00:00
00:00
00:01
ប្រតិចារិក
1/0
We're gonna read from Daniel chapter one, verses one to seven. This will, this sermon tonight will be an introduction and a look at the first several verses of this chapter. Hear the word of God through his prophet Daniel. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand 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 placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and the language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of food that the king ate and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names. Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego. This is the word of the Lord. We all know that the nation, the culture in which we live in is changing. And I've been surprised, to be honest with you, at how, just in two years back from Britain, how quickly things have moved and how quickly legislation has passed along some of these lines. Things as we knew it as children, unless you're a children obviously, this is how you've always known it, but for others of us, things, this America, the culture as we knew it as children, it will never be the same. The trajectory seems to be moving in a very different direction. What does this mean for the church? And if you think about it, churches are really struggling with this. Some embracing, the cultural changes, others resisting it. What does it mean for us as individual Christians? What do we do? Do we pull away from secularized, godless society and form our own community in isolation? There's definitely an appeal to do something like that. Do we embrace the changes as our destiny, as some people are doing in rather shocking ways? Is there a way to engage and interact with society without compromising our commitment to God? Well, Daniel seems to indicate that that is the way forward, that we can be a part of a society that doesn't share our values, that doesn't love our God, but we can do that without compromise and have actually a profound effect on our neighbors around us. Divided the sermon under three headings tonight. First, some introductory matters. Second, we see in this opening chapter that a much needed reminder that God is in control. God is in control. And then third, a very real identity crisis in the life of Daniel and one that we no doubt are facing ourselves. So first of all, introductory matters. In the opening verse we read a passage that gives us a little indication of the time frame in which this book was written. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The third year of Jehoiakim's reign is the time stamp for the beginning of Daniel's story. Daniel was taken captive. during the fall of Jerusalem. And this was a, as you would expect, a depressing time for the nation. Israel had already been taken captive by the Assyrians. The stronghold, the tribe that had remained faithful, Judah, had now collapsed. in terms of their covenant faithfulness to God, and it looks like this God of Israel thing, promised land thing, was over. It's looking like the gods of the nations around had finally worn them down, and they would be no more. This was an extremely humiliating time for the people of God. We read in verse two, and the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand 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 placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. This was a common practice in ancient times. the victorious king or army would take trophies from the land that they had gained victory over. And they would place those in their own temples as a sign of superiority to the people that they had captured. Now, anybody pick up on this reference to a place called Shinar? We find it in Genesis 11, it's the area where the Tower of Babel was built. And what it's looking like, you remember the Tower of Babel, you had a group of men trying to build their own kingdom that exalts itself above God. And here you have a case where it appears from a human perspective that the kingdoms of men have gained the upper hand over the people of God. The book of Daniel covers about a 70 year period. from the fall of Jerusalem to the reign of Cyrus in the sixth century B.C. So 500, 550 years before the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The structure of the book is important. Chapters one to six depict stories of Daniel and his friends. They're autobiographical in nature. And then chapters seven to 12 depict these grand visions that Daniel receives about future world history, bringing us through the time of the Greek and the Roman empires. Now another interesting thing to note about the book is a lot of it's written in Aramaic. And I'm gonna explain in this sermon a little bit about the importance of that and we'll see more of that as we move through the book. But chapter two verse four to chapter seven verse 28 is written in the tongue, the language of the Babylonians. We see in this chapter that Daniel was taught and trained in that language, and to some degree, he embraced it and used it. There has been a lot of debate on authorship. Is this book really written by Daniel? I just want to briefly mention that to you. It's been debated rigorously mainly by liberal scholars and the reason is how could Daniel predict the future? Surely this book was written at a later time period after the events had occurred and they just put Daniel, they kind of slapped Daniel's name on it because, you know, more people would read it that way. So the reason that we suggest that it is Daniel is, well, we believe that the God who inspires the writers of scripture knows the future. So that's not really a big deal if he's predicting things that occur 100, 200, 300 years from the time that it was written. But also Jesus gives Daniel credit for authorship as well. In Matthew 24, Verse 15, Jesus is speaking about in times matters and in Matthew 24, 15, Jesus says, so when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand and he goes on. So he's making a reference to a prophecy of Daniel made in chapter 11, verse 31, this abomination of desolation. 