God of the Exiles

Daniel 1:1:

“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 [and] learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of the 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.

“But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs, and the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, ‘I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age? So you would endanger my head with the king.’ Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, ‘Test your servants for ten days; [then] let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.’ So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food. So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

“As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king. And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.”

Amen. Thanks be to God for his Word.

Well, let’s pray together:

Make the Book live to me, O Lord,
Show me yourself within your Word,
Show me myself and show me my Savior,
And make the Book live to me.[1]

For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

For the first time since I have lived here on these fair shores, I sense that the wind has changed—changed in a number of ways. The prevailing wind is certainly not at the back of the sails of professing Christians. Indeed, the wind appears to be a pretty stiff wind that blows the forces of secularism directly at those who declare themselves to be followers of Jesus. I wouldn’t want to overstate that. I’m not an analyst of secular culture. I have no peculiar insight, any more than anyone else. But as I travel a little bit within the country, I’ve discovered that the old days of the bravado of the Moral Majority, of Jerry Falwell and all that was going to be achieved as a result of those endeavors, they’re no longer a strong cry. In fact, they’re barely a whimper. And many individuals appear to be completely overwhelmed by the reality of the circumstances of the church, because we’re pushed back. The trips across the Atlantic Ocean that used to be marked simply by the enthusiasm of the tourist now are returning to me somewhat differently—people coming back and saying, “I think we’re beginning to understand why it is that those large cathedrals of Western Europe are pretty well empty.” Before, they used to come back, or you used to come back, and say, “Why are all those churches empty?” And I used to say to you—and you didn’t like it—“Just hang on. You’re about to find out.”

There is a day that yet awaits every one of us when we will stand before the God who created us.

Well, now we have begun to find out, and the question is: Are you going to hang on? Are we going to hang on? Because it is very, very obvious that the notion of a persecuted church—and there are some hundred million Christians throughout the world today that are persecuted for their faith. That’s from Open Doors and the statistics they provide. I think they’re pretty accurate. They may be on the low side. But for most of us, that has always been way out there and far away. But now we sense that it could be different. It’s finally beginning to dawn on us that the broken, sinful world in which we live is not actually our home—that we’re not supposed to be settling down here forever; we’re not supposed to be treating it the way other people treat it, as if this was the be-all and end-all of everything. For our friends will say to us, won’t they, “You better enjoy yourself, because this is not a dress rehearsal.” Well, in one sense, it is a dress rehearsal. Because there is a day that yet awaits every one of us when we will stand before the God who created us. And the issues of time, set within the framework of eternity, demand careful consideration.

And now we read, for example, Peter’s declaration of the scattered believers of the first century with different kind of eyes and ears, writing to them, as he does, “as sojourners and exiles.”[2] We used to read that and think, “I wonder what it would be like to be an exile.” Suddenly, as a minority group within an increasingly secularized nation, the church is getting a flavor of it.

Were we asleep when we read the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John? Did we assume they must have been written for another time and another place when Jesus spoke so clearly to those who were his followers? And in John chapter 15, after he has described himself as the vine and the branches,[3] he says to his followers, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”[4]

Now, I know that some of us have come out of a background where that kind of notion was played out to a vast extreme, and often in a way that was entirely unhelpful. I have no truck with that at all. But I have found myself going back to these early chapters in Daniel because they don’t provide for us a strategy of how to deal with living in an alien environment as much as they provide comfort and encouragement in realizing that the God who oversaw the events that transpired here, described for us in the opening chapters of Daniel, is the same God who is the God of his people, no longer now six centuries BC but in twenty AD. And the overarching emphasis is simply this: that God is powerful, that God is sovereign, and that even in the face of circumstances that appear to be prevailing against us, we may trust him entirely.

Sue and I were talking with a friend the other day—that’s a euphemism for, I think, now, two weeks ago—and in the course of conversation, he made a statement which neither of us could recall and asked him to remind us of it, which he did in a note, and he sent a scribbled note as requested. This was his statement: “Faith is not believing in spite of evidence; rather, it is obeying in spite of the consequences.” It’s not believing in spite of the evidence. That’s what our cynical friends often say: “Well, you just believe that even though there’s no evidence for it.” That’s for another time. But in the context of Daniel chapter 1, for these young men, faith was obeying in spite of the consequences. And the question is: How are we going to handle an environment like this?

