When Your World Is Turned Upside Down: Dare To Be A Daniel

Once again, what a year 2020 has turned out to be.

Evidence of that is obvious this morning. Who among us could have possibly predicted that a Sunday morning service at Risen King Community Church in 2020 would look like this? If we had taken a photo of today’s service in the future, I suspect that no one could have imagined why we would be seated separated as we are and why all of us are wearing masks. And we’re in a different place—a different facility.

Yes, our lives have in many ways been upset, even turned upside down in 2020.

And of course, we’re all looking forward to and hoping that things will sometime soon get back to normal. However, the Covid-19 virus rages on in America, unlike any other nation on earth, seemingly impervious to summer heat and resistant even to social distancing. And now we’re sending our children and their teachers back to school, face-to-face with cold and flu season lurking just around the corner. Dr. Robert Redfield, U.S. Director of the Communicable Disease Center predicts we will have a cold and flu season like no other. It makes you wonder if this is only the beginning of our problems.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen social unrest and violent protests related to the Black Lives Movement like we haven’t seen for decades. At least 20 major U.S. Cities have decided to heed the protests as shootings, violent crimes and protests are on the rise. They’re defunding the police and cutting back on police protection. Is this perhaps also a recipe for disaster?

As it now appears Congress will not be immediately funding any economic relief as tens of thousands of unemployed face the prospect of failed businesses, homelessness and joblessness.

And we are in an election year with our nation’s political leaders more hostile, and more divided than at any time since the Civil War. It seems that neither political party trusts the other, that whoever loses in November will contest and protest the election just when our health and wealth as a nation cannot afford any more looting or reckless exposure to the highly contagious virus.

Our world has been turned upside down, and there are plenty of indicators that this might be just the beginning.

And for the believer, this morning, the question is this: What will you do if even some of these crises worsen, if there is chaos, and everything changes? How will you behave? What kind of priority will the Lord continue to have, if any, if things in your life go from bad to worse?

Toward answering that question is why we’re beginning a new message series based on the Book of Daniel this morning entitled, “When Your World Is Turned Upside Down” Because 26 centuries ago a group of godly young men witnessed the deterioration of their formerly godly society until God brought judgment upon it from a foreign, idolatrous, kingdom called Babylon.

It completely rocked their world. Four young Jewish men were deported among many from Judah as Babylon conquered their nation. Their world has been completely turned upside down. There was now no temple to worship their God at, no Jewish feasts, few observant Jews, but rather a pagan tyrant who was intent on training them in the same pagan idolatry and sorcery that he thought was the source of his success. Their response to a seemingly impossible situation stands as an inspiration and instruction for us to this day. They teach us that even when God allows our lives to be turned upside down, don’t compromise. Honor God and He will honor and use you for His glory.

Of course the four young men I’m referring to here are headed by Daniel. They consist of Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The book of Daniel was written by Daniel and its introduction to the series of absolutely incredible events contained in the book is remarkably straightforward and objective. It tells us that the God of Israel had brought judgment upon the southern kingdom of Israel, Judah. It’s 605 B.C.

Verse one: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord gave Jehoiakim King of Judah into his hand, along 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 he brought the vessels into the treasury of His God.”

Now notably Babylon was the place where idolatry originated thousands of years before as Genesis records it under Nimrod. It was located along the Euphrates River about 500 miles east of Jerusalem. It had become a great kingdom that was conquering the then-known world, including the mighty Assyrians to the north of Israel. And in 605 B.C., as long predicted by many prophets, including Daniel’s contemporaries in Judah, Jeremiah and Habakkuk, Nebuchadnezzar’s armies came against Jerusalem and besieged it.