Introduction to Daniel
The historic setting, seen from God’s perspective is found in the following Bible passage:
“After Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the officials, the skilled workers and the craftsmen of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord. 2 One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.
3 Then the Lord asked me, ‘What do you see, Jeremiah?’
‘Figs,’ I answered. ‘The good ones are very good, but the bad ones are so bad that they cannot be eaten.’
4 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 5 ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. 6 My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
8 ‘“But like the bad figs, which are so bad that they cannot be eaten,” says the Lord, “so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt. 9 I will make them abhorrent and an offence to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, a curse and an object of ridicule, wherever I banish them. 10 I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.”’ – Jeremiah 24:1-10”
Then from the historic books of the Old Testament:
“35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Necho the silver and gold he demanded. In order to do so, he taxed the land and exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from Rumah. 37 And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done.
During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. But then he turned against Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled. 2 The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by his servants the prophets. 3 Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, 4 including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.
5 As for the other events of Jehoiakim’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 6 Jehoiakim rested with his ancestors. And Jehoiachin his son succeeded him as king.
7 The king of Egypt did not march out from his own country again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates.” – 2 Kings 23:35-24:7
And
“5 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God. 6 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked him and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon. 7 Nebuchadnezzar also took to Babylon articles from the temple of the Lord and put them in his temple there.
8 The other events of Jehoiakim’s reign, the detestable things he did and all that was found against him, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. And Jehoiachin his son succeeded him as king.” – 2 Chronicles 36:5-8
Finally, the introduction to the book of Daniel:
“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 into the king’s service 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 those who were chosen 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.” – Daniel 1:1-7
How would you describe the church today? In Scotland it is a shrinking minority. We are scrambling about seeking ways as a national church to interest people in our church but still there is decline. Let us go today to the book of Daniel and try and understand what God might be saying to us as a national church!
First of all, the people of Judah – the last remaining remnant of the 12 tribes of Israel [Judah was made up of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin], with their capital city of Jerusalem and Solomon’s wonderful Temple, has to change its understanding of what their relationship with God was. Listen to how they felt and experienced in Psalm 137:
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
4 How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
‘Tear it down,’ they cried,
‘tear it down to its foundations!’
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
There is the pain and the bitterness they felt but they would have to grow out of that in order to ask why they were suffering this time of captivity and repent of their ways as a people who had drifted far from God. They had no divine right to the blessings of God irrespective of how they behaved.
The so called “elite” of Judah were taken into captivity in Babylon in order to re-educate them in the ways of Babylon. These people would be looking at the broken walls, the destroyed buildings and the Temple – the heart and soul of their relationship with God – sacked and desecrated.
There obviously was a point where many of the people were drawn to despair or to militant action but another voice spoke to them through Jeremiah – this was of God. Jeremiah had predicted this invasion and indicted that it was the will of God that the captivity would last for 70 years before restoration took place.
Why had this happened?
First of all they were a compromised people. They wanted to worship the ‘gods’ of other cultures and have the blessing of God at the same time. As a consequence they were a morally compromised people who followed the ways of these other cultures and not the commandments and ways of God. They had become a people who were indifferent to human life and indifferent to the poor and the refugees in their culture – they were a million miles away from God yet they still believed that because they believed in God they would get the blessing of God.
All in all the majority of the people of Judah had lost their distinctiveness that ought to be associated with the people of God – yet they still worshipped and expected that God would see them right! They were on a downward spiral and ignored the voices that came through the prophets – people like Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel – all of these prophets shouted loud the need for reformation and repentance – voices that were ignored even though they were warned that God – because He loved them – would take action to bring his people to their senses.
What does this have to say to us today at St. Margaret’s and indeed to the Church of Scotland? It was a badge of pride that this country prided itself in two ways – a Christian nation who were also a people of the Book. In a relatively short period of time we have become neither. We have a government in Scotland that prides itself in being a secular government that has no ties to any faith source. The majority of people in Scotland are secular and agnostic – that is the reality, folks - and so many more that make claim to faith are wholly nominal in their religion. As a consequence I believe that we are not just a church that is in decline but a people who have the badge of God but have lost the way.
We are a church that has sought the approval of human society and accommodated the demands and values and morals of our society rather than the ways and approval of God. We are not the voice of counter-culture, proclaiming the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ because we have become ashamed to own His ways in a culture that is dismissive of Him. Our great enemy is not the advance of Islam – it is our own selves as we drive down the road of moral and spiritual compromise and at the same time pray for, and expect, the blessing of God.
People of the Book? A people who follow Jesus?
Do we still hear the cry of the unborn and dedicate ourselves to their protection? Do we allow the public square to determine our morality of does doing the will of Jesus determine who we are? It was interesting that the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday that it was being a person who followed Jesus that determined his identity – how true is that of any of us here? Is that the path we are on as individuals and a Church?
Is the cry of the poor and the refugee suppressed by self-interest? What is it that will determine how we vote in the next election and the EU Referendum? Will money and life-style be the determining factor or will righteousness be what drives how we vote?
God is still working in us despite our shallowness and folly. I was reading about the struggle of Christians in Iraq and the fact that this minority are aware of the glory of God despite the adversity they face because in all that they do it is Jesus first.
Do you know that our ultimate priority in St. Margaret’s is never going to be a new roof and the maintenance of this building but radically following Jesus irrespective of the opinion or dictates of our society? To be a voice crying in a wilderness encouraging a society to hear the voice of God and the Good News of Jesus Christ.