Well, let’s just work our way through in the time that we have, noticing that the scene is set in verses 1 and 2. There is a historical marker at the beginning and at the end of the chapter, reminding us that history is really history—that this took place at a moment in time, at a place—essentially Iraq—and at a point in history. And what we’re told here is that the prevailing peace of Jerusalem and of the people of God had been shattered by the arrival of a foreign power. What the prophets had said would happen if the people did not pay attention and follow the law of God actually happened. And here we’re told that Nebuchadnezzar and all of his Babylonian forces came in and besieged the city of Jerusalem. In doing so, they took “some of the vessels” from “the house of God,” verse 2, and “brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.”

Now, that little emphasis there, with the personal pronoun, is important. And the writer is letting us know that from all apparent perspectives, it would seem that the gods of the Babylonians were stronger than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After all, if the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was strong enough to protect his people, how come the Babylonians were able to come in and give them such a hiding? And the inevitable questions would arise: “Well then, where is God in this? Where is God in these circumstances?” Are we to assume the people might have said that “all of our obedience to God has been for nothing,” despite the fact that they’d been so disobedient too?

And the story unfolds in such a way that we discover that God actually is more in control than they even understand. Notice what it says. Verse 2: “And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.” The Lord gave him. The symbols of God’s presence and God’s power in these vessels have been snatched up and taken away, and it is God, if you like, who has done this. God has been responsible for the exile of his people. God has been responsible for the defeat and the ultimate destruction of his own city. It’s quite remarkable!

We know that nothing happens except through God and by his will.

From a human perspective, there is… Well, it’s fairly straightforward. It’s the political and military overpowering of the people of God, the Israelites, by this foreign, invading force. Yes, but what do we know? We know that nothing happens except through him and by his will. And so, now this book is written—written first of all to the people who are still in exile, and being reminded right at the beginning that God is actually in control of these things.

You see, many of the people would have said to one another, “You know, we didn’t raise our children to have them carried away like this.” And you’ll notice where they were carried to: “to the land of Shinar.” Some of you who know your Bible well will recognize that it was in the land of Shinar—Genesis 11—that the Tower of Babel was constructed. And there in the land of Shinar, you had this great opposition to the building of the kingdom and power of God, and man said, “What we’ll do is we’ll build a big kingdom for ourselves, and we’ll raise it all the way up to the heavens, and we’ll show God who’s in charge of this operation.”[5] And now here you are, six centuries later, and the exact same thing is unfolding.

This, incidentally, is a theme which runs throughout the history of the world. Augustine got it right, didn’t he, in his book [The City of God]? That God is fashioning and forming his purposes from eternity to eternity. In the midst of that, man in his rebellion and in his defiance says, “No, no, no, no, no! We will not have you as a King. We’ll show you how to do this!” And as the people of God seek to live in obedience here, the Babylonians come in and give them a good thrashing. And they need to know that in that, through that, behind that was a sovereign God himself.

And the answer as to why it even happened is contained not only in the words of the prophets but is contained in the prayer of Daniel in chapter 9, later on. And I’ll just turn you to it. I’m not going to read it all. But in Daniel 9, when Daniel prays and seeks the face of God, he says—verse 7, for example, or verse 6. (Well, you’ve got to read the whole prayer. Sorry.) “We have not listened to your servants the prophets,” verse 6, “who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, … our fathers, … to all the people of the land.” “We just flat-out didn’t listen.” Verse 9: “You’re in charge of mercy and forgiveness; we are rebellious.”[6] Verse 10: “We haven’t obeyed your voice.”[7] The whole of Israel, verse 11, “has transgressed your law and turned aside,” they “refus[e] to obey your voice.” “And the curse that was promised has fallen upon us.”[8] And these family members left behind, because the exile was in three waves, must surely have wondered what would become, then, of their sons.

And here we have the record of what happens to these particular individuals. The king, verse 3, commands his chief eunuch to bring some of the people of Israel—of the royal family, the nobility, the “youths without blemish” and so on—“Just bring the cream of the crop in here, and what we’ll do is we’ll make sure that we fashion them and refashion them in such a way that they will be done with that old stuff about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If we can get our hands on them, if we can educate them, if we can rename them, if we can relocate them, just change their whole worldview, then we’ll have them.” A brilliant program of subtle coercion and sometimes not-so-subtle coercion.

