another office.

John Schank was stalking the president for a long time and found his opportune moment right before the possible new president was about to give an 80 minute speak.

Yes 80 minutes.

And you probably thought last weeks sermon was a long one.

He took a shot at the the 26th president of the United States, and was soon after tackled.

A bullet in his chest did not stop this former president from getting up and making his 80 min speech.

After his speech, he was taken to a medical facility and stabilized after having a bullet lodged in his chest.

His metal glasses case and his 50 page speaking manuscript, yes 50 pages was needed for a speech that long, had slowed down the bullet enough that it had not penetrated his lungs, just lodged in his chest.

He would have this in his chest for the remainder of his life.

Now this is an extreme case of political disrespect.

Maybe we are not quite to the point that John Schank was.

But let me remind you of the day that we live in, where politics have become almost a religion in our country.

And it has become so divisive.

So many people are against “the other side” and absolutely abhorre someone from “the other side” being put into office.

We live in a time where Donald Trump is president.

To which the beginning of his office was met with violent and extreme acts of opposition.

We live in a current time when Nancy Pelosi is the 3rd most powerful person in our country.

To which many people would oppose her and speak out against her vehemently.

And let us not forget that Coloradans recently elected the first openly homosexual governor who many people will oppose and be in disgust.

My purpose this morning is not to at all condemn or raise up any of these three individuals.

I know there are mixed opinions even within this room about these three people.

In fact, there is probably opposing views in this room about any one of these people.

Maybe already when I mentioned those names you had a great love for the individual, or maybe your blood was already boiling just hearing one of those names.

But the question I have for us this morning, how should believers in God look at those in government?

How should we as Christians respond to people in authority who are good?

How should we as Christians respond to people in authority who are evil?

I believe that our text this morning will enlighten us in this topic.

Let us now read Daniel chapter 4. Follow along with me as I read.

This will be a lot of verses for a Sunday Morning, but it is slightly difficult to pull a few verses out of a narrative passage.

As I read, please notice who is writing this chapter.

King Nebuchadnezzar himself.

A Gentile! To my knowledge, he is one of the only, if not the only gentile who had a part in writing a portion of scripture.

Background of Daniel

What an odd story to look at this morning.

The book of Daniel has some famous stories in it light shadrack, meshack, and abednego.

Or Daniel in the lions den.

We however will be looking at this obscure text today.

As we dive into this chapter, it is important for us to understand the book of Daniel as that will shape our understanding of this passage.

Daniel is a book with one driving theme throughout it: God is Sovereign.

And a specific aspect of God’s sovereignty that is highlighted in Daniel is the fact that God is in control over human government.

He does as he pleases.

And despite any human’s intervention, God’s plans will not be thwarted.

We see this theme through the first 6 chapters which are somewhat narrative.

We also see this through the last 6 chapters which are more apocalyptic in nature.

The first 6 chapters are not just narrative, but rather a literary genre called Novella.

A well structured narrative of some length crafted for a particular purpose of teaching a moral or theological lesson.

And the theological lesson being taught in Daniel is that God is in Control over all human governments.

There is a sense of poetry in the Chiastic structure of the first half of Daniel.

Maybe you will remember from our Psalms study last year about Chiasm as a form of Jewish poetry.

Where similar parallel thoughts build to a climactic middle thought or parallel thoughts.

and 5 are the contrasting parallel thoughts that the author is climaxing to.

The literary genre of the first 6 chapters of Daniel is Novella: A well structured narrative of some length crafted for a particular purpose of teaching a moral or theological lesson.

What is historically going on at this time?

Because of Israels disobedience, God exiles the them into foreign lands.

The first of which is by Babylon taking Judah into captivity.

The year is 509 BC when King Nebuchadnezzar comes to power.

His father had set up the New Babylonian Empire, the greatest and most vast empire the world had ever seen at this time.

The new king starts his reign by conquering Egypt and Assyria.

After that he goes to Judah.

At which time Jehoiakim is reigning.

Nebuchadnezzar comes, slaughters Judah’s King, and puts his dead body on the throne.

This guy ransacks the Jewish temple, the most holy building for the Jewish people and takes many of the sacred artifacts and displays them in his own temple back in Babylon symbolizing that he and his gods had conquered the God of the Israelites.

Then this Babylonian King takes 3,000 people captive.

3 months later, King Nebi takes 10,000 captives.

On their victorious march back to Babylon, this king takes some of their Torah scriptures.King Nebuchadnezzar takes the Torah Scrolls, makes them into bags, fills them with sand, and forces the Jewish people to carry these desecrated bags of sand.

If ripping people from their homes was not enough, once back in Babylon, he forced them to remove every part of their culture that they held dear.

He forced them to dress like Babylonians, talk in a Babylonian language.

Learn what Babylonians learned.

Learn Babylonian culture.

Even change their names to Babylonian names.

He changes Daniel’s name to Beltashazzar after one of Nebuchadnezzar’s god.

He forces them to worship Babylonian gods.

At a later time, this king would kill 600,000 jews.

That would be like killing all the people in the city of Denver.

This king was also vastly arrogant.

When he had buildings built, he would have the construction workers inscribe his name on each of the bricks.

He truly considered himself to be a god.

So much so that he elevated himself on a throne, and had manmade clouds put under him.

This man had some serious ego.

If you were a Jew, what would your attitude be towards your new king?

Think about that as we go into .

Notice, who is writing this chapter of the Bible?

This is the only part of scripture written by a gentile.

Interesting.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Realization

Look down at verses 1-3.