Man Proposes, God Disposes: Living in Hope Amidst Chaos

• Baptism and Ordinance 00:00:00 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor introduces the baptism of two young ladies as an ordinance of identification with Christ and the church, not as a saving act.
• Introduction to Daniel Study 00:08:39 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor announces a new series on the book of Daniel, titled 'The End Time and the Meantime,' noting it is the first Old Testament book studied at the church 29 years ago.
• Reasons to Study Daniel 00:10:35 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor provides three reasons: Daniel's situation parallels our modern exile in a secular culture; Daniel's prophecies are being fulfilled today; and the God of Daniel is the same sovereign God we serve.
• Sovereignty of God 00:16:18 ▶️ 📄
  > Using the idiom 'Man proposes, but God disposes,' the pastor emphasizes that God is the sovereign ruler who controls nations, kingdoms, and everyday life, overruling human plans.
• Authorship of Daniel 00:17:05 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor addresses the debate over whether Daniel wrote the book, citing the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jesus' testimony, and the nature of divine inspiration to argue for Daniel's authorship.
• Historical Context and Audience 00:23:46 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor outlines the historical timeline of the Babylonian exile, explaining the reasons for captivity (sabbatical year violations, idolatry) and identifying the audience as the people of Judah.
• The Aim of the Book 00:27:47 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that the book's aim is to provide hope to a people feeling hopeless, affirming that God's plan is true and will lead to restoration and the coming of the Messiah.
• The Aim of Daniel 00:27:47 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that Daniel wrote the book to provide hope that God's plan is true and on track, despite the hopeless situation of the Jewish people in Babylon.
• God's Sovereignty 00:37:50 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor analyzes Daniel 1:2, highlighting that God gave Jehoiakim into Nebuchadnezzar's hand, demonstrating that God is the true master of history and the hero of the story.
• Subtle Sovereignty 00:39:57 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that God's work is often invisible, using the analogy of a cowboy who claims his accidents were intentional to illustrate that God rules and overrules in history.
• Structure of Daniel 00:32:02 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor outlines the book's structure: Daniel 1-6 as historical narratives (the meantime) and Daniel 7-12 as prophetic visions (the end time), noting the bilingual nature of the text.
• God's Sovereignty 00:40:56 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor defines God as the hero of history, emphasizing that He is in total control, overshadows all events, and rules and overrules in the affairs of man.
• God's Sovereignty and Control 00:41:42 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor asserts that God is sovereign, meaning He does what He pleases, and has His hand on the wheel of history, controlling both nations and individual lives.
• Historical Context of Babylon 00:42:06 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains the ancient Near Eastern practice where conquering a nation meant conquering their God, noting Nebuchadnezzar's seizure of temple vessels as a demonstration of Marduk's power.
• God's Humble Sovereignty 00:46:33 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor describes God's sovereignty as 'humble,' willing to suffer shame and humiliation to awaken His people, drawing a parallel to Jesus' humiliation on the cross.
• Evangelistic Appeal 00:47:55 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor issues a direct call to trust in Jesus Christ for forgiveness and eternal life, linking the concept of God's humble sovereignty to the gospel invitation.

• Sermon Illustration 00:15:02 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor recounts the historical anecdote of Napoleon Bonaparte before the Battle of Waterloo, who arrogantly claimed he proposed and disposed, only to be defeated by Wellington due to rain and hail, illustrating the truth that 'man proposes, but God disposes.'
• Sermon Illustration 00:18:31 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the analogy of 'Daniel in the critics' den' to describe how scholars have historically denied Daniel's authorship, comparing the critics to the lions in the den.
• Sermon Illustration 00:25:31 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor illustrates the concept of 'stealing' sabbatical years by describing how the people planted crops in the seventh year after a bumper crop in the sixth year, leading to 70 years of exile.
• Sermon Illustration 00:28:15 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the historical irony of the Jewish people returning to Babylon (Ur/Shinar), the land of their ancestors, to illustrate how history seemed to be rewinding.
• Sermon Illustration 00:40:59 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the analogy of a 'not-so-smart cowboy' who claims his horse kicking him and a rattlesnake biting him were intentional acts, not accidents, to illustrate that God does what He does on purpose and is sovereign over history.
• Sermon Illustration 00:35:14 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor references the historical defeat of the Assyrians by the Babylonians at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC, noting the destruction of Nineveh as a fulfillment of prophecy.

• Pastoral Charge 00:47:55 ▶️ 📄
  > Trust in Jesus Christ as Savior
• Pastoral Charge 00:48:16 ▶️ 📄
  > Bowl the knee to Jesus and take Him as Savior

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:00:00] We have the blessing this morning of being able to witness two people follow the Lord in obedience by being baptized so baptism here at Faith Bible Church is one of our ordinances alongside the Lord's Supper we don't see this act as saving in nature but what these two young ladies are about to do is identify with Jesus Christ through their baptism but also identify with you the church so this is sort of a public coming out for them in terms of their
[00:05:24] testimony, and statement of belief in him. So I'm going to ask Aaron Zachary to go ahead and come on in. Aaron, because of your statement of faith in Jesus Christ, it's my privilege to baptize you in
[00:05:43] the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And this is Harley. Harley, come on in. I told Harley to take her heels off, but she didn't do it. Harley, because of your statement of faith in
[00:06:12] Jesus Christ, I'm excited to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
[00:06:24] Pray with me.
[00:06:25] Father, thank you so much.
[00:06:27] We praise you and love you today, and we just give you honor and glory for the work that you've done in the lives of these two ladies.
