Holy Living In An Unholy World Series

Daniel: Holy Living in an Unholy World (2)

Text: Daniel 1:5-21

So last week we got sort of a short introduction to the Book of Daniel, and if you remember we talked about how Daniel was taken from his home, and how… for all intents and purposes… the Babylonians tried to make him and his friends just like they were. The whole goal of the 3 year Babylonians re-education system was to make the Hebrew slaves, Babylonian – and that meant they would be indoctrinated with the Babylonian world-view, and assimilated to the Babylonian culture.

And I wrote in the bulletin, that we – as Christians need to have this view that we too are exiles. We are strangers in a strange land, and this world is not our home. And I want to explain this to you if I can… I’ll try to do it in a way that makes sense and does it justice, but I’m going to need you to put on your thinking caps as we go through this book, and listen to what God’s Word actually says. OK?

SO let’s turn to Daniel 1:5-21 (READ).

God has brought His judgment upon the land and people of Israel for their continual sin, idolatry, and rebellion. And you’ve got to understand, that when Babylon comes in, it meant the functional end of Israel as a nation. Yes… Israel came back after 70 years, and there were a series of monarchs in the land of Judah known as the Hasmoneans… and there’s the Maccabean period. But functionally speaking, Israel was never an independent nation again, until after WWII. It was always a tributary to some other nation. And that began to take place in 605 B.C.

What that did was lead to an increased longing for the promised Messiah.

It’s also, during this time of captivity, that we see God do more miracles. There are four periods within Scripture where we see God really ramp up the miraculous. Some people think that miracles happened all down through the ages, from Adam and Eve, all the way to Jesus… but if you actually take the time and read through Scripture, you’ll see that there were periods when God was doing more miracles, and periods when He didn’t do hardly any.

So take the Exodus for example. We see God part the Red Sea, we see Him destroy Pharaoh and his armies, we see Him miraculously feed the Israelites, and then it’s quiet for a while. With only the occasional miracle, like Samson, or David killing Goliath, but the times weren’t marked by the miraculous. The next big period of miracles was during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha… And then here in Daniel we see God doing a lot of miraculous things, and giving visions, and speaking through Daniel and his contemporaries… and then just as an FYI, the fourth great period is during the life and ministries of Jesus and the Apostles.

One other key point we need to be aware of… It’s during the time of exile that God shows Himself to be the God of all nations. Not just of the land of Israel. In ancient times, nations and empires believed that they each had their own gods.

Babylon believed that Israel had a God, and that in times past He had done amazing things, like help them defeat the Philistines and conquer the Promised Land. They believed that the Israelites God helped them escape Egypt. But they also believed that they themselves had a powerful set of “gods”. And they had many. They were not monotheistic. So the people tended to believe that Israel had a God, and Babylon had their gods, and Egypt had their gods, and the Greeks had their gods, etc., etc.

And so, if you were able to conquer your enemy, you believed that your “god” was stronger than their “god”. That’s how many ancient peoples thought. But God is pretty clear in showing us that it was He who gave Judah into the hand of the Babylonians. He was the One who orchestrated this and made it happen. God is saying that He alone is sovereign and in control.

So Daniel tells us that he and his friends were taken to the land of Shinar. That’s a direct reference to Genesis chapter 10. It’s the land of the tower of Babel. Daniel is making sure his readers know that this isn’t just a political battle between the nation states of Judah and Babylon. It’s a spiritual battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the darkness.

And Daniel understood this… that’s a big reason why he was able to maintain his walk with God. Because he understood that this was the outworkings of a spiritual battle. He understood that God had not failed, or somehow been defeated. Daniel knew that all the way back in the time of Moses… back in Deuteronomy 28, God had promised Israel that if they went astray and engaged in rebellion and idolatry, He would send them into exile. Daniel knew that, and so Daniel is telling us that God is in complete control of this.