IN A HOSTILE LAND

Introduction

-While Daniel has a lot of interesting parts, if not some confusing parts, what I think is most beneficial to us in our day and age is the fact that it is a story about God’s people living in a hostile land and how they did it and how they served God even in the middle of it. Yes, there’s all the prophecies that you really might want to sink your teeth into, and there’s the famous stories that you might want to dig into a little deeper. But at its base we have to remember that God’s people were no longer in the promised land but in the land of an invader. They were in a hostile land.

-And it’s important for us to look at the book this way because, in a sense, we are in the same shape. We are God’s people in a hostile land, and really one that is growing more hostile all the time. What are we to do? How are we to live? How do we remain faithful? Hopefully those will be some themes we pick up on over the next several months.

-The first part of Daniel 1 sets the scene for us. It gives a brief introduction for us so we know why Daniel and his friends are where they are at and we understand all the more why they do what they do. So, let’s look at the first seven verses.

Daniel 1:1–7 ESV

1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 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. 3 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, 4 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. 5 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. 6 Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. 7 And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.

-When you read the books of the Kings and the Chronicles you see the nation of Israel (more specifically the southern kingdom of Judah) have its ups and downs, and it seems a lot of the ups and downs were tied in with who was king at any given time. If the king was a good king (often described as someone who took after the heart of David), then the nation flourished spiritually. If the king was a bad king (often described as someone who DID NOT follow the heart of David), the nation floundered spiritually. And when the nation was floundering, they fell into a lot of flagrant sin and idolatry. God sent prophets to warn the nation about their situation, but the nation ignored them for the most part, and the wheel was set in motion for judgment because their heart was dead-set on rebellion against God.

-God raised up one final good king in Josiah who had a heart for worshipping the Lord. And when a copy of the Word of God was found (meaning that the nation did not have the Word of God on hand for quite some time) it tore Josiah’s heart up finding out exactly how rebellious they had been. While Josiah got rid of most of the places of idol worship and followed God with all of his heart and instituted many changes to lead the people to do the same, it was too little too late.

-Josiah was killed at a pretty young age, and then his sons and grandson would take various turns on the throne, each as wicked as the other, until finally the nation was destroyed.

-Babylon was God’s tool of judgment. They turned Judah into a vassal state and began deporting people and resources from Judah to bring to Babylon. Now, specifically here, Nebuchadnezzer battled Egypt and the remnants of Assyria in the battle of Carchemish. After destroying the Assyrians and forcing Egypt into retreat, Nebuchadnezzer swung up into Judah and besieged Jerusalem. Judah had sided with Egypt and wanted Egypt’s help with protection, and by doing so had become Egypt’s puppet in a way. The Egyptian ruler Neco put his puppet king on the throne of Judah, Josiah’s son Jehoiakim. Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t going to have any of that, and wanted to get Judah back under its thumb.

-But we need to notice that God was in complete control of the situation and is in fact the one sovereignly controlling what is going on. In v. 2 it says that it was the Lord that gave Jehoiakim, Judah, and Jerusalem into Babylon’s hands. Babylon at the time took the credit for what happened. They probably made the claim that it was their might along with the help of their gods that brought about all these victories and put Judah into their control. But the Bible makes it abundantly clear that it was the Lord that brought this all about. Babylon was merely God’s tool of judgment and discipline. It is interesting to note that the word for “Lord” here is not the divine name Yahweh that we usually see as LORD in all capital letters. It is the word ADONAI which refers to God as being the supreme master. He was master over Babylon, He was master over Judah, and He is master over everything even to this day.

-And God had warned Israel that this day would come—giving warnings as early as in the book of Leviticus. As one commentator summarizes:

Daniel (God’s Faithfulness in Judgment)

The Lord had warned Israel of the sure consequences of their sins in the Book of Leviticus. At the beginning of Israel’s history as a nation with God, he made a covenant with them, a covenant that included blessings for obedience and curses if they disobeyed (Lev. 26). If they served the Lord faithfully and kept the terms of the covenant, then they would experience his favor and blessing (26:3–13). However, if they abandoned him and violated his covenant, they would experience his wrath and disfavor (26:14–39). Their crops would be ruined and they would become prey for wild animals and for their enemies (26:19–25). If they persisted in their disobedience, the Lord would scatter them among the nations and they would waste away in exile (26:33, 39). This was exactly Israel’s fate as it unfolded.