[00:06:35] We thank you for the ministry of Stumo at the campus of University of Central Oklahoma and the impact that it's making.
[00:06:42] And Lord, we thank you that they steer and guide students here at Faith Bible Church.
[00:06:48] And Lord, we love you.
[00:06:50] We thank you for the saving work that you've done in the life of these two ladies and also in the lives of each of us here this morning.
[00:06:56] In Christ's name, amen.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:06:59] Amen.
[00:07:00] Well, the testimonies of those who are being baptized today, two in this service, there'll be six in the later service.
[00:07:06] They're in your bulletin, so you can read their testimonies of their faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:07:12] It's great to be with you here this morning.
[00:07:13] Thank you for spending this Lord's Day with us.
[00:07:15] If you're visiting with us, we're especially glad you're here.
[00:07:17] Welcome to Faith Bible Church this morning.
[00:07:20] Let's bow in prayer.
[00:07:21] I know Jay just prayed, but I want to commit our time in the Word together to the Lord.
[00:07:26] Let's look to the Lord in prayer together.
[00:07:28] Father, we do come before You this morning, and we thank You for who You are and for what You've done for us.
[00:07:34] Father, we thank You for that finished work of Jesus Christ, that once-for-all saving work that He accomplished on the cross for us.
[00:07:42] And I thank You for these today who are identifying with Him and His death and His resurrection.
[00:07:46] And I pray, Father, that they'll go forth in Your power, by the power of Your Spirit, to walk in newness of life.
[00:07:52] And Father, help all of us who've known you for a long time to be encouraged and strengthened by their testimonies today to also walk in the newness of life you've given to us.
[00:08:02] Father, help us never to lose the wonder of it all, of what you've done for us through your Son.
[00:08:08] Father, as we begin a new study today in the book of Daniel, we pray that when we finish this study, we won't be the same people as when we began.
[00:08:18] Use your inspired and errant word in our lives to transform us. Father, use Your Word to humble us. Use Your Word to exalt Yourself.
[00:08:27] We commit ourselves and submit ourselves to You now for this study. We pray throughout this study from beginning to end, it'll be the Holy Spirit who will be our teacher. We ask these things in
[00:08:39] Jesus' name. Amen. Well, this is an exciting morning for me and for our church. It's exciting because of these baptisms we have, but it's also exciting because we're beginning a new book study this morning. For those of you who maybe are new to our church, haven't been here for some time,
[00:08:55] we love to go through books of the Bible just from beginning to end. And we're beginning a study of the book of Daniel. A lot of people have asked me that I've told we're studying Daniel.
[00:09:03] They said, were you going to study the whole book or just the first six chapters? So we're going to do the whole book. So we're going to be in this for the long haul, all 12 chapters.
[00:09:11] We've titled this study, The End Time and the Meantime. And I want to mention this morning that Chris McLaughlin did the artwork for this series. You can see it there on the front of your
[00:09:21] bulletin. It's a great blessing to have him do this. Chris did a great job, and I love it, and having Chris do this makes it even more special for me and for our church. I also want to mention
[00:09:33] I've posted some extensive notes on Daniel online if you're interested in those. It's about 80 pages single-spaced, so if you're interested in a much deeper study to read and to kind of follow along to supplement this study. Those have been posted online for you, and I think you'll really find
[00:09:49] those beneficial and edifying. Beginning this series this morning, though, takes me back a lot of years. Daniel is the first sermon series I brought here at Faith Bible Church 29 years ago.
[00:10:02] We started it, I think, the last week of October in the fall of 1991. When I came to Faith Bible Church, the previous pastor, they'd never studied a book in the Old Testament. In fact, he'd been
[00:10:13] here 11 years, and they spent six years in Ephesians. So I thought it'd be good to go back and look at an Old Testament book. So we studied that as the very first book, but I think now is
[00:10:23] a great time for us to revisit this book. This is a very timely study for us. Now, some of you might ask in your mind, well, why study Daniel? Why the book of Daniel, and why now? Let me give you just
[00:10:35] three quick reasons why I believe this study is important for us today. First of all, Daniel's situation parallels our own situation today in many ways. Daniel lived as part of a believing minority in a secular pagan culture. And that's much like what we're seeing and what we're
[00:10:54] beginning to experience today as believers in our culture here in America. In our culture today, we're witnessing a dangerous turning of the tide. We're in danger of being swallowed up by secularism. And increasingly, we find ourselves as exiles and strangers in our own land. And of
[00:11:14] course, that shouldn't surprise us, because the Apostle Peter told us that. We're going to be exiles and live as strangers in this world. I guess we could put it like this in some ways, as we look around in our culture today. We're not in Kansas anymore. It's changed.
[00:11:29] The book of Daniel shows us how to live faithfully in exile, how to live lives of commitment and conviction and courage and clarity in our modern Babylonian culture. Daniel shows us how to live in the meantime in a pagan culture as we wait the Lord's coming and the end time. So, it tells us
[00:11:49] how to stand tall in a fallen world. So, that's one reason we need to study this book. A second reason is Daniel's prophecies may soon be fulfilled. Now, many of the prophecies in the book of Daniel, we will see, have already come to pass. But many of them are still yet to be
[00:12:05] fulfilled today. And I believe there's an amazing correspondence between Daniel's unfulfilled prophecies and our world today. Current events point toward the prophecies of Daniel. I'll just give you a few examples. The Jewish people are regathered to their land, as the Bible has
[00:12:21] predicted. They have to be there in the end times for many of these prophecies to be fulfilled.
[00:12:27] And there they are after almost 2,000 years of being dispersed from their land.
