Daniel 1

This morning, we begin the series on Daniel and this part of scripture centres on the life of a man named Daniel and his three friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's an incredible story. It's got bravery. It's got superheroes. It's got supernatural.

It's got powers and miracles. In other words, it could be a Stephenie Meyer novel. Twilight Five, The Rise of Babylon. Except there's no vampires in this. Daniel's teeth were much shorter than Stephanie Meyer characters.

And so it has all those things but is completely different, thankfully. Our story begins actually in the sixth century BC. This was an immense time of trouble for God's people. They had just been conquered by the most powerful empire the world had ever known, the Empire of Babylon. The rise of this empire was meteoric.

It was immense. It was something that almost took everyone by surprise. It was led by the famous king or emperor Nebuchadnezzar. And they had just finished annihilating the whole Assyrian empire which before that was one of the greatest empires the world had ever seen. And so Babylon was quickly becoming one of the biggest empires.

And Israel's prophets had warned Israel, God's people, that if they did not turn and remain faithful to God, if they did not turn away from their idols, that they would be swallowed up by this huge force that was coming towards them. But the people of God ignored him and the warnings became a terrifying reality. In this context, we find our story. In this terrible situation, we today look at this chapter in Daniel chapter one. Country music legend Johnny Cash wrote the number one hit, I Walk the Line.

Some people might feel really old when they remember the days when it actually was a number one and the days it was on the top 50 or top 100. So Johnny Cash wrote this single, I Walk the Line and he wrote it for his first wife, Vivian, as a pledge of devotion to her. Fifty years later in 2005, a biographical movie starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon depicted the life story of this great musician and singer. The movie's name was entitled Walk the Line. That one phrase that mister Cash wrote became the summary of his whole life.

It became the title to his biographical movie. I Walk the Line depicted the treacherous and precarious situations that Johnny Cash found himself in. And it depicted the way that at times he wandered off that line. He did not walk the line. Many years later that he would go on to confess that it was actually because of his poor choices that his marriage to that wife, Vivian, broke up and they divorced.

He did not continue to walk that line. And so Johnny Cash actually became a born again Christian many years later. And the phrase I walked the line truly became, if you know this story, truly became the phrase of his life. As we look at chapter one in the book of Daniel today, we see exactly this concept of walking the line. Have you ever experienced the stress of this precarious line, this precarious way of living your life?

Have you ever had that sense of walking on this tightrope over a sea of voices yelling to you, shouting, hoping that you will fall this way, fall that way? Have you ever felt the temptation to fall off, to jump off that line into the chaos of the world around us? Perhaps in another time of your life, you may have even been one of those voices yelling out for those people to make those decisions. This is the situation that we find Daniel in. Let's have a look at verses one to five.

In May, Jerusalem is attacked by a king whose rise to power was unprecedented. When Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquered countries, it stayed conquered. There was no turning back from that. Verses one and two tell us that he lay siege on Jerusalem. But it wasn't Nebuchadnezzar's great war tactics that caused him to conquer Jerusalem.

Have a look. In verse two, it says, the Lord delivered Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand. And so we see right off the bat, one of the key themes that we will find in the book of Daniel and that is that everything, everything is in God's control. God let Nebuchadnezzar take Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar didn't do it by his own power.

Didn't do it by his own wisdom. Didn't do it by his great tactics or strategies. God let Nebuchadnezzar take Jerusalem. God had warned the Jews that their rebellion against Him would be punished with the removal of His protection over them. And God saw that that promise was fulfilled.

Jerusalem was conquered. So God is in control, we see, even though it's not nice, even though it's actually really horrible. God is in control. And then in verses three to five, we see that in the aftermath, Nebuchadnezzar takes the cream of the crop. He takes the nobility.

He takes the intelligence. He takes the scholars of Jerusalem, of Judah back to Babylon. Now this was a tactic employed by Babylon and historical documents will prove that they would take the princes and the noblemen back to Babylon, teach them the Babylonian way of life, the literature, the philosophy. And these nobles and princes would then become walking advertisements back to their countrymen of how great Babylon is. Babylon was powerful.

It was comfortable. It was lavish. And their own people would be indoctrinated, would be told and educated, reeducated of what a great place Babylon is. And in that way, created peace. There was no rebellion.