What they’re seeking to do is to make sure that they change the way these fellows think about the world. And the way in which it is done is first of all by a geographical relocation. That’s straightforward, isn’t it? Well, it is straightforward, but it causes at least us to pause on this: when they were taken away from all that represented familiarity to them—all that, geographically, if you like, represented security to them; all that, if you like, kept them in the routine of their lives—just to be taken out of that could in itself find them saying, “Well, I no longer have the place I used to go to. I no longer have the people I used to spend time with. I no longer have the reinforcement of my family members. So I think I’ll just give it up for a while. Or maybe I’ll just give it up for good.” It happens quite routinely to youngsters when they go off to university. Apparently, just a change of location is enough—no longer the reinforcement of their peer group, no longer the opportunity to gather as they once did with God’s people. Just a change of location. It’s not enough to overwhelm these fellows.

What about a change of education? They were going to be made competent by learning the literature and the language of the Chaldeans. In other words, “We will retrain their minds.” “We’ll retrain their minds.” Every evil empire has always done this and does this. Communism did this. Marxism did this. Mao Tse-tung did this. It matters what you read. It matters how you think. So that’s what they did.

“We’ll change their names.” They had lovely names—lovely Hebrew names that were God-honoring names. They said, “We’re going to get rid of those names. We’ll give you new names that are god-honoring names; it’s just a different god. This is god of the Babylonians, or various gods of the Babylonians.”

“And, of course, what we would like to do is to give you a daily portion,” verse 5, “of the food that the king ate and the wine that he drank.” You say, “Well, that was very nice. He’s not sending them down to the local cafeteria, but he’s actually providing from his own chef. How wonderfully nice of him to do that!” You think? No, it was just another way… The last threads tying them to their roots were dietary, if you like. They had been unable to prevent themselves being relocated. They are unable to resist the fact that they are being reeducated. They have been powerless to resist a new name entrusted to them, thereby creating an identity crisis. But the one thing they can do and they’re going to do is resist the temptation to change the plans of a diet.

You say, “Well, what a strange choice.” Well, no, not actually if you know the Old Testament. Because the distinguishing features of God’s people were marked in part, in measure, by things that were apparently strange. And the Jewish people were always regarded as sort of weird: “Well, why do you not do that? Why do you not go there? Why do you not drink that? Why will you not do this?” And those features were not simply, for them, external manifestations of nothingness, but they were a practical effulgence of deeply held convictions about what it meant for them to belong to God. And there was a point for Daniel where he said, “I can do this, and I can absorb that, but I can’t go any further on this.” And so it was that he takes his stand, and as a result of doing so, having resolved, verse 8, he then makes a request to the chief of the eunuchs.

And interestingly, the same God who gave his people into the bondage of the Babylonians is now the God—same verb here—who “gave Daniel,” verse 9, “favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs.” Now, that’s no small thing! So we don’t get the impression here that Daniel and his friends were rabble-rousers, that they were freedom fighters, that they were a bunch of jolly nuisances. No! They were bright. They were good-looking. They were highly respected. They paid attention. They showed up on time. They shined their shoes. They were good soldiers. They were decent fellows. And yet there was a point; there was a core in them; there was a resolve in them; there was something at the very heart of them that couldn’t be shaken. And it was that which caused them to take the stand that they took.

Incidentally, that kind of resolution doesn’t come just as a whim. It doesn’t come overnight. It doesn’t come just because all of a sudden something happened. Crisis reveals what’s inside of you, what’s inside of me. It doesn’t create it as much as reveal it. And as soon as they’re up against it here, now they said, “No, we are not going to give up on this one.” And God gave them favor.

Now, what’s the point? It’s simply this: that in a foreign land—where the people of God had already laid down their harps, remember? Remember, they’re exiles. So, these exiles—Psalm 137. Remember the old Rastafarian song? “By the rivers of Babylon”—you know?—“we sat down, oh, we wept”—it was really good—“when we remembered Zion.”[9] And so the people of God said, “We might as well hang up the harps and give up the singing, because how can we serve and sing to our God in a foreign land?[10] Look at us! We’re a miserable minority, we’re crushed, the prevailing forces are such that they seem to be squeezing the life out of us, and you expect us to sit down here by the river and sing?” Yes! That’s the environment.

