Daniel #01: an exposition of Daniel 1:1-21. This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, January 20, 2013.
Intro:
Do you ever find it difficult to live out your faith? Are you ever faced with choosing between being faithful to the will of God or obeying your employer? Have you ever had to worry that being faithful to the Scripture might cost you a friendship? Has your faith ever created problems within your family? The life of faith is not an easy life. Living out the commands of our God in a culture that is increasingly hostile to Him is difficult to say the least. True you’ve not had to resist to the point of death or anywhere near that yet. But your life of faith can cost you greatly. How do we remain faithful in faithless days? How do we pursue godliness in godless times? He was a young man in his mid to late teens when he was taken from his safe/secure environment and placed in a hostile land, forced into the service of a godless king, schooled in pagan thinking and yet for seven decades he stood as a shining example of faith and godliness. His name was Daniel and he has much to teach us.
This morning we begin a study of the book of Daniel. To open the book of Daniel is to enter a strange new world. We find ourselves in Babylon six centuries before the birth of Christ. We read the words of a man who knew God intimately and to whom God revealed His secrets. The story begins in 605 B.C. and ends around 537 B.C. Thus his life spans the entire Babylonian captivity. The book is divided into 2 parts. Chapters 1-6 are biographical telling of the exploits of Daniel and his three friends. While chapters 7-12 record visions and their interpretation. There is one other important background note. We, westerners, think linear. We think of time and history in terms of a beginning a middle and an end. We think in terms of sequence. This happened and then that happened and it ended with this. But people from the east think in terms of cycles. Thus their histories often tell the same story from multiple angles or perspectives. That’s important because Daniel focuses on one grand theme but comes back to it again and again from different perspectives and that is important to note for our understanding of the book. With that in mind let’s look at Daniel chapter 1.
Text: Daniel 1:1-21
Verses 1 and 2 set the context for us. Our story opens with two succinct statements about the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzer, king of Babylon. I say there are two statement because it is described in two ways.
1:1 = from the view of secular history.
1:2 = the same event informed by biblical theology.
Nebuchadnezzer sieged Jerusalem and God gave them into his hand. Which is the truth? The Babylonians took the city or God gave the city over? Yes! Nebuchadnezzer in his lust for power and land conquered the world and thus he served God’s sovereign purpose. The immediate result of the siege of Jerusalem was that God was robbed of His possessions and blasphemies were committed against His name. Vessels of gold were taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem and placed in the temple of idols in Babylon. The Babylonian gods were praised for the defeat of Israel’s God. The best and brightest of Israel were spirited away. It was a dark, tragic day for God’s people. Now doubt the cries went up throughout Judah, “Where was God when the Babylonians came?” “Has He forgotten His promise? Has He abandon us in the hour of our greatest need?”
Yet the biblical writer knew better. This is the work of God. The work of His hand.
The book of Daniel is a grand and glorious statement of the sovereignty of God and His grand purpose the establishment of His kingdom. The book is an encouragement to the people of God throughout the ages that regardless of how things look or feel God is in control and He is working all things for our good and His glory.
Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were taken and forced into the service of the godless king. Now they become our teachers and chapter one gives us our first lesson.
Thesis: Faithfulness in the face of a godless culture demands an uncompromising faith.
Psalm 137 is about life in Babylon during the captivity. The Psalmist gives us a glimpse of the spiritual decline of those days:
1 By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there we hung up our lyres (harps).
3 For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion!
4How shall we sing the LORD‘s song in a foreign land?
The answer to that penetrating questions is found in a life of uncompromising faith. I want to point out to you, from our text, three things about uncompromising faith.
- Uncompromising faith demands vigilant awareness of the daily threats to faith. (1:3-7)
- Uncompromising faith demands determined obedience even in mundane and everyday things. (1:8-16)
- Uncompromising faith enjoys God’s gracious favor. (1:17-21)