When in Babylon…?
Daniel 1 – Standing Strong against Satan’s Schemes
Satan is seeking to destroy our faith
By indoctrinating our minds (1:4)
By stealing our identity (1:6-7)
By feeding our flesh (1:5)
God enables us to stand strong in our faith
By knowing the Truth(1:8a)
By remembering our Identity (1:19)
By exercising our faith (1:8b-16)
Intro
Slide
Good morning. I am excited you are here this morning. We are beginning a new series for the summer called, “When in Babylon…?”
You may have heard the saying When in Rome, do as the Romans. Well this title ends in a question mark, because we are going to find that, as Christians, we are not called to follow the ways that the world acts. We are called to follow the Lord, in all situations, even when we live in environments and cultures that are hostile towards those who are followers of the Lord.
And the society we live in today, while it is much more advanced technologically, is similar to Daniel’s in that it is not very supportive toward those who are followers of the Lord.
This is why I think studying the book of Daniel this summer will be good for all of us, to encourage us to live for the Lord and remind us that even in a culture that is opposed to following Him, we do follow a God that is completely in control of all things, things in the political realm as well as the future. They are all completely in His hand.
And even for those of you here today who are young, this is a great book to learn and know, because when Daniel and his friends were taken captive to Babylon, they were just teens who were separated from their family, but God used them mightily to bring glory to Him.
He can do the same thing through you, no matter what your age.
So before we get started, I want to give you a little background of the book of Daniel.
Daniel lived approximately 400 years after David and 600 years before Jesus. The book covers about a 75 year period from 605 BC to about 530 BC. In the beginning Daniel is just a teenager, maybe about 15 years old. When the book closes, he is about 90 years old. Over the course of his life, Daniel goes from prisoner to serving as a trusted counselor to a succession of Babylonian and Persian rulers.
http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/1999-11-07-The-Four-Freshmen-How-the-World-Tries-to-Seduce-the-Church/
Slide
As we begin the book of Daniel this morning, we are going to learn how the Lord enables us to stand strong against Satan’s Schemes as we get a glimpse of Satan’s playbook for turning God fearing believers away from Him.
So turn with me to Daniel 1.
Slide
If you don’t know where Daniel is, open to the middle of the Bible and then go to the right. Go past Isaiah, and past Jeremiah and past Ezekiel. If you get to a guy’s name you don’t recognize, it is probably one of the minor prophets and you have gone too far. Go back to the left. It is right after Ezekiel.
So beginning in Daniel 1, we read:
Daniel 1
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 delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god.
3 Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— 4 young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. 5 The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.
6 Among these were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 7 The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.
Let’s pause here and pray
Ok, in these first 7 verses of Daniel, we find that things are not going so well for Israel.
Jerusalem has been besieged and prisoners are taken.
One of the first things we learn here is that it is not Satan who is behind Jerusalem’s fall, but the Lord.
It tells us that “the Lord delivered Jehoiakim, the king of Judah into” the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (1:2).
The Lord does this because it is a consequence for their continued idolatry and sin that they refused to repent of. The Lord warned them over and over through the prophets of the consequences, but they refused to repent.
So, they are facing the consequences of their actions. These consequences are designed to help the Israelites, or anyone who is a follower of the Lord, turn back to Him realizing that following our own ways are never as wise as following the Lord.
But this is often where Satan jumps in.
We need to realize that while God seeks to draw us deeper into faith with Him,
Satan is seeking to Destroy our Faith
Slide
We often think about Satan trying to destroy us through a frontal assault. More often than not, Satan is subtle, seeking to lead us slowly away from the Lord without us even realizing it. Scripture tells us that Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). He often subtly enters during difficult times to seek to lead us away and destroy our faith.
In our text this morning, we see Satan employ three schemes that he uses to try and destroy the faith of those who are God’s people. He did this with Daniel and his friends then and he does this with us, today.
First,
Satan tries to destroy our faith…
…By indoctrinating our minds
Slide
We see in Daniel 1:4 that the king wants to teach Daniel and the others “the language and literature of the Babylonians.”
One of the ways that Satan works to destroy the faith of these godly young men is to indoctrinate their minds with human wisdom and immerse them in a pagan culture and instill a new value system into them.
This is the way Satan still operates. People of faith are being continually bombarded with the things that culture values and it is done in ways that make them seem good if we are not viewing things through a Biblical worldview.
And this cultural change we see going on has been pretty effective at indoctrinating our minds through commercials and advertisements and through our education system.
These things are especially true for the younger generations, just like in our text today where they were seeking to take the young and indoctrinate them with the teachings and views of the culture so they could be leaders of others in changing their views.
We will talk more about combatting Satan’s attempts at indoctrination in a few minutes, but this is one of the tactics that He used and still uses to destroy the faith of the followers of God.
Another scheme of Satan’s to destroy our faith is by
…stealing our identity
Slide
One thing that Nebuchadnezzar does is change their names.
Each of the names of these 4 friends is a reminder of their relationship with the Lord.