And so Daniel is telling the story to the exiles, first of all, and he’s saying, “Listen to what happened to us when we got there. God, who brought us there, went before us there and gave us favor with this character.” Essentially, he liked these boys, but he was afraid for his life. And in that tension he was living.

It should make you think of Joseph. In fact, I’m sure it does. You remember how he was given favor with the cupbearer to the king. He couldn’t control that! That was something God did. But the jailer, or the eunuch here, in this instance, is predisposed to them, but he’s not about to lose his head. And the strength of it is fairly obvious, isn’t it? I love the sentence here in the ESV, verse 10: “So you would endanger my head with the king.” You know, “You’re a nice guy, and I know you’ve got a program and so on, but no, it’s not going to fly.”

And then verse 11, Daniel said, “Oh well. It can’t be the will of God. If it was the will of God, then everything would have worked out nicely. So let’s just give it up.” No. Then Daniel said, “Okay, if we’re not going to get something out of the CEO, let’s try the COO.” And that’s exactly what he does: “Then he said to the steward whom the chief of eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, ‘Hey, the [chief]’s a bit worried about his head, but I got a deal. How ’bout you give us ten days? Give us a test for ten days, and I’m going to show you that we’ll actually be in better shape than the rest of the guys that go on the portions.’”

Now, you will know that the reason that the concern was there was because they anticipated that if they did not take the meal plan that was part of the Babylonian program, then they would be seen to be, verse 10, “in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age.” “And when you’re then seen to be in worse condition, then the king will be ticked, then I lose my head. So, sorry, not going to do it. Wouldn’t be prudent, not at this juncture.” So, “Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.”

That is pretty gutsy! That is very, very gutsy! There’s no precedent for this. He’s saying, “We’re going to trust God. You put us to the test, and we’re going to put God to the test. We’re going to see what God will do with us when we don’t do with you what you want us to do.” In other words, faith is, for him and his friends, obeying despite the consequences. And at this point, no one can know. Verse 14:

So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. [And] at the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food. So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

Cue the Daniel Diet, right? Now, is anyone reading this text or not reading the text? I didn’t pay attention to the Daniel Diet, and maybe I should. But the fact of the matter is, this program, they ended up fatter, not thinner. That was the whole point! So… Ah! There’s no country in the world that you can make a buck better than the continental United States. The gullibility of people is beyond comprehension. It’s amazing! It really is! Anyway, I say it with the greatest respect. Some people are on the Daniel Diet, eating vegetables, and so, let me tell you something: you eat vegetables and water for three years, you ain’t going to look as good as these guys. I guarantee it! Because the reason they look so good at the end of three years was not the diet. It was a miracle!

God is no man’s debtor, and God is able to show himself strong.

God showed himself strong! By every other mechanism, they should have looked gaunt and withered and pathetic, but they looked vibrant and terrific, and they had a snap to their skin, and they looked absolutely super. Why? Because God did it! And every day that passed in the three years, when they woke up and looked in the mirror, it would be a daily reminder of the fact that God is no man’s debtor, and God is able to show himself strong. And every passing day as it elapsed, the message was there again. And Daniel writes this down, and the people of God are saying, “You know, that is really quite amazing!”

But they should have known, shouldn’t they? God had done something dramatic when he rescued Moses from the bulrushes. He’d done something incredible when he parted the Red Sea. He had brought them across the Jordan on dry land. He had banished the jolly forces of evil against them. They had seen Joshua stand forward, and they had seen the walls of Jericho collapse. We’ve seen a lot of evidences of God’s grace and goodness, too, haven’t we? And yet some of us have hung our harps. We’ve begun to complain, to bemoan everything.

And verse 17: “As for these four youths…” “As for these four youths, God gave them…” It’s the third “God gave them.” I think these “God gave thems” are really the key to understanding this chapter. First of all, in verse 2, God “gave Jehoiakim” into the hands of the Babylonians; verse 9, “God gave … favor” with the authorities; and verse 17, “God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had [special] understanding [of] visions and dreams”—which, of course, is going to become apparent as we read on in the chapters. In other words, God intervened on his behalf and gave him supernatural revelations, supernatural knowledge.