[00:12:32] It's the miracle on the Mediterranean as the Jewish people are back in their homeland.
[00:12:39] The Bible predicts in Daniel a coming peace treaty in the land of Israel in the end times.
[00:12:43] A lot of things we've been seeing in the news lately point toward that.
[00:12:46] The Bible predicts in Daniel a global empire, a world empire, and a world ruler known as the Antichrist.
[00:12:53] Daniel has a lot to say about that.
[00:12:55] So a lot of events in our world today point toward the prophecies of Daniel.
[00:12:59] The signs are lighting up like runway lights as the coming of Jesus draws near.
[00:13:05] And so that's an exciting reason for us to study this book, to understand what God says about the future and how events in our world today point toward those prophecies.
[00:13:16] But a third reason that we need to study the book of Daniel, and I love this, Daniel's God is our God.
[00:13:22] The God we read about in Daniel is the same God we serve and worship.
[00:13:27] Sometimes we can read in the Old Testament about the great things that God did, and we think that God is somehow a different God then than He is today.
[00:13:35] God's still the same God. He's still on the throne.
[00:13:38] God is in charge.
[00:13:39] He's in charge of individuals and families and nations.
[00:13:43] He's in charge of the present and the future.
[00:13:45] He's in charge of good times and bad times.
[00:13:48] He's in charge of great victories in our lives, but also the shocking setbacks. He's the sovereign God who controls everything. The God of Daniel is our God. And I pray as we go through this study, that will increase our confidence and comfort
[00:14:03] in these times in which we live. Now, with those thoughts in mind here this morning, I want to take a brief flyover or kind of an overview of the backdrop and the setting of this
[00:14:15] book to kind of get our bearings, so we'll be ready to dive in in verse 3 next time.
[00:14:21] We'll obviously fill in a lot more background information as we go along, but I just want to kind of initially set the table here for us this morning.
[00:14:30] So let me read Daniel chapter 1, verses 1 and 2.
[00:14:33] That's as far as we'll get here this morning.
[00:14:36] In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
[00:14:43] 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
[00:14:54] the vessels into the treasury of his God. Well, thanks be to God for his inspired, inerrant word.
[00:15:02] History tells us that the day before the famous Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon stood gazing on the field of battle, and he was describing to his commanding officers the strategy for the upcoming campaign. And then he declared that at the end of the next day, that France would be at the feet of
[00:15:21] England, that England would be at the feet of France, and the Duke of Wellington, who was leading the British forces, would be the prisoner of Napoleon. Now, after a pause, Napoleon's commanding officer boldly said to him, Sir, we must remember that man proposes, but God disposes.
[00:15:39] With arrogant pride, Napoleon shot back, I want you to know, sir, that Napoleon proposes and Napoleon disposes.
[00:15:47] Well, commenting on that statement later, Victor Hugo said this, After that moment, Waterloo was lost, for God sent rain and hail so that the troops could not be maneuvered as He had planned.
[00:16:00] And on the night of the battle, it was Napoleon who was the prisoner of Wellington, and France was at the feet of England.
[00:16:07] It's true, man proposes, but God disposes.
[00:16:11] And in many ways, there's no better summary of the message of Daniel than that statement.
[00:16:16] God disposes.
[00:16:18] God determines.
[00:16:19] God directs.
[00:16:20] God is the one who dictates.
[00:16:23] God is the sovereign who rules and overrules in nations and in kingdoms and in the affairs of everyday life.
[00:16:29] And there's no more important truth for us to grasp, I believe, in these times in which we live than that great truth.
[00:16:35] So let's dive into Daniel here together. Now, before we get into the first two verses, I want to take care of a bit of housekeeping. I want to look at the setting of this book.
[00:16:45] I want to look at the author, the audience of the book, the aim, or kind of the message. What's the overall message of this book? And then the arrangement of this book, how it's structured
[00:16:55] and laid out. And then I want to get into these first two verses here this morning. So let's look at this setting. Let's start with the author. Now, we talk about the author of the book of Daniel,
[00:17:05] Daniel is the human author of this book. Now, we believe that the ultimate author of Scripture is the Holy Spirit, who inspired what is written. But he used human authors to write these books, to pen them. So Daniel is the human author of this book, and Daniel means God is my judge,
[00:17:23] a very fitting name for the content of this book. Now, it's interesting, we don't find Daniel's name in the first six chapters of this book in the first person. When you get to chapter 7, verse 4,
[00:17:35] Daniel's going to say I watched and saw these visions in the night so he's going to use first person we get all the way to chapter 7 now you might say here this morning many of you well of
[00:17:49] course Daniel's the author of this book I mean I'm looking in my Bible it's the book of Daniel it bears his name and he uses the first person in the later chapters so why do we need to say
[00:18:00] any more about this. Well, the reason we need to mention this is most scholars believe that Daniel did not write this book, that they deny the authorship of Daniel. They hold that somebody about 400 years after Daniel, after Daniel had died, wrote this book. They believe it was written
[00:18:18] in about 160 BC rather than about 530 BC when we believe Daniel wrote it. So it was written after many of the events in the book had already happened. Now, this has been called by some
[00:18:31] Daniel in the critics' den. You know, Daniel got thrown in the lion's den, but ever since then, Daniel's been in the critics' den. Now, why do people deny that Daniel wrote this book?
[00:18:41] There are several reasons, about three or four main reasons scholars give, but the main reason really that undergirds all of it is they have an anti-supernatural bias, and that is they don't believe that Daniel could have written the detailed prophecies he wrote before these things
[00:18:59] happened. So somebody had to have written these after they took place. He can't have prophesied them before. So the prophecies in Daniel are so detailed and definite that scholars have a difficult time believing that he could have prophesied this stuff long before it happened.