Daniel means "God is my Judge." He has his name changed to Belteshazzar which means "Bel, protect the King." Bel is a name for one of the Babylonian gods.
Hananiah means "The Lord is gracious." He has his name changed to Shadrach which means "Command of Aku”, the Sumerian sun-god.
Mishael means "Who is like the Lord?" He has his name changed to Meshach which means "Who is what Aku is?"
Azariah means "The Lord is my helper." He has his name changed to Abednego which means "Servant of Nebo,” another Babylonian god, the god of wisdom.
Satan, who is behind this, wants to do anything to make them forget who they are and try to steal their identity.
Satan does the same thing with us today trying to make us forget that we are children of God if we have received Him as Savior.
Transition
One final scheme that Satan uses to attempt to destroy the faith of the godly is by…
…Feeding our Flesh
Slide
Daniel 1:5 - The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.
It is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Well, Satan is trying to change the hearts of these young men by giving them the “good life” and feeding their fleshly desires.
The king wants to give them perks and privileges to continue to win them over and make them loyal for service to him. He wants to get these Jews to abandon a Kosher diet that the Lord instituted for them and further lead them away from their beliefs.
Satan continues to operate this way by seeking to entice us with fleshly desires.
We all like fine things, good food, the things money can buy, pleasure.
Now these things may or may not be wrong in themselves, but when we become accustomed to enjoying fine food, and wealth, and pleasure, we don’t want to give it up and that is where we begin to make further compromises to maintain our fleshly desires.
If Satan can get them to abandon a Kosher diet, they will be further removed from following the Lord.
For us today, if Satan can feed our fleshly desires of wealth, and fine things and pleasure, we are closer to making further compromises.
Maybe it is buying a car that is more than I can afford. In this case it would not necessarily be sin, but if it requires me to work more and be away from my family more, or not be involved in spiritual community like going to church or participating in Bible study, Satan has effectively fed my fleshly side and helped to starve my spiritual life.
Do that long enough and we will find ourselves fully integrated into the culture of our society with little distinction between the world and those who call themselves followers of the Lord.
Transition
These are still some of Satan’s primary schemes and tactics against the people of today in this society, just like it was then.
He wants to indoctrinate our minds, steal our identity, and feed our flesh. Satan is behind this.
I am not sure that Nebuchadnezzar’s purpose was all of these things. I don’t doubt that he thought that giving them his food, teaching them the ways of the Babylonians and giving them names more acceptable in that society was not a good thing. To him, he was probably doing these guys a favor. But Satan’s motives are subtle and the New Testament tells us the he prowls around like a lion, subtly sneaking up on his prey so that they don’t know what hit them.
Let’s continue on in Daniel 1 and see how Daniel and his friends responded to these schemes of Satan.
Daniel 1:8-21
8 But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. 9 Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, 10 but the official told Daniel, "I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you."
11 Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 12 "Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see." 14 So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.
15 At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. 16 So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.
17 To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
18 At the end of the time set by the king to bring them in, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19 The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service. 20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.
21 And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.
We see in verse 8 that Daniel “resolved not o defile himself.”
The word resolve is from the Hebrew “suwm” (soom) and here is translated as resolved and in other versions is translated as purposed.
Why is Daniel so resolved to not “defiling” himself with the royal food? I mean it is just food after all, right?
Well, not to the Jew. The Jews in the Old Testament, as the people of God and as a nation had been given some specific instructions in regards to how they were to live and practice their faith.
One of those ways was in regards to their diet. It was to be a Kosher diet.
Certain foods were excluded and it needed to be prepared in special ways.
Daniel knew this. He knew what God had told them. He had learned it as a boy and believed it.
He knew the truth of God’s word.
God enables us to stand firm in our faith
by knowing the truth (1:8a)
Slide
His word is truth and when we know what God wants us to do and what He does not want us to do, we can know where to stand firm.
It is impossible to stand firm in the faith when we don’t know the truth of God’s word.
If we are going to stand firm in the faith, then it is imperative that we know God’s word.
When we know the truth of God’s word, we are going to be able to be
“in this world” and be effective witnesses for Christ standing strong in the faith and not “of this world” being swayed by the worlds teaching.
Some of the teachings of the world will seem to have a “form of godliness” and people will be swayed unless they know the truth of God’s word.
Maybe you have heard this reasoning:
“As long as 2 people love each other, sex outside of marriage is ok.”
“It’s fine for 2 people to marry regardless if they are the same sex or not.”
“Isn’t it better to abort the child than to bring him into this world of suffering.”
Those are all “fine-sounding human arguments” that are opposed to the word of God.
Paul wrote to the Colossians that he was hard at work and in fact suffering to preach God’s word to people.
Slide
And he is doing this he says, “so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (Colossians 2:4-8)
If we do not know God’s word, we open ourselves up to “fine- sounding arguments” and being taken “captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies,” and we will never be able to stand strong in the faith.
