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Daniel 1:1-7
Daniel was born into a nation that had seriously turned away from God. When prophets rose up to rebuke the leaders, they were mocked and scorned and even thrown in prison. When the Word of God was sent to King Jehoiakim, he took out a knife, cut the manuscript in pieces, and threw them into the fire. God’s patience had come to an end for the southern kingdom of Israel.
2 Chronicles 36:15-16, The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; 16 but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy.
That’s where we begin – “there was no remedy.” God was bringing national judgment on His people. They were going into exile for 70 years for their idolatry, apostasy, and failing to keep the 7th year Sabbath for 490 years (see Exodus 23:10-11).
2 Chronicles 36:20-21, Those who had escaped from the sword he (Nebuchadnezzar) carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete.
Jeremiah 25:1, This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
How appropriate to study Daniel when our own nation is crumbling under godless leadership and the potential for persecution is very real. You probably heard of the 71 year-old preacher arrested on a London street for preaching the biblical view of marriage. We don’t know what God plans for us as a nation, but this is a time to be strong and to learn from Daniel and his friends who faced the fiery furnace and the den of lions. They lived not by lies, but by God’s truth. To be uprooted from your homeland as a 15 year-old and transported to a totally foreign country had to be tough. But God never changes; He never fails His people or forgets His people. We’ll see all this in Daniel.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN ISRAEL?
The year is 605 BC. Egypt had been the dominant power in the Middle East. But Babylon in Mesopotamia under Nebuchadnezzar began to expand its power. In 612 BC they conquered Nineveh of the Assyrians. In 605 they conquered the Egyptians at the great battle of Carchemish. Then they made their way south along the Mediterranean in Palestine, conquering as they went, right up to the walls of Jerusalem.
In 605 BC they laid siege to Jerusalem, deported some royal and noble young men, and took some vessels from the great temple in Jerusalem back to Babylon to display them with their other gods. Nebuchnezzar thought this showed that his gods Marduk, Nebo, and many others were greater than the Hebrew God Elohim. He was dead wrong. This is where the book of Daniel begins.
Several years later in 597 BC the Babylonians deported more Israelites, including Ezekiel. Then in 586 BC the absolute unthinkable happened. The Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem, pillaged and destroyed the houses of the city, burned down the Temple, and carted off the bronze, silver, and gold vessels they had taken from the Temple. How could this possibly happen? Where is God? You’ll remember that was Habakkuk’s great question. Imagine China’s armies marching into Washington DC and destroying all the official buildings.
WHAT DO WE LEARN IN DANIEL?
Why study this book? Daniel is probably the most fascinating book among the prophets. Here are some great truths we’re going to learn.
#1 God is absolutely sovereign over all mankind. Nothing happens apart from His sovereign will. As R. C. Sproul says, “There’s not a chance in the world.” All of history is the unfolding of our God’s almighty and sovereign plan. In view of the chaos of our own day, you may wonder if God is really in control. MacArthur notes, “Prominent above every other theme in the book (Daniel) is God’s sovereign control over the affairs of all rulers and nations, and their final replacement with the True King.”
Daniel is the only book of the Old Testament that spans Israel’s entire seventy year exile. Daniel actually foretells the unfolding of the Gentile world powers from Babylonia to Persia to Alexander the Great’s Greece to the mighty Roman Empire, and then takes us to the coming of Christ to destroy all world powers and establish the kingdom of God in the whole earth! There’s nothing more exciting. History is “His story.” When I went to college, I switched majors to a history major because of this very thing. To see the hand of God throughout history is totally invigorating. So if you’ve ever wondered if God is really in control of all history, hang on.
Jeremiah 29:10-11, For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.’ 11 ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’
#2 God keeps His word to His people, whether of blessing or judgment. God never lies. His Word, the Bible, is without error. It is infallible, which mean everything He has said will surely come to pass. People who claim to speak prophetically today and then what they say does not come to pass are not of God. They are false prophets. We’ll see that God will be right on time after 70 years, raising up Cyrus of Persia to send Israel back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple. God keeps His Word because He is sovereign. His invisible hand rules everything! He sits on His throne. He is the sovereign king.