[00:19:15] Now, I'll throw a fancy Latin phrase on you here, but it's Vaticanium ex eventu, and it means speaking after the event. That's what they believe this is, the book of Daniel. He's speaking after these things happen. So it's written after the fact. So most scholars believe that Daniel is
[00:19:32] not prophecy written beforehand, but it's history written after the fact. So they say that someone pretending to be Daniel came along 400 years after Daniel died, after many of the events in this book had happened and authored this book. Now, let me just say this morning, I totally reject that view.
[00:19:51] I believe that Daniel the prophet wrote this book in the 6th century BC. Let me just give you four simple reasons why I believe that. One is, a lot of you've heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and many
[00:20:04] of you have been to Israel, been to the caves there at Qumran where they were discovered. Well, they've discovered a copy of the book of Daniel dated about 100 BC. And if Daniel was written
[00:20:14] about 160 B.C. or 150 B.C., that's only about 50 years' time. Now, again, things moved a lot slower back then than they do today. That means the book of Daniel would have had to have been written about
[00:20:26] 150 B.C., would have had to have been copied, had to have been widely disseminated, and had to make its way all the way to the Dead Sea in Israel, down to this Qumran community, and had to be
[00:20:37] considered sacred enough and significant enough to them for them to include it with these sacred writings. All of that would have had to happen in 50 years. And even those who deny that Daniel wrote it realize that's a big problem. So that's one reason there, just the copy of Daniel at
[00:20:53] Qumran there in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But here's another reason. Just think this through with me for a minute. Would God have a book in the Bible that's deceptive? I mean, think about that. If
[00:21:05] somebody wrote the book of Daniel who simply posed as Daniel, then it's a deceptive book.
[00:21:11] I mean, it's a book that's trying to dupe the reader into believing Daniel wrote it when actually somebody else wrote it.
[00:21:17] And it's unthinkable to me that God would include a book in the Bible, especially a book like Daniel, that's talking about how to live a godly life in the midst of a pagan culture that's deceptive about who wrote it.
[00:21:30] Now, to me, that's totally nonsensical.
[00:21:33] It doesn't make any sense when you're writing a book exalting the virtue of this man Daniel, saying, be like him.
[00:21:39] And it's somebody else actually writing the book, claiming to be him, to deceive people.
[00:21:44] Another reason, this is the basic reason to take Daniel as the author, is Jesus said Daniel was the author. Matthew 24, 15, Jesus said, when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, written by Daniel the prophet, then flee into the wilderness. The abomination of
[00:22:01] desolation is referred to several times in the book of Daniel. And Jesus said that was written by Daniel the prophet. So I want to take the word of Jesus over modern skeptics. And here's just a
[00:22:12] fourth reason. If we believe in divine inspiration of the Bible, we believe that God is sovereign, we don't have any problem with prophecy. The problem for many who deny Daniel's authorship is they don't believe in a God who inspired this book that he can tell the future with
[00:22:29] unerring precision. And to me, there's a tragic irony in this because this is a book, the book of Daniel about the absolute awesome transcendence and sovereignty of God, the God who rules and overrules in history. Yet scholars who read this book don't think the God presented in this book
[00:22:49] could accurately predict what lies ahead, and to me there's a tragic irony in that. But we believe in a sovereign God who knows the future and communicates it to us so we can know what's
[00:23:00] coming. In fact, He not only knows the future, He dictates and controls the future. We'll see this later in Daniel 2.22, but here's what it says there. God reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in the darkness, and light dwells with Him. God is the only one who knows the future,
[00:23:18] and God brings it to pass. So I believe the Holy Spirit is the divine author of this book, as He is with all of Scripture, but I believe Daniel the prophet, the sixth-century prophet, is the human author who prophesied these things with 100% accuracy, 100% of the time.
[00:23:37] Now, what about the audience of this book? Who did Daniel write this book to? Well, he wrote it to the people of Judah. Remember the two southern tribes. I'm going to give you a few
[00:23:46] dates here this morning, and a couple of these, they're good dates for you to know if you just want to be someone that kind of understands the history of the Old Testament. But 931 B.C. is a
[00:23:56] big date in the Old Testament. That's when the ten northern tribes and the two southern tribes split from one another. And you remember that the ten northern tribes were carried away. Another important date, 722 B.C. They were carted off by the Assyrians. And so all that was left were these
[00:24:15] two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. And so now it's going to be Judah's turn. It's about a hundred years, a little over a hundred years after the Assyrians have carted off the northern tribes, and Judah is going to be hauled off by the Babylonians in three waves or three stages.
[00:24:33] We'll look at this a little more next time, but they were defeated in three deportations.
[00:24:38] First group gets hauled off in 605. Daniel's part of that group. Then a group gets taken in 597.
[00:24:44] Ezekiel and others are part of that group. And then finally in 586, Nebuchadnezzar comes and levels the temple there in Jerusalem. So it's the people of Judah who are being hauled away into Babylonian captivity. Now, why are the people taken in captivity? Why do the Babylonians come
[00:25:01] and take them away? There's a couple reasons we know. One is the Jewish people had been violating the sabbatical year. That's why they go into captivity for 70 years. God had said that the last day of the week, the seventh day, was the Sabbath day, but every seventh year was a Sabbath
[00:25:20] year, a sabbatical year. And they weren't to plow their ground and plant crops. God promised He'd give them enough in the sixth year to last them through, that He would bless them if they would
[00:25:31] follow Him and obey His Word. But you can just imagine that sixth year they had this bumper crop and they're thinking to themselves, man, I don't want to take a year off. So they planted
[00:25:39] again. And they did that for a period of 490 years. So if every seventh year was a sabbatical year. They had stolen 70 sabbatical years from God. And so God basically says to them, you think you're going to get away with stealing those sabbatical years? I'm going to give the
[00:25:57] land rest. I'm going to send you into exile. If God's people wouldn't give God the Sabbath, God would come and take it from them. By the way, there's a good principle in life for us as well.