1131, we read these words, forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress and shall take away the regular burnt offerings and they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate. So Jesus says that, was written by Daniel. Daniel is the author. The purpose of the book, at least how we are understanding it, is to show how faithful God is to protect and sustain his people while they are living in the world. under the rule of the rulers and in the kingdoms of this world. That should be a comfort to us. You don't need to have super great anxiety of who your next president is. God will be with you regardless of who it is. And we've got to put that faith into practice. So those are some introductory matters. Now, coming to the meat of the passage, we see very clearly, right at the beginning of the story, God in control. A comforting reminder. Daniel's world is turbulent. I mean, I don't think we can even possibly relate to what's going on with him. to be taken out of your homeland, And that's one thing, okay, you're taken out of your homeland, fine. But that homeland that they lived in had a history of God's promises. This is your land. This is where you dwell with God. These are the covenant relationship and the regulations of that relationship that you have with him. All of that is gone now. He's shipped out. Possibly it appears that he's separated from his family. He has some friends with him, which is a good thing. But taken off into a foreign culture. I think there may be some people alive that understand this. The Jews during World War II were just shipped out of their homes. and placed in foreign lands, concentration camps, some of them never seeing their family again. His world was turned upside down. And it's in times like that that we are prone to doubt and to wonder what is going on. Has God abandoned us? Well God strengthens his faith and in verse two we read, and the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with some of the vessels of the house of God. God is in control. He's behind it all. He's ruling and even orchestrating this situation. Nebuchadnezzar, did not defeat Jerusalem in his own strength. It was an act of the sovereign will of God. And we need to understand how, a little bit about how, about the unfolding of world history. We see two realities here. Human action, verse one, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Nebuchadnezzar was making decisions as a ruler in the world. He was exercising his, in his mind, his sovereign will. That's how the kings thought back in those days. Nobody messed with him. There's human action. But then there is divine sovereignty. And these things run parallel and are inseparable in the unfolding of world history. But we need to understand they're not two equal powers. Human activity is always subordinate to the sovereign will of God. And we need to ask ourselves something in the light of the shifts in America. Do we believe this? Do we believe that the things that are going on are in some way, under the control of our sovereign God. What's he doing? We may not necessarily know. He doesn't always reveal his purposes to us. The actions of men are always subservient to the unstoppable current of the divine will in the affairs of this world. Nebuchadnezzar, will have this seared on his conscience later in the book. He acknowledges as he's out eating grass in the fields in Babylon, the great king, can you imagine? He acknowledges and bows his knee to the sovereign creator of the heavens and the earth. That should bring us some comfort. God is in control. His kingdom is unstoppable. What's the Lord doing in the midst of all of this? In times of apparent defeat, we need to look at how God brings about good. I want to just talk a little bit about the time period in which Daniel lived. We know what it is, it's the time of Jehoiakim, the king. And I want us to do a little bit of a spiritual survey of what was going on during this time. Jehoiakim was leader of Judah, and if you'll turn back to 2 Kings 23, verse 37 to chapter four, verse one, we see a summary of this man's rule. One that you hear often, I mean, well, you hear it with every king in Israel, but more and more you hear it in the latter rules of the kings of Judah as well. In 2 Kings 23, verse 37, we read about Jehoiakim. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. That refers primarily to his idolatry. he had worshiped foreign gods. And as a result of that, verse 24, or chapter 24, verse one, in his days, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up and Jehoiakim became his servant three years. So, Jehoiakim had failed as a leader, a covenant leader over God's people, and the Lord brings judgment upon him and upon the nation. Life in Jerusalem during this time period was less than ideal. The nation was full of idolatry, immorality, oppression, and vain worship. You had the corruption of priests, of the king, and other prominent leaders, and of judges. So, it wasn't exactly the glorious promised land that it should have been. It was decaying, and the Lord had enough. There are three blessings that we can see arising out of the Babylonian captivity, and the first is this. God disciplines his people. That is a blessing. They didn't need to remain in their