And so that is exactly what Nebuchadnezzar does with these four men among others. And what we see just in context that we don't actually find in the bible and I just want to highlight is that Babylon was a place of culture. So it wasn't this horrible horrible place that, you know, there were prison camps or anything like that. Babylon was a place of civilisation. It was at the forefront of technology of the day.

It was the place of science. Mathematics was invented almost in Babylon. Ever heard of Pythagoras' theorem? That was Babylonian. But Pythagoras was a Greek, but that theory, that formula was actually developed in Babylon.

Quadratics? Algebra? Babylon. Ever failed an algebra test? Blame Babylon.

So the Babylonians were actually for the most part great overlords, great oppressors. They were, you know, fantastic rulers. Well, that is when they weren't raping and pillaging other countries in order to grow the empire. But obviously that never got to the press and that hasn't changed even today. So no one cared.

The conquered people prospered under Babylonian rule. Does that seem familiar to any one of you guys? The unending pursuit of science, of technology, the dominance of so called reason, enlightened thinking. Does anyone see a connection with our society and Babylon? There's definitely some points of contact there.

Our society says everything is great. Long live the western ideal. Long live democracy and capitalism. But meanwhile, people are still being pillaged and raped. We still, you know, end up with more money because of oppressing people whose voices aren't being heard.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the book of Revelation sees the dark and sinful world of the future and calls it Babylon. There's a connection there. Absolutely. So we live in a place very similar to Babylon. We live in an empire that has set itself up against the living God Himself.

We live in an empire that takes our young men, our young women, and lures them with beautiful lies. You are your own boss, it says. Money equals happiness. Live as promiscuously, as sleazily as possible and you'll be a real man. You'll be a real man.

Real women look like this. And the biggest lie of all, God is who you want Him to be. God is who you want Him to be. You don't like judgment? Ignore judgment.

You don't like accountability towards Him? You don't have to be accountable. God is your buddy. He can be your pal. And you can ignore Him or use Him however you want.

You and I, we've been thrust into a culture that looks for the most part as if it believes in a God. In fact, it does. They don't talk about it too much. You don't, you know, have dinner conversations about this. But for the most part, people believe in a God because He's handy.

He's nice to have. We go to Him in times of need. Aussies in general find comfort in that. Statistics prove that in times of trouble, people pray. But He's also handy to blame when things go wrong.

We're in a society that tells us be richer, be more blessed, be more prosperous, and you can have all that only if you sit down and shut up. You can eat from the king's table so to speak. You can receive every good thing that Western society, Western way of thinking can give you. And we know and we as Christians, we believe that that society has a king, a king called Satan who lives against what God desires. And Satan, he portrays himself as a king and he'll throw you a few scraps every now and then, but you better keep quiet.

You better keep quiet. Just keep yourself content so that when you're gorging yourself on what he has, vile, disgusting food that is so unhealthy for us, that at one time tastes great and we run for and we just desire, at the same time is so bad for us and makes us feel bad and it's just unhealthy. And so we eat. I think society eats at this king's table. So among the cream of the crop were these four young men by the names of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

As part of their indoctrination into Babylon, these guys are forced to take up new Babylonian names. Did you notice that? So they changed the old Hebrew names to something new. From here on in, we don't hear of Hananiah, of Mishael, and Azariah, but we hear of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Daniel, however, who got the name Belteshazzar continues to be Daniel and that's really interesting.

The author refuses to use Daniel's Babylonian name. Why is this? Well, perhaps he thought Belteshazzar sounded a little bit too, I don't know, feminine or whatever. But I think the reason probably is that his name had a specific message in and of itself. The name Daniel means God is my judge.

God is my judge. And so the author is trying to make a point here with Daniel and we'll see more of that a little bit later. But we see that Daniel refuses to eat from the king's table. He says, I'm not going for that at all. And he says, I'm not gonna drink your wine as well.

Being pagans, the Babylonians would have offered this meal, these foods, the meat and the wine even to their gods. They would have sacrificed part of that to their gods. And so they would have even had pork, something that God had forbidden the Jews to eat because God had set them apart. And so Daniel refuses to eat anything that did not see Yahweh, the living God, as the real provider of every good thing. In humility, however, and notice how he did this, in humility, Daniel asks the official to be excused from eating this.