[00:26:08] If we won't give God the things He commands of us, God may come and take them from us.
[00:26:13] And there's a lot of people today who live in a lot of lack as believers because they're not giving God what He's commanded of them, and God's going to come and get it one way or another.
[00:26:22] I'd rather give God voluntarily what He wants from me than I'd have to have God come and take it from me.
[00:26:28] But they ignored the Sabbath.
[00:26:30] But ignoring the Sabbath was by no means their only problem.
[00:26:34] They'd been swallowed up by idolatry.
[00:26:37] And God finally, His patience was exhausted, and He sends them into exile.
[00:26:41] And by the way, this is a good chapter for you to maybe write in your notes as well.
[00:26:45] Deuteronomy 28.
[00:26:47] In Deuteronomy 28, in the first 14 verses, God tells the Jewish people all the blessings He will give them if they will obey Him.
[00:26:57] And then from verses 15 to 68, He gives all the curses that will come upon them if they disobey Him.
[00:27:04] There's a principle there.
[00:27:06] Obedience brings God's blessing.
[00:27:08] Disobedience brings God's discipline.
[00:27:11] But the final of the curses that God would bring if the people turned away from Him and finally exhausted His patience, God says, I'm going to bring a nation from far away whose language you do not know.
[00:27:24] They're going to take you into exile.
[00:27:26] They're going to take your children away from you.
[00:27:28] It's going to be the final stage of discipline God would bring.
[00:27:32] So God in the book of Daniel, in this exile, in many ways, He's just being faithful to what He told them He would do.
[00:27:39] So they're swallowed up with idolatry, and God sends them away.
[00:27:43] I'm into exile.
[00:27:44] So that's the audience of the book.
[00:27:46] Now, what about the aim of this book?
[00:27:47] Why did Daniel write this book?
[00:27:49] What's the aim or the message of it?
[00:27:52] Now, back in the 6th century B.C., hope was at a low tide.
[00:27:56] The Jewish people there in Judah, they'd had a string of bad kings.
[00:28:01] They were under the control of Babylon.
[00:28:03] And as they looked around, it seemed to them like God's Word had failed.
[00:28:09] And it seemed to them like history was going backwards.
[00:28:12] The Jewish people were going back where they came from.
[00:28:15] Again, think of the irony of that.
[00:28:17] God takes them all the way back to Babylon.
[00:28:20] Where had Abraham come from?
[00:28:22] He came from Ur, down in the area of the Chaldees, not far away from Babylon.
[00:28:27] They were going back to where they came from.
[00:28:29] And notice here in chapter 1 and verse 2 of Daniel, he calls it the land of Shinar, which harks all the way back to the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapters 10 and 11.
[00:28:41] It's like history for the Jewish people is being rewound.
[00:28:45] They're going back where they came from and it looks hopeless at this time for them.
[00:28:50] And Daniel writes this book because he wants the people to know in spite of how bad things look that God's plan is true.
[00:28:58] God's plan is still on track.
[00:29:01] God will keep covenant with Israel.
[00:29:03] Now, of course, the people have to repent.
[00:29:05] but God is going to bring restoration. The Messiah will come. The kingdom is going to be established.
[00:29:11] Israel is going to be restored. So in this book, in the book of Daniel, we're going to see this in several chapters. Daniel drags us all the way across the span of history, from his day all the
[00:29:23] way to the time of the coming of the Messiah to set up his kingdom on earth. I mean, he takes us all the way to the end of the story to give us hope that no matter how things look today,
[00:29:35] God's in control and He'll fulfill His purposes. So you can sum up the message of Daniel like this.
[00:29:41] I have it in your notes this morning. God is in control no matter how things look. And His kingdom will one day fill the earth. So live in faith and faithfulness in the meantime. God's in control
[00:29:56] no matter how things look. His kingdom is one day going to fill the earth. So live your life in hope and faithfulness in the meantime. Now that's a message we need today. Let me just say this,
[00:30:08] in spite of how things look, God's in control. Is that a message that resonates with anybody here today? In spite of how things look, God is in control. Our world looks today more and more
[00:30:21] out of control all the time. Chaotic, confused, rebellion and riots and unrest, deception, a pandemic, on and on we could go. But God is telling, through Daniel, God is telling the Jewish people, God's program is on track. Christ is going to come back, the Messiah, and rule and
[00:30:42] reign. And in the meantime, you need to live a life of hope and faithfulness to Him. So Daniel blends really two main themes. Prophecy, which is the end time, and piety, which is the meantime.
[00:30:57] In other words, prophecy, here's what's going to happen in the future, that's the end time, but piety in the meantime. Here's how you live a godly life in the meantime as you await the Lord's coming. So he's telling us that the end time informs and transforms the meantime.
[00:31:15] The meantime and how we live today is tied to the end time.
[00:31:19] This present world is to be navigated in light of the future promises of God.
[00:31:25] And knowing what lies ahead should change and transform how we live today.