#3 You’ll learn how to handle difficulties and trials by your faith in God. God is worthy to be obeyed, even at great cost. Those three Hebrew youths faced Nebuchanezzar’s fiery furnace for refusing to bow to his statue. What did they say? “We know our God can deliver us from your fiery furnace, but even if He doesn’t, we’re not going to bow!” Gotta love that! They refused to live by lies. You young people going to college and really all of us living in our godless times can learn from this. We too must refuse to bow to the lies of our culture, and there are many – systemic racism, gender, marriage, environment, police, abortion, flat out false teaching, so-called science that contradicts the Scripture. Your God is worthy to be obeyed, regardless of the culture.
Daniel’s co-workers tried to get him cancelled. They were so jealous of Daniel who did his job well and so gained a high position in the nation, that they persuaded the king to decree no praying to any god other than the king for 30 days or be thrown into the lions’ den. What did Daniel do? Bow to this mandate? No. He didn’t live by lies; he lived by truth. He just kept on praying and then went right into the lions’ den. The next morning the king, who really liked Daniel, quickly came to the lions’ den early in the morning and called out, “Daniel, has your God been able to deliver you?” “No problem, O king. My God sent an angel who closed the lions’ mouths.” How’s that for practicing your faith in the public arena! His accusers, by the way, were thrown to the lions along with their children and wives, and those hungry lions crushed their bones before they even hit the floor (Daniel 6).
#4 God has a time table for Israel. We’ll see this in Daniel 9 as God reveals to Daniel when the Messiah would come the first time (Daniel 9) and then after an unknown time when the Messiah will bring in everlasting righteousness. Daniel’s 70 weeks of years serves as the foundation for the book of Revelation. Daniel along with Revelation supports the premillennial view of the end times. We’ll take the prophecies literally unless there are obvious figures of speech. Remember, “When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, or you’ll have nonsense.”
#5 Learn how to stay faithful in a pagan culture. Nebuchadnezzar tried hard to indoctrinate these lads with Babylonian culture and myths, but these young men knew their Scriptures and had life convictions from it. Nothing would move them into unbelief. Today our young people are being indoctrinated with the lies of an atheistic, Marxist worldview, especially on the university level. But know this: God tells us that all human kingdoms, all anti-god systems of philosophy and religion will collapse under the coming kingdom of Christ. So you have to go into this culture with that confidence and convictions.
KEEPING YOUR FAITH THROUGH A NATIONAL CRISIS – Daniel 1:1-7
God brought about this crisis:
Daniel 1:1-3, In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 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. 3 Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel, including some of the royal family and of the nobles,
Check out verse 2. “The Lord gave Jehoiakim into his hand.” The title “Lord” is Adonai meaning supreme master. He is sovereign. The emphasis is on God. God is in control here. God is bringing judgment on His people for their rejecting Him on every level. If today we should be invaded by a foreign nation, God is still in control. He would be bringing judgment on us as He did on Israel. Jeremiah had warned them over and over. As we said earlier, King Jehoiakim was so wicked that when they brought Jeremiah’s message from God to his throne, he took out a knife, cut up the manuscript, and threw it in the fire! What arrogance to think he could eliminate God’s Word! (Jeremiah 36:23). The “land of Shinar” refers to Babylon as a wicked area, the home of the Tower of Babel. In Babylon there were over 50 temples to various deities. One such temple was a ziggurat. It was a massive square or rectangular structure with receding stories and at the top was a sacred area with a shrine to Marduk, the Babylonian king of the gods.