He didn't make a stand. He didn't write up a big sandwich board and place it on him and walk around. Daniel in humility asked his official, his boss, not to be defiled in this way. And notice again in verse nine that it wasn't Daniel's wisdom or his humility or his smiling face that convinced or moved the official. It says in verse nine, God caused him to show him favour and sympathy.

Who is in control? The question is, God is in control here. God is in control. So the official says, I can't give you nothing to eat. Otherwise, they'll have my head.

And Daniel says, give us just the vegetables and give us water and test us. Give us ten days to see how we last on this. And then after that, do as you see fit. So who here likes the idea of being vegetarian? I know if you're South African, your hand will be right down.

You'll be sitting on it. So who yeah. Who will go vego for Jesus? This is not begging out if you are vegetarian. I'm speaking from my own personal experience.

There's no way that I could go vegetarian. But Daniel, Daniel whose name means God is my judge, stood firm and he says, I cannot sit idly by and stop walking this line. God is my judge. Like it or not, Daniel was in Babylon. There's nothing he could do about that.

Like it or not, God had given him a good brain, a talent for learning, and a healthy body which caused him to be in Babylon. Daniel was thrust into a culture that was perilous, a culture that was dead against him. But he resolved himself not to forsake God and God's will. Why? Why?

Because God is my judge, Daniel says. Friends, no person has the right to tell you or me what is good and what is bad. No person has the right to tell you how you should live your life. Now that seems very familiar. I mean, a lot of people say that.

They say that about God as well. But the truth is that only God has the right to direct our way of living because He created us like Psalm 24 says. He created the whole world and everything in it. As the creator, He has the right to tell us what is good and what is bad. What is the blueprint of how we should live and what is against that blueprint?

People may tell you, for example, that premarital sex or adultery is fine and it is so fine nowadays. It is so fine. I watched, I don't know, Oprah or Doctor Phil or something like that and people have just come to the point where men are cheaters. That's who they are. They are cheaters.

Just move on and accept that fact. It just boggles the mind. So the world says, no, those things are fine. We have contraception, we have the pill. And sex is such a great thing.

How can something that feels so good be so wrong? To take something more recent, the strikes that have been happening. People say that's fine. Hate your boss. Dislike your boss.

Go against what he says. Don't be submissive towards your boss. It's fine. God, however, says that God has placed authorities over us. God has placed Julia Gillard over us.

Wow. Yet, you know, it's so normal for us to be cynical and to speak bad against those over us, isn't it? So we have to be careful of those type of things that people tell us. You might be even saying those words to yourself, but God is the one who judges what is holy and what is right. In our day and age where people say, there's no more black and white.

There's no more right or wrong. It's all grey. It's all different shades of right. What is good for you might not be good for me. What is right for you might not be right for me.

What is up might be down for me. What is black may be white. Guys, that's a lie. That is a lie. This is one that it's a lie that is as old as the bible.

Why do we say why do people say things are great? Because then we can be our own god and we can make our own rules and we can decide what is right and we can decide what is wrong for our own sakes. What would happen if Daniel ate from the king's table? Let's ask that question. What would happen if Daniel had gone down that road?

Probably nothing. He wouldn't have been struck dead. He would have had a nice, you know, mutton chop in his hand. Many other Jews in fact were probably eating from the king's table. No.

These four young men were the only four Jews that remained faithful. There were hundreds of other Jews who decide to go down this track. They you know, those Jews even would have had great jobs, happy families. They would have had a nice little vineyard by the river. What would happen if we decide that, say, God's plan for sex between a husband and wife was outdated and irrelevant?

Probably nothing. At least not in plain sight. Everyone knows about the huge emotional and spiritual pain attached to that and from making those poor decisions. But in reality, we might eventually marry that person. We might eventually get a good job, a happy family, a nice little place on the Gold Coast.

But what would happen if we spoke badly about our boss or were insubordinate to them, did not submit to their authority over us? What if we denied our commitment to the Lord Jesus in front of our friends? What would happen? Probably nothing. Probably nothing, at least not in plain sight.

And so we are faced with that. You know? Daniel, nothing would have happened to Daniel if he had gone down that road. But that's not what God wants for us. God wants us to be holy in everything we do.