[00:31:31] Paul House, a commentator, puts it like this, Daniel is a story of kingdoms, human kingdoms that rise and fall, God's kingdom which rises and remains.
[00:31:44] The kingdoms of this world are passing.
[00:31:47] The kingdom of God is coming to pass.
[00:31:49] And we need to live the meantime now in light of that great truth.
[00:31:53] And Daniel is going to help us with that as we go through these next weeks.
[00:31:57] Now, one final bit of backdrop here is the arrangement of this book or the structure.
[00:32:02] I've got a slide here, if we'll put that up there.
[00:32:04] It kind of helps us see Daniel 1 to 6 and 7 to 12.
[00:32:08] That's kind of the way people often divide the book.
[00:32:11] In Daniel 1 to 6, you have six stories.
[00:32:14] It's kind of historical or narrative.
[00:32:16] In Daniel 7 to 12, it's prophetic, and you have four visions.
[00:32:21] I mean, Daniel 1 to 6, Daniel interprets other people's dreams.
[00:32:24] In the last part of the book, angels have to interpret his dreams or visions.
[00:32:28] In Daniel 1 to 6, it's in the third person.
[00:32:31] Daniel 7 through 12 is in the first person.
[00:32:34] And Daniel 1 through 6 is about the meantime primarily, how we live now in the midst of a Babylonian culture, and Daniel 7 through 12 is primarily about the end time, about what's going to happen in the future. By the way, one other thing about
[00:32:49] Daniel, we'll talk about this as we go along, it's a bilingual book. It's written in both Hebrew and in Aramaic. We'll see that. The middle main section of the book actually switches languages, so it's a bilingual book. Now, that's kind of a brief sketch of the setting, and we'll go back
[00:33:05] and fill in a lot more details, but let's go ahead and get into this book in verses 1 and 2 and what I want to call here the sovereignty. Daniel chapter 1 is a prologue, and it's a very
[00:33:16] distinct unit. You notice it begins and ends with a chronological marker. It begins in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. That's 605 B.C. And notice down in verse 21, and Daniel reigned until the first year of Cyrus the king. That's 539 BC. So it's almost 70 years
[00:33:37] time that passes. So it's kind of a distinct unit that gives us kind of the personal history of Daniel. Now, the first two verses here in Daniel immerse us into the action. They plunge us right into the story. And we see that Daniel's story is part of a much bigger story. And these
[00:33:57] two verses kind of set up the rest of the book. Verse 1 is what we might call historical. It's going to tell us what's happening. But verse 2 is theological. It's going to tell us what's
[00:34:11] happening behind what's happening. So verse 1 is historical. It's history. Here's what's happening.
[00:34:17] But verse 2 is theological. It's going to go behind history and tell us what's happening behind what's happening. Now, these opening verses in Daniel identify the main characters and themes that are going to be woven through this book. It introduces Jehoiakim, the king of Judah,
[00:34:35] Nebuchadnezzar. Of course, it introduces us to God, who's the hero of the story. And then later on in the next chapter, verses will be introduced to Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
[00:34:47] But as the book opens, as the book of Daniel opens, the world scene is changing.
[00:34:51] It's a dramatic power shift that's taking place.
[00:34:54] The year again, an important date to remember, 605 B.C.
[00:34:59] Now, what had happened is the Assyrians had dominated the ancient Near East for about 300 years.
[00:35:05] They'd been the dominant power.
[00:35:07] They're the ones that carried off the ten northern tribes.
[00:35:10] But something very important happened in 612 B.C.
[00:35:14] The Assyrians were defeated by the Babylonians and a few of their allies.
[00:35:19] The city of Nineveh was devastated and destroyed.
[00:35:22] In fact, it was destroyed so completely, it actually took centuries to find it.
[00:35:27] And of course, the destruction of the city of Nineveh fulfilled the prophecy of Nahum, who had prophesied that many years before it came to pass.
[00:35:35] So what happens is the Assyrian power is gone, and that leaves basically two superpowers left in that day.
[00:35:43] I've got a map up here for those of us who are maybe a little geographically challenged.
[00:35:48] You can see there where Jerusalem is in the middle.
[00:35:51] That's the land of Israel.
[00:35:52] And then you've got Babylon, the Babylonian Empire, and then you've got Egypt down here to the south.
[00:35:57] And you'll notice at the top, there's a red dot there above Syria that says Carchemish.
[00:36:01] And that was a very important battle because after the Assyrians get wiped out and Nineveh's destroyed, there's two superpowers left.
[00:36:09] There's Babylon and there's Egypt.
[00:36:12] And, of course, Israel's right between the two.
[00:36:14] And they have a big fight, a big battle at Carchemish in May of 605 BC.
[00:36:22] And Nebuchadnezzar obliterates the Egyptians in this battle.
[00:36:25] So it goes from two superpowers now to one.
[00:36:29] And Nebuchadnezzar is the one now who has sovereign power.
[00:36:33] He whipped the Egyptians bad.
[00:36:36] Now with the Egyptians out of the way, Nebuchadnezzar seizes the opportunity, and he goes down into the land of Israel and Syria and all that area to mop all that up and to bring all of
[00:36:48] that under His control.
[00:36:51] And so that's what we see here in verse 1, in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, that's 605, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
[00:37:02] The reason he did that is he's just defeated the Egyptians, and so he's coming now to take control of this area.
[00:37:07] Now the word besieged there in Hebrew, we often think of a long siege where you surround the city and kind of starve them out. But the word literally just means confined, or that he initiated conflict. This was not a prolonged event. Jehoiakim surrendered very quickly and
[00:37:24] gave authority to Nebuchadnezzar. And of course, the king of Judah at that time is Jehoiakim.