Daniel and his friends knew the word of God and this is one of the things that enabled them to stand strong in the faith.
Apply
How are you growing in your knowledge of God’s word?
Men’s study
Women’s study
Personal Study
Fall kick off of Connection Groups
We have got to be grounded in the truth like Daniel if we are going to stand firm in the faith and be used by God.
So, we need to know the truth.
But also God enables us to stand firm in our faith by
…remembering our Identity
Slide
We see that Nebuchadnezzar changed the names of these youth. We saw that their names had meaning in regards to the God of the Israelites, the true God.
Well, even though he can change their names, that does not change who they are and who their God is! They remember who they are. We see later in this chapter that they are referred to by their Jewish names.
Now whether they answered to their new names or not, is not the issue.
It is that they remembered who they were. They were God’s people.
It did not matter what others called them. They knew who they were.
Apply
If you are a believer in Christ, you are a child of the King!
John 1:12 - Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
We have got to remember our identity as a child of the King. He has given us His Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing our place and our inheritance.
There are going to be times when Satan comes and tries to steal your identity, making you forget who you are, especially during times of suffering.
When you know the truth of His word and remember that you are his child, you will be able to stand firm when Satan comes and whispers, “You call yourself a Christian when you act like that?”
We will be able to respond, “Yes, what I have done is wrong, but I am a child of the King and I can have forgiveness and have the power to overcome this sin in Christ! And my salvation is not dependent on how good I am, but solely on my relationship with Christ who died for me and rose again and in whom I have placed my hope.”
Remember your identity as a child of the King if you have received Christ as Savior.
Transition
So, God enables us to remain faithful by knowing the truth of His word to us and by remembering who we are.
Daniel and his friends had no problem learning at Babylon university because they were grounded by knowing the truth of God and God did increase their knowledge in many things through even an educational system that sought to indoctrinate them.
They also had no problem with people calling them by other names because they knew who they were and continued to remember their identity as Children of God.
These things were not really problems for them.
Apply
We have many kids who have just graduated High School and are going off to college.
Some are going to Christian universities or colleges and some are going to secular universities or colleges. It is not a problem in regards to where you go, you just want to be grounded in truth and continue in truth and have some others of like faith around you, like Daniel and his friends, so that you can stay grounded in truth and remember who you are.
The secular universities (and even some that are called “Christian” universities) can be used to try to destroy your faith by seeking to convert you to the faith of the culture.
Make sure you are in the word and you remember who you are. This is true for all of us in a culture that is opposed to Christianity.
Now there was one other thing that Daniel and his friends did and that God used to enable them to stay strong in the faith and that is
By Exercising our Faith (1:8b-16)
Slide
Daniel and his friends were being offered fine food from the kings table, and they know that this food would not have been kosher and would have probably been sacrificed to a false god.
This is all they were being offered though. If they were not going to sin against God, they would need to actually do something, take some action, step out in faith in some way.
And they did. They exercised their faith by speaking with the guard in charge and making their request and the word says God caused the official to show favor to Daniel.
God has chosen, in his sovereignty, to work powerfully in our lives through the exercise of our faith.
Listen to what we read in Matthew when He was in Nazareth and they did not have much faith.
Matthew 13:58 - And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
Mark says in regard to this that “He could not do any miracles there.” (Mark 6:5-6)
When Jesus healed some blind men, He said to them, "According to your faith will it be done to you" (Matthew 5:29)
For the Believer in Christ, what does the exercise of our faith really mean?
Exercising our Faith may mean…
Forgoing the Pleasures of Sin
Slide
For Daniel and his friends, I am sure the kings food was very good and good tasting.
They could have enjoyed some of the “finer things” and who could really blame them. They were in captivity after all and had “no choice.”
But they did have a choice, to exercise their faith and forgo the pleasures of what they knew would be sin for them.
Hebrews 11:24-26
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
So it may mean waiting to have sex until you are married
It may mean not making as much money if it costs me my family or my calling to the Lord’s work.
Exercising our Faith may mean
Suffering for the Name of Christ
Slide
1 Peter 4:16 says, However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.
When the apostles were proclaiming Jesus Christ and the gospel, they were flogged by the authorities, but it says they “left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” (Acts 5:41)
When Paul came to Christ, the Lord said of Paul, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." (Acts 9:16)
Exercising our faith may mean we are going to suffer.
One thing is certain
Exercising our faith will mean
Taking Risks for the Glory of God
Slide
Exercising our faith will always be risky from a human stand point.
It was risky for Daniel to make this request to the man who was in charge. Who knows what could have happened.
But that is what faith is, taking a step without seeing the result of that step in advance.
What Risk does the Lord want you to take for Him?
How does he want you to exercise your faith?
Are you willing to let God transform you into a man of faith like Daniel?
Grow in your knowledge of God’s word, remember who you are and exercise your faith.
And if you have never received Christ as Savior, that is the first step in exercising the faith the Lord has given you.
The Bible says in
Romans 10:9 - That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Won’t you do that this morning as we pray.