In verse 3 Nebuchadnezzar ordered his chief official to handpick youngsters to bring back over to Babylon. He had various reasons for doing this, including showing that he was a conqueror. But God had His reasons that always overrule puny human rulers. God has a way of putting His choice children in positions of influence – like Esther as queen in the Persian king’s court and Joseph elevated to prime minister under Pharaoh. God always has His people – Daniel, Paul, Luther and Calvin, Edwards, MacArthur.
God brought the crisis, unknown to Nebuchadnezzar, and God providentially brought Daniel and the three friends along with other hostages. Wiersbe notes, “The fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple looked like a victory for the idols; but it was actually a victory for the Lord.” In seventy years God will raise up the Medo-Persians to judge Babylon. Remember the handwriting on the wall? That’s coming.
God’s people are a light in a dark world.
Daniel 1:4-5, youths in whom was no defect, who were good-looking, showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom, endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge, and who had ability for serving in the king’s court; and he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. 5 The king appointed for them a daily ration from the king’s choice food and from the wine which he drank, and appointed that they should be educated three years, at the end of which they were to enter the king’s personal service.
These fellows were well instructed in the things of God. They may have learned well from Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Of course, they were handsome and intelligent, wise, and discerning. They weren’t goof-offs. Nebuchadnezzar didn’t want any dummies. They had to have appropriateness for the court – no burping out loud or acting like fools. And now they are entering a three-year study program to be prepared to serve the king. This was actually an indoctrination course into all the pagan idolatry, philosophies, and myths of Babylon.
While the Babylonians studied the stars and anatomy for religious and superstitions reasons, these guys learned it for true science. They worshiped God as they learned astronomy while the pagans used the heavenly bodies for messages or divination. Nebuchadnezzar shook arrows or looked at the liver for direction (Ezekiel 21:21). The Babylonians thought you could discern the will of the gods by how the arrows shook out or various markings on a liver. In the meantime, the Hebrews were learning anatomy! Get it?
So if you go to a university and they teach you millions of years of evolution, filter it all through God’s truth in Genesis. They may teach you a Marxist or socialist view of history, but you’ll have to filter that out by studying the results in countries who ruled those ways. They may teach that a fetus is just a blob of flesh, but you know it’s a human being at conception. They may try to indoctrinate you about same sex marriage, gender fluidity, systemic racism, or radical notions such as defunding the police. Just this past week one fine young student at Cypress College called police “heroes” and respectfully disagreed with his professor who said she wouldn’t call the police if she was in trouble. I don’t know about the young man’s faith except he always made sure he included “I’m a Christian” on news shows. The professor is now on leave and won’t be returning in the fall.
Last, be aware of the world’s efforts to undermine your faith in the God of the Bible.
Daniel 1:6-7, Now among them from the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 7 Then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them; and to Daniel he assigned the name Belteshazzar, to Hananiah Shadrach, to Mishael Meshach and to Azariah Abed-nego.
Here we finally meet the boys by name. Their names all reflected the true and living God. Their new names honored the gods of Babylon.
Daniel means “God is my judge.” His new name meant “Bel, protect his life.”
Hananiah means “Jehovah has been gracious.” Shadrach means “Command of Aku.”
Mishael, “Who is like God?” Meshach, “Who is like Aku.”
Azariah, “Jehovah has helped.” Abednego, “Servant of Nebo.”
Calvin points out that the names were changed to banish the remembrance of Judah from their hearts. As they serve in the courts, Nebuchadnezzar wouldn’t want them to have names that honor the Hebrew God. They can change your name, but they can’t change your heart. That’s where God rules!
SO WHAT?
What is your view of God? Let’s remember that the entire 70 years of Babylonian captivity was God’s judgment on His people. God rules the nations, lifting up one and putting down another. He is sovereign over our own nation, including Washington, DC.
What is your commitment to this sovereign God in our pagan culture? If we know Christ, there is never a time for an alarmist mentality or losing hope in God. We don’t know exactly why He does what He does, but we do know that everyone is responsible and everyone is to seek the Lord while He may be found.