Sermon Tone Analysis

Unbreakable Faith

We’ve been looking at the life of Daniel and his friends for the last 4 weeks.

They all faced a changing culture that ripped everything they were familiar with away from them then demanded that they change and be like a new culture.

Their changing culture demanded that instead of relying on God, they should rely on their new government.

Instead of worshiping God, they needed to bow down and worship their new king.

They were told to obey at the threat of being killed.

The culture around them was changing and asking them to compromise.

“Do what makes you happy!

Lie to stay out of trouble.

Don’t stand up for the truth because it’s too dangerous and you will be the only one.”

Their changing culture was constantly trying to pump fear into them.

Even though the destruction and captivity of Jerusalem and their forced re-education was much more severe than what we face today, in many ways their shifting culture was very similar to the changing culture of compromise we live in today.

We look at our rapidly changing culture and sometimes find ourselves asking, “How are we going to survive this?” My hope and prayer for all of us as we study this series is that as we see this happening all around us we can take a deep breath and realize that we can’t JUST HOPE TO SURVIVE.

But with God we can thrive.

Or better yet, if we let God work in us and give us the strength to thrive, GOD will be glorified and the world around us will begin to change.

Just like Yahweh did for Daniel and his friends.

Just think about all the amazing things we watched God do through Daniel and his friends with just small amounts of obedience.

King tried to rename them, but they remembered who GOD said they were and didn’t compromise or defile themselves.

Didn’t compromise with food = Healthier & more wise than everyone else = Entered royal service = Served almost 70 years and more than 4 kings.

Their obedience to God gave them the strength to stand in public even though they faced pressure, persecution, and death.

They didn’t compromise when it came to conflict, instead they approached with God’s wisdom.

They spent years building relationships and approached with HUMILITY and HOPE with the goal of RESTORATION.

They didn’t seek personal gain, instead they did everything for God’s glory.

Even when the writing was on the wall for Belshazzar, Daniel said, “Keep your gifts...”

As I look at some of the stories about Daniel and his friends I can’t help but think about how incredibly WISE and TOUGH these men were.

That’s why Ashley Wooldridge named this series “Tough as Nails” when he did it at his church.

These guys were tough as nails.

As our culture continues to demand compromises from us, how can we be tough like Daniel?

I want faith like Daniel’s.

Faith in Yahweh that is unbreakable.

Today we are going to finish up our look at Daniel with the most well known story in the book of Daniel.

Possibly the most well known story in the whole bible.

How many of you would say that you are very familiar with the story of “Daniel and the Lions’ Den”?

I don’t want anyone to feel embarrassed, but I don’t want to assume anything either, so is there anyone in here who has never heard of “Daniel and the Lions’ Den”?

I found a few pictures online that are fairly representative of how we tend to view the story.

Probably the most common view is of some young white weight lifter.

Apparently that has spawned a movement to turn Daniel into Kanye West.

This one gets a little closer to making Daniel look like an older gentlemen, possibly from the Middle East, but I don’t know what’s up with those lions.

Some of them look hungry.

In this last one the lions are less hungry looking, but Daniel is back to being a white guy.

At least he’s older, but maybe too stoic or pretentious?

It doesn’t matter.

I’m just having a little fun.

For those of you who are familiar with the story, hopefully this will be a good refresher and you will learn something new or see the story from a slightly different angle.

If you want to follow along in your bibles, this story is found in Chapter 6 of Daniel.

As you turn there, let me catch you up on the story just a bit.

Last week we looked at chapter 5 and we watched as king Belshazzar of Babylon, defied Yahweh.

He had wild parties, got crazy drunk, drank from cups from God’s Temple, worshipped all sorts of gods, and who knows what else might have been going on, so God sent a hand to write the message on the wall that said, “NUMBERED, NUMBERED, WEIGHED, and DIVIDED”.

Daniel had to come in and tell the king what the message meant.

Daniel said it means this...

“God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end.

You have been weighed on the balances and have not measured up.

Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

While all of this is going on, King Cyrus of Persia was in the process of breaching Babylons defenses.

Babylon was surrounded by a huge impregnable wall.

The Walls of Babylon were one of the 7 Wonders of the World.

The walls completely encircled the city and even stretched over the Euphrates River, which ran through the center of the city.

At the time there was no known technology that could breach the walls.

They had large metal gates in the river to keep people from trying to get in by way of the river.

They had large gates for foot traffic to pass through.

There is no way for us to know the exact dimensions of the walls, but some pretty conservative estimates put each wall at about 12 miles long, at least 25 feet thick, anywhere from 75 to 150 feet tall, with towers built on top which could make them reach even higher.

Some ancient historians claimed the walls were as much as 320 feet tall.

Not only is the wall itself famous, but one of it’s gates is as well.

It is the Ishtar Gate.

This is a model of what the entire gate and procession street may have looked like.

The structure of the gate itself was buried another 45 feet down in the dirt.

Each of the bricks were colored with a glaze.

Historians, archeologists and scientists still haven’t figured out exactly how they managed to utilize ancient technology to get such accurate colors for their brick glaze.

Here is another picture of a reconstruction of the gate itself.

When you look at this reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate, it helps you get a better visual of the scale of this wall.

This reconstruction isn’t even the entire gate.

This is the smaller portion of the gate.

You may remember talking about King Nebuchadnezzar’s pride.

He would put inscriptions on some of his creations in the city including this gate.

I only bring this up because scripture talks about his pride and here, outside of scripture, we have examples of his pride from his own inscriptions.

I want to read you part of what he wrote.

I know it’s super cringy, but hang in there...

“I pulled down these gates and laid their foundations at the water table with asphalt and bricks and had them made of bricks with blue stone on which wonderful bulls and dragons were depicted.

I covered their roofs by laying majestic cedars lengthwise over them.

I fixed doors of cedar wood adorned with bronze at all the gate openings.

I placed wild bulls and ferocious dragons in the gateways and thus adorned them with luxurious splendor so that Mankind might gaze on them in wonder.”

I’m getting a little off topic here, but I thought it was very interesting.

It’s also interesting to me how closely this historical time period lines up with ours culturally.

We have one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world taking their safety for granted.

They strike fear in the hearts of anyone who opposes them.

They pridefully ignore God.

They go out and take what they want.

They pat themselves on the back for the great things they have built.

They worship anything that comes into their lives and makes them happy.

Nothing can defeat them!

They are too powerful!

To big to fail!

The writing is on the wall… And they don’t even care.

It is scary how similar our culture is today.

The writing is on the wall and nobody even cares.

“Thanks for the good message!” they say.

Then go right back to life my way.

Then, like a thief in the night, it’s all taken from King Belshazzar.

This is all we get from scripture...

What happened is that while all of this partying was happening, King Cyrus of Persia was digging and redirecting water from the river.