-Now, it is hard for us to imagine that God would use pagans against His own people. In fact, if you read the prophet Habakkuk, he cries out to the Lord to do something about all the sin and violence that is going on in Judah. And then God tells him that He is going to send Babylon to punish the people. And Habakkuk cannot believe it—how are You going to use someone who is even worse? But God’s people ignored the warnings and calls to repentance that had been coming for centuries.

-It makes you wonder—does God do the same for His church? If His church is grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching the Spirit and is lukewarm and generally disobedient, could God use the pagans of the day to discipline the church? I think so. I also think that God can use world powers and situations to purge His church of the impurities. But, ultimately, God wants His church to repent and be obedient and fulfill the Great Commission. So, maybe He uses the powers that be to kind of push His church.

-You notice too that some of the items from the temple of God were stolen and placed in the temples of foreign gods—most likely the temple of Marduk (also known as Bel). It was a sign of respect to the god but also it was the spoils of war that indicated Marduk supposedly defeated Yahweh (which I’ll address in a minute). It’s hard to imagine that God would let His temple be defiled like that. But, the truth is that the Jews had defiled the temple long before this with their idolatry and false worship. True worship of God hadn’t happened in the temple for a long time anyway, so it was no big loss. The same thing would happen again in AD 70 after the Jews denied their Messiah. But God isn’t limited by a temple anyway—He seeks people anywhere to worship Him in Spirit and truth. That ought to also give us pause for churches. There are a lot of churches that just put on shows and entertainment. That isn’t worship. That is why I appreciate Brian so much because you can tell his heart. He wants God to be honored.

-As I alluded to just a minute ago, another thing to kind of think about is that normally when one nation defeated another nation, it would be a demonstration that the conquering nation’s god was superior to the loser’s. Nebuchadnezzar would have thought that Marduk was superior to Yahweh. We obviously know that is not the case. It is clear that Yahweh was sovereign over these events. And we will see later in Daniel that Yahweh makes sure that Nebuchadnezzar knows exactly who He is and what His true power is. Just because God allows something that we don’t like or allows trials or sufferings does not mean that He is weak or defeated. He is still in charge and He has His reasons and purposes for allowing to happen what happens.

-Just because God allows certain world events to happen or even personal events to happen does not mean that He is too weak to stop it. The enemies of God often try to use the argument from the problem of evil to insult God or deny God. It usually goes that if God is all-powerful and all-loving as Christians claim, then He would stop evil. But there is evil in the world so either there is no God at all, or He isn’t powerful enough to stop it, or He is not loving enough to stop it. But those are just false dichotomies. God is not the cause of evil, but He can sovereignly direct the evil that occurs to fulfill His purposes. We do not know necessarily know the specific reasons at the time because we are not an eternal God. He may allow it for character development. He may allow it for judgment or discipline. He may allow it to bring about an even greater good later. There are tons of reasons why God might allow it. Here, with this time in Judah’s history, He used it as a means of judgment and discipline.

-So, Babylon has Judah under its thumb, and they take many into captivity. They take the best and brightest of the young people to come to Babylon and train in their schools so that they could serve in the government. They learn from the sciences and philosophies of the time to be better officials. So, if you think about it, even in the midst of a not-so-good situation, God used it to place His people in areas of influence. God used this seemingly bad situation—deportation (or, maybe another way of looking at it, kidnapping)--to put the pieces in place that He wanted in place. He put Daniel and the boys where He wanted them so that He could use them for the good of His people and the glory of His name.

-And that is a great reminder to us that we might not be in the most ideal circumstances in life, but God may have put us there for something. God is moving His plan of redemption along in the world, and you have a part in it. But that doesn’t mean that God will make you comfortable in placing you and using you where He will. So often people will share the gospel saying something to the effect: God has a wonderful plan for your life. But that often gets translated ((or mistranslated would probably be better to say) that God’s plan aligns with your plan and He wants to fulfill your dreams. Well, problem number one is that the gospel has absolutely nothing to do with plans for your life. The gospel has to do with Jesus Christ dying for sins and rising from the dead. And problem number two is that God’s plan for your life might include discomfort if not even suffering and death.

-Look at the apostles—they started the church and the majority of them were martyred. Or, look at Daniel and his friends, they were swept away into a foreign land, conscripted to serve in a foreign government. And that was God’s plan. And so, living for God in a hostile environment might be God’s plan for you. And we want to do it faithfully. And we will talk more about that next week.