Whether that's in regards to sexual purity, how we work for our boss, or how we treat our coworkers, how much we love our church even, God wants us to be separate from the world and that's the point that is being made here. God is looking out for us. God didn't create sin so that we would run to Him. God didn't make that a part of life so that we would be dependent upon Him. Sin is the rebellion against God for what He wants us to have but we choose not to.

That is what sin is. And God doesn't want us to end up looking like the world. Why? Because it's a sad place. It's a broken place.

It's a place full of pain and suffering. People hurt one another all the time as they, being their own gods, they try and clamber over one another to be top dog, to be number one. But God has a far better way for us to live. He invites us to trust in His wisdom, to trust that He knows best. Okay.

So most people ate from the king's table except for Daniel and his friends. Everyone said, when in Babylon, do what the Babylonians do, but not Daniel. Daniel resolved himself to walk that line despite the temptation, despite the food, despite the meat, despite the peer pressure. Friends, Daniel turned out to be much healthier than these other guys. That's blessing right there.

That's blessing. It's an amazing thing. Daniel was threatened with his life even and he refused to cave in. Why? Because God is my judge.

Because He is number one. Not you, Nebuchadnezzar. Not even my own personal temptations will conquer my faith and my faithfulness to God. God knows what is holy and what is best for me. And so at the end of the trial period, lo and behold, Daniel and his friends are fit and healthy.

They have this great glow about them. And those guys who had as much meat as they could fit in and had as much wine as they could drink, they outshone them. That is God's blessing on faithfulness. All the voices are blaring at them. Eat.

Come and join us. You know, have be a part of this. Otherwise, you'll miss out. But they said we will remain faithful and trust that God knows what is best. The great truth for us this morning is that God does bless.

And this is not prosperity gospel. This is not do this in order to be blessed. But the truth is a decision made to follow God leads to good things. You know, a decision not to go out on a Friday night and get hammered with your friends, well, it means that you have more money because you're not blowing it on stuff. It means that you don't get a huge beer belly that you'll have to work off.

It means that you don't feel horrible the next day with hangovers and have poor health and all these other things. It's logical, isn't it? It's logical that God's rules for us to live by are for our sake, are for our goodness, are for our prosperity. So God blesses this faithful act of Daniel and it leads to good things. Daniel and his friends are healthier than those who ate from the king's table.

So when Daniel, you know, he's walking around fit and healthy, these other guys are stumbling about with massive hangovers and indigestion. And then God gives these young men gifts in response. He gives them insight and knowledge of every kind of literature and philosophy, the bible says. Bible says that Daniel received the gift of interpretation of dreams which sets into place the whole story of Daniel. At the end of their three year training, at the end of their time at UQ or Griffith or whatever, Nebuchadnezzar personally spoke with these individuals to test how their training was and he found none to be comparable to Daniel and his three friends.

They outshone them in every capacity. In fact, the bible says they were ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in the whole kingdom. God had a purpose for these four young men. These four young men who had been thrust into a strange new culture, a culture that is not unlike our own. And as we will see, God's gift of a high IQ, God's gift of political insight, of supernatural awareness would be used to infiltrate the biggest empire the world had ever seen.

God had a purpose for giving Daniel and his three friends these gifts. And we'll have a look at that later on. These men lived missionally in their context by using their God given gifts. And that's why the series is called Mission and Culture. God used them and gave them gifts for a purpose.

Now God is always in control. Whether we like to believe it or not, whether we feel like He is or not. Even when Israel had been conquered, had been destroyed, when the cream of the crop, their princes, their kings had been taken away, God was in control. And Daniel and his mates trusted God because God is still our judge. He is still powerful.

And we'll flesh out the purpose of these four young men in more detail in the coming weeks and we'll see exactly why these guys were given these gifts. But the question that I want to ask today in closing is do we find a purpose in our life? Do you find a purpose for your life? Well, the purpose is to remain faithful to God and His way of living. Do you want to become a success?

Remain faithful to God and His way of living. Do you want to influence people? Do you want to impact Australia for the future generations? Remain faithful to God and His way of living. And if you do this, you will achieve all those things.

I guarantee it. Because God is at work in Australia. God is at work in your life, in your career, in your relationships. God is in control and we just need to be faithful to Him. Our duty is to walk that line. Because on that line, we find ourselves in a place where God can bless us.