[00:37:30] He's a wicked king. He's the third from the last of the kings of Judah. And Nebuchadnezzar comes and makes him his vassal or his puppet who's going to rule on his behalf.
[00:37:44] So that's the history here in verse 1, but now let's go to the theology behind it in verse 2.
[00:37:50] Look at the first word of verse 2, the Lord, the Lord.
[00:37:54] It's the word Adonai, means supreme master.
[00:37:59] The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand along with some of the vessels of the house of God.
[00:38:06] as you read this verse here, these verses, it'll say, there's five verbs here, and it says, Nebuchadnezzar came and Nebuchadnezzar besieged. And then after that, it says, Nebuchadnezzar brought these vessels to the house of God. He brought them to the treasury of his God. So Nebuchadnezzar came,
[00:38:27] Nebuchadnezzar besieged, Nebuchadnezzar brought, and Nebuchadnezzar brought. But in the middle of those four verbs about Nebuchadnezzar, there's one in the middle, and it says, and God gave.
[00:38:39] God gave. And it highlights the sovereignty of God. It's the Lord who gave Jehoiakim, Adonai, the supreme master. He's the one that gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into Nebuchadnezzar's hands. This highlights the sovereignty of God. You see the same thing down in verse 9. Now God
[00:38:59] gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials. Down in verse 17, as for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every brand of literature. What it's showing us here is that behind what we can see in the invisible, God is
[00:39:18] the one who's acting and bringing these things to pass. In fact, one great commentator on Daniel, Leon Wood, he says this, though outward signs did not seem to show it, God was the master of this
[00:39:30] situation. As Jehoiakim was given into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, it was not Nebuchadnezzar's strength nor Jehoiakim's weakness that really decided the matter. It was God's good pleasure.
[00:39:44] If you just look in this in history, you're saying, well, Nebuchadnezzar was stronger. I mean, he came and it was because Jehoiakim was weak and that's what happened here. That's what it looks like on the outside, but God wants us to see this from His perspective. The Lord, Adonai,
[00:39:57] gave Jehoiakim into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. This is what a lot of theologians call the subtle sovereignty of God. God's work is primarily invisible. It's unseen. It's the unseen hand of God in history. You've all heard the old saying before that history is His story.
[00:40:20] The Bible is a book about God.
[00:40:23] It begins with God.
[00:40:24] In the beginning, God creates the heaven and the earth.
[00:40:26] Daniel is a book about God.
[00:40:29] There are 78 occurrences of names and titles for God in Daniel.
[00:40:33] 14 times God is called the Most High.
[00:40:37] God is the hero of this story, not Daniel.
[00:40:40] A lot of people read the book of Daniel.
[00:40:42] They want to make Daniel the hero of the story.
[00:40:44] The hero of the book of Daniel is God Himself.
[00:40:48] God dominates the story.
[00:40:49] The book of Daniel is thick with the presence and the power of God.
[00:40:54] God overshadows it all.
[00:40:56] He's in total control.
[00:40:59] There's an old story about a not-so-smart cowboy, and he went to get an insurance policy, and the insurance agent asked him if he'd ever had any accidents.
[00:41:08] And he said, no, not that I can think of.
[00:41:10] He said, one time a horse kicked me in the head, and another time a rattlesnake bit me on the leg.
[00:41:16] And the insurance agent said, well, don't you consider those accidents?
[00:41:19] And the cowboy said, well, no.
[00:41:20] said they did it on purpose. I like that because God does what He does on purpose. There aren't any accidents with God. And God, not man or circumstances, is sovereign. And God rules and He overrules in the affairs of man. God rules and overrules in your life and in my life.
[00:41:42] God has His hand on the wheel of history. And certainly if God has His hand on the wheel of history, God can control our life as well. Heaven has an occupied throne. God guides and He governs
[00:41:54] all things to their appointed end. Now, notice here Nebuchadnezzar seizes these vessels from the temple and takes them to his temple. This was standard procedure back in ancient times.
[00:42:06] It was a demonstration that your God was stronger than the God of the people you just defeated.
[00:42:11] Back in the ancient Near East, the fortunes of a God and the people were tied together. So conquering a nation was conquering their God. If the people were losers, then their God was a loser
[00:42:23] as well. So it was really a battle of the gods. And there were about 50 temples in Babylon. Their main temple was the temple to Marduk, who was sometimes called Bel. And so he takes these back
[00:42:35] to the temple of his God. By the way, over in Ezra chapter 1 verse 11, 70 years later when the children of Israel come back to their land? It says in Ezra 1.11, they brought 5,400 articles
[00:42:48] and vessels with them back. So they take over 5,000 articles and vessels from the temple to Babylon. And one of the reasons he mentions here the seizure of these vessels, kind of tuck this away in your memory, this anticipates the story that we're going to read in Daniel chapter 5.
[00:43:06] In Daniel 5, remember Belshazzar, the wicked king, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, he's going to have them bring these vessels from the temple of God to a drunken orgy that he's having.
[00:43:17] So this is a setup that anticipates what's going to happen in the future.
[00:43:21] But in verse 2 here, though, Daniel wants us to know from the outset of the book of Daniel that despite how things appear, the God of Israel hasn't been defeated.
[00:43:32] He's the one that's in control.
[00:43:34] He's running the show.
[00:43:36] Daniel doesn't want there to be any doubt from the very outset of this book that God is in charge.
[00:43:42] And it's God actually who brought about the defeat of his own people in order to keep his word that he'd given to them back in Deuteronomy 28.