idolatry, immorality, and oppression of their neighbors. And this is a lesson, a comforting lesson to us as well. God refuses to allow his people to continue in sin. He brings loving discipline. You see it in the book of Hosea, beautiful picture of this. He's got, described in Hosea as this unfaithful wife. He doesn't abandon her. He disciplines her with the purpose of loosing the attraction to her lovers, bringing her back in faithfulness to him. If you stray, if you backslide is a term we like to use, God in his loving mercy will bring discipline into your life and bring you back into conformity with his will. So there is discipline over the people. God also confirms the faith of a certain remnant in the land, the faith of Daniel. Daniel, what we read about him is exceptional. He's one of those few characters in the Bible where you don't see anything negative. That doesn't mean that he didn't have his problems, but you don't see it written about him in the book of Daniel. He, had a strong faith and commitment to serving the Lord while he was in exile. And think about how frustrating that must have been for him. He knew the law of God. He had studied it and dedicated himself to it. And he looks around in Jerusalem, the holy city, and what does he see? the majority of people trampling the covenant God under their feet. God confirms this man's faith in his act of judgment upon the nation. But then thirdly and possibly the thing that stands out most in the book of Daniel is that God spreads his kingdom outside of the bounds of the promised land through this Babylonian captivity. Here's the interesting thing. It appears, doesn't it, that the kingdoms of men have triumphed. But as you read Daniel, you see that what's really going on here is the kingdom and the borders of God's kingdom start to expand. It's evangelistic. Kings of some of the world's biggest superpowers are seen in the book of Daniel praising God. Go to chapter four. Verse three. Nebuchadnezzar, great and pompous king, says this after he, is blown away by the depth of wisdom of these people, predominantly Daniel, who came from the land of Israel, who worshiped the creator God, the one true God. In chapter four, verse three, Nebuchadnezzar says, how great are his signs, how mighty his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and his dominion endures from generation to generation. Now that is funny. You think about what's going on here. Nebuchadnezzar, who would have thought in victory he's defeated? And that's exactly what's going on. And then if you look in chapter six with Darius, He was the king who was duped into setting up a law about prayer and then forced by his own law and putting Daniel in the lion's den. 226, He says this after Daniel was protected by the Lord in a miraculous way from the lions. Darius, another great super king, says, I make a decree. He's legislating now. I make a decree that in all my royal dominion, people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. For he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed and his dominion shall be to the end. He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions. This is an exciting book for the children of God. But then the last thing that you need to understand about this is you know the wise men you read about? Turn to Matthew 2 in the story of the birth of Christ. These wise men come from the east and they're looking for son of man to be born. Who do you think they are, and how do you think they knew that story? Most scholars think that they had been taught by Daniel through some of his prophecies. Remember how he was among the wise men of the east? Chapter one, we'll see more of that. Now, do you see a little bit about why the book may have been written in Aramaic? the Lord wants to speak to more than just the Jews. His kingdom is growing and is unstoppable. And that should give us some sense of joy and also, amazement at how God works. He tends to operate, read the book of Acts, it's almost, you see this happening, the more it looks like his people are in trouble, that's a sign that he's probably doing something great. So I'm excited, I'm glad about where we're going. It's probably a sign that he is going to bring some discipline to his church, and his church is going to become an effective force, even when it doesn't look, from a human perspective, that we're all that powerful. When God's people On a human perspective, gain power, they are weak. Just look at the world history. But when they appear weak, they are strong. An identity crisis, our final point. The goal of secular society is to conform all of its citizens to a certain system of beliefs. All society has a system of indoctrination. We do. You're getting indoctrinated. You may not like the word, but you're learning. You're being conformed to a system of beliefs and ideas. This is normal. Society suggests a standard or a norm set of values and beliefs that people are to obey and follow. Now, for Babylon, there were three tools, and Nebuchadnezzar, three tools of social conformity that he uses to try to mold and shape these new citizens to his kingdom. Let me read. Verse three, then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish of good appearance and skillful in wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace. So he picks the cream of the crop of the Israelites, royal, well-educated, all of that stuff. He brings them in and then it says that they were taught, they were taught literature and language of the Chaldeans. The history, the language, the culture of the people of Babylon. The king assigned them a daily portion of food and they drank from the same wine source