[00:43:52] A couple of other things here before we close.
[00:43:55] In verse 2, it says, The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God.
[00:44:03] Literally in the Hebrew there, it's the house of the God, the Elohim.
[00:44:09] And this is Nebuchadnezzar brought into the land of Shinar to the house of his God.
[00:44:14] And then it mentions in the treasury of his God.
[00:44:17] Nebuchadnezzar has his God, but Daniel's God is the God.
[00:44:21] He's the Elohim.
[00:44:24] And you see that down in verse 9 and verse 17 as well.
[00:44:27] He's called the God.
[00:44:29] He's the only God.
[00:44:30] and God is sovereign which means that God does always as he pleases he does only as he pleases and God does all that he pleases someone put it like this this is a real simple way to state it
[00:44:45] but someone said it like this to say that God is sovereign is simply to say that he's God I mean to say God's sovereign is just simply to say that he's God and that's something every one
[00:44:56] of us can take into our everyday lives. As we find ourselves more and more living in exiles here in our own land, we live in increasingly perplexing times. We can rest assured that God is in control
[00:45:09] of our lives. He's in control of our nation. He's in control of our elections, no matter how things may look. And I don't know about you, but there's nothing that brings me more comfort in life than
[00:45:20] knowing that, regardless of how things may look on the outside, God's in control. Man proposes, but God disposes. After World War II ended, Winston Churchill was talking about his job as prime minister, and he was also at the same time talking about God, and he said this. He said,
[00:45:39] I wouldn't have God's job for anything. Mine is hard enough, but his is much more difficult, fault, and he can't even resign. Now, that's bad theology. God won't resign. God can't resign because God reigns. Our God reigns, and He rules, and He overrules in history.
[00:45:59] One final thought here as we close. When you reopen the book of Daniel at the beginning of it, it looks like that God has lost. Think about this. God's house, God's temple has been ransacked and
[00:46:11] been pillaged by a foreign land. God looks like a weak, helpless, do-nothing deity who's allowed His own people to be hauled off into captivity. God looks like a God who's a loser. This sovereign God has a sovereignty, though, and this is a beautiful thought. God's sovereignty is a humble
[00:46:33] sovereignty. God is willing to suffer shame and humiliation if in doing that He can awaken His people to their need. The sovereign God of the universe who created everything is willing to be humiliated and suffer shame to awaken His people. That's what we see here in the book of
[00:46:51] Daniel. But you know, the same thing is true of our Lord Jesus, who's God in human flesh. Jesus was willing to be humiliated and suffer shame to come and to save His people. Philippians chapter
[00:47:05] 2 tells us that although He existed in the form of God, Jesus didn't regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself, took the form of a bondservant, and being made
[00:47:17] in the likeness of man and found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, and He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus was blasphemed and mocked and humiliated
[00:47:29] as He hung there on the cross, but He did it for you and for me. He was humiliated so we can be exalted. He suffered shame so that you and I can be saved. God is a sovereign God, but God is a God
[00:47:44] who has a humble sovereignty, who's willing to stoop low to save His creatures who'll trust in Him. That's our God. That's our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you've never come to Him, why not
[00:47:55] do that this morning? Why not trust in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross in your place? He was humble, and He was put to shame for you, so you can trust in Him and have your sins
[00:48:06] forgiven and receive the gift of eternal life. If you've never trusted in him, why not do that here this morning right now as we go to prayer? Well, Father, we come before you. If there's
[00:48:16] anyone here this morning who's never bowed the knee to Jesus Christ and trusted in him as their Savior, I pray that they might do that right now. Take Jesus Christ to be their Savior from sin.
[00:48:27] The humble sovereign who stooped down from heaven to take our place at the cross, Suffer our shame and humiliation so that we can have life eternal.
[00:48:42] Father, we look around in our world today.
[00:48:44] You know our frame.
[00:48:45] You know we're dust.
[00:48:47] It looks like things are out of control.
[00:48:50] But Father, use this book and use this study this morning to grip us with the fact whatever's happening around us in our world and our culture, maybe whatever's happening in our own life, that You're in control,
[00:49:01] that You're ruling and overruling in the affairs of man.
[00:49:05] You're doing it in each one of our individual lives.
[00:49:07] father use that to encourage us use it to strengthen us so that we can be faithful witnesses and ambassadors for you in these times in which we live lord help us to stand strong help us to stand tall in a fallen world we ask these things in jesus name amen let's stand and

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:49:26] close in song again thank you for being with us here this morning we appreciate you being here

[00:54:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:54:03] with us i know when we introduce a book like this it's kind of a lot of information that's why i've got those notes online, and maybe you can go back and listen to this sermon again if you missed some
[00:54:12] of the details. But we'll be filling in a lot more of these as we go along and reminding us of these details we've given. If you're visiting with us here this morning, thank you so much for being
[00:54:22] with us. If you go out these doors on the right a little ways down, there's the Welcome Center.
[00:54:26] There's some folks there that love to greet you and give you some more information about our church. I'll be down front here after the service. Our elders who are in this service will be down
[00:54:34] front as well, and we'd love the opportunity this morning maybe to pray with you if there's a burden that you'd like to come and share with us, or just get acquainted.
[00:54:43] We'd love the opportunity to meet with you this morning.
[00:54:45] Well, let's bow our heads now for the benediction as we leave here this morning.
[00:54:49] Our benediction this morning comes from 1 Timothy 6.
[00:54:52] He who is blessed, the only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to to him be honor and eternal dominion.
[00:55:06] All God's people said, amen.