that he drank from. They were to be educated for three years and at that time they were to stand before the king and then they were given these new names. So, three tools of social conformity used by the Babylonians. First, education, verse four. They were taught for three years in the literature and the language of the Chaldeans. I think many of you probably know this already, but education systems are not neutral. They're not simply about two plus two equal four. They're more interested, why do you think government wants to control education? Because they're interested in the end product. What are we spitting out? into society? And how do we shape and mold them into the type of people we want them to be? At the end of the education process, one hopes to produce good citizens, and by that we mean citizens that fit the value structure of our land. And you know, some of the, you know, The stuff going on, it's touching all aspects of society. If you're in the military, if you're in business, you're getting reeducated about what you can say about certain groups of people and what you can't say, what you can say about sexual orientation, what you can't say. We're being taught how to live in this society. Nebuchadnezzar introduces Babylonian culture and values through the education system. And Daniel goes through it. He learns Aramaic. He doesn't have any way of protecting himself from it. Royal diet were taught of a second tool used in verse five. They were all portioned with a certain amount of food from the king and wine. And we know in the next section that that becomes a point of, disagreement between Daniel and the chief eunuch. He refuses, he's not going to compromise on diet, which is interesting. I mean, I think we'll get to that, but it may not, we almost would think, well, why doesn't he, close his Chaldean books and refuse to study their history, but he does refuse to eat some of their food. Commentators bring a couple of ideas about what's going on. There's possibly an attempt by the king to win the captives to the superiority of Babylonian culture through its fine food. We do need to understand something. Food is cultural. You go to Asia, and they eat stuff that you probably would not want to eat. But to them, you eat stuff that they would not want to eat either. I mean, they would rather have a dog leg over a bag of cheese puff, no doubt. Or Velveeta cheese or something. You know, go for the dog leg. Food is cultural. And it, They're shaping their culture and their thinking through the diet. They're eating sumptuous things from the king's table. So it must have been pretty good, pretty high standard of food and drink. And commentators think that the purpose is to show how much superior their food and drink is. You enjoy that pleasurable taste. Why would you want to go back to Israel? We can't get those things in Israel. Something along those lines. But it's also probably, as we'll see in the next section, a transgression of the food laws in Old Testament law. That seems to indicate why Daniel opposed eating it in the way that he did. He could have also taken a Nazirite vow. which would also suggest some of his actions. The third tool used for social conformity is the changing of names. All of the men mentioned Daniel and his friends, have their name changed. Names carry significance in ancient times, as they do, although to a lesser degree in our own age. Renaming captives was meant to strip from them any ties to the past. For Daniel, this is kind of a new creation. Life is starting over. He is Babylonian now. He's not to think of himself as a Jew. God does this also. When Saul is converted, he's a new man, a new creation in Christ, he receives a new name, he's got a new identity. So there's this identity crisis that's going on, a cosmic battle. The kingdom of God is under attack by the kingdoms of men. But what we see, is Daniel resists this. He's able to be in it and kind of under the system while at the same time having the wisdom to know where to draw the line. And we need to learn that. We've got to think through. Daniel, he was serving a corrupt nation. but he was still serving that nation, and he didn't just say, no, I'm not gonna serve you because you are idol worshipers. No, he served, but he knew where to draw the line. He knew when to say no, when to stand up. We learn from Daniel that it is possible to live in a godless kingdom, to serve even at a high level, I mean he serves as like the second in command basically, to serve at a high level in a godless kingdom and yet to do it without compromise. And that's what we have got to learn to do in our own situation. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for Daniel. We thank you for the lessons that you have appointed for us to learn from this book. And we pray, Lord, that we would remember first and foremost in our own current situation as we see a transition period in the life of our own nation. You are in control, and you have given us over to some of these things, just as you gave Jehoiakim over to Nebuchadnezzar. You have a purpose in this, and we pray, Lord, that you might reveal that to us, but if not, help us to continue to serve you faithfully in this world. We pray this in Christ's name and for his glory, amen.
Kingdoms in Conflict
ស៊េរី Resident Aliens: The Kingdom o
Outline
Some Introductory Matters
A Reminder: God is in control
A Very Real Identity Crisis
- See more at: http://mainstreetpres.org
លេខសម្គាល់សេចក្ដីអធិប្បាយ | 518161421269 |
រយៈពេល | 36:24 |
កាលបរិច្ឆេទ | |
ប្រភេទ | ល្ងាចថ្ងៃអាទិត្យ |
អត្ថបទព្រះគម្ពីរ | ដានីយ៉ែល 1:1-7 |
ភាសា | អង់គ្លេស |
បន្ថែមមតិយោបល់
មតិយោបល់
គ្មានយោបល់
© រក្សាសិទ្ធិ
2025 SermonAudio.