And so, the end of the time comes in verse 18; that’s the end of three years. “The king had commanded they should be brought in,” and “the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar.” I wonder if he was smug, you know? I wonder if… I’d like to know. Because remember, he had looked on them with favor, but he was frightened he was going to lose his head. And now I think he probably came in, leading them in: “Here are my boys. We’ve got the group. The program has worked exceptionally well. The reeducation has, I think, been very, very good. We’ve tested them in the literature of the Chaldeans, and they’re exceptional. They’ve really settled well in their new digs—not at first, but they’re fine. And they’ve responded well to their names. In the beginning, they didn’t always respond when I called them by their new name, but now they’re perfectly happy with it. And as you can see, I mean, in terms of their physical fitness, they’re a standout.” And they must all have got together and congratulated one another on how well everything was going: “Boy, this is an internship program of amazing capacity! We’ll be able to reproduce this again and again and again.” But what they didn’t know, and what man as man does not know, is that God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was in control—was in control of their relocation, oversaw their reeducation, granted them resolve and grace where they were prepared to take a stand. And in this and through this, he was working his purpose out.

You know, we always say, don’t we, that the Bible is a book about Jesus, and that every so often, as we turn up to the pages of the Bible, we find ourselves almost thrust forward by the wave underneath of us, pushing us forward to where we almost inevitably must end up. Because Daniel takes us to Jesus very quickly, doesn’t he? Daniel is taken away into the exiled situation of Babylon. The Lord Jesus leaves the glory of heaven and steps down into the ignominy of time and into our broken world. Daniel, in the face of great struggle and temptation, commits himself to the law of God. Jesus, in the face of temptation, even in the garden of Gethsemane, says, “I have come to do your will, O Lord. Not my will but your will be done.”[11] Daniel is exalted to a place of particular usefulness, and Jesus is exalted to the right hand of the Father on high, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

So you see, the real emphasis of this and of the passages that follow is not this—and I might even have preached these sermons in the past, God forgive me. But it’s not about your diet, and it’s not about, you know, “Daniel didn’t drink wine or big steaks, and you shouldn’t either,” or “Daniel was a really tough guy. Why can’t you be a tough guy like Daniel?”—you know, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. Daniel, if he came back, he’d go, “Why you talking about me? This whole thing is about God. The reason I wrote it down was so that you would realize, living with the pushback of secularism, that the God who sovereignly controlled the sixth-century Babylon BC is as much in control of twenty-first-century Western culture AD.” Daniel was enabled to trust him, and you may trust him too. “You need to know,” says Daniel, “that the Babylonian gods have not been successful. They haven’t been successful.”

You know, I was watching yesterday on the golf coverage—or the coverage of nothing. I’ll tell you, the inventiveness of the two guys sitting behind that desk… It’s whatever their names are; it doesn’t matter. But, I mean, it was a tour de force on their part. It started around seven o’clock in the morning, when I turned it on, and they were still sitting behind the desk hours and hours later, talking about nothing! They talked for the whole time about nothing, showed the same thing: “Look at that ball move! Whoa! Look at that! Yeah! Look over here. Yeah, it moved over there. Oh, it’s back over here! Look at that! Okay, well let’s go over to Phil. He’ll show us where it’s moving. Okay, it’s moving over…” I said, “What a job! You know, this is amazing!”

Well, how did I get there? Well, because I was thinking about how… I mean, I had some ideas for them, didn’t you? I mean, look, why did they not go out into the town of St Andrews and move amongst the people and get some good footage? I mean, all the stuff they could have done! Because they can’t get out of their own way. They think they’re really significant. And, well, I say it with the greatest respect. They think that every time we tune in, we want to see them still sitting behind the desk: “It moved over here, it’s…”

What’s up with the media? By and large, the media is completely opposed to the message of Christianity. There’s nothing new in that. Lord Reith, who founded the BBC… (This is how I got here. I’ll be back and finished in a second.) Lord Reith, who founded the BBC, was a tall man from the Highlands of Scotland. He would preside over the directors and the producers of the BBC in routine meetings. In the late ’60s, as secularism began to take its hold in the British Isles, some of the young producers and directors began to challenge the idea that the BBC would provide any kind of religious coverage at all. And their line of reasoning went like this: “The world is changing, our culture is changing, and we want simply to be representative of that changing culture. People have lost any interest in God, in the Bible, in the church, and in everything else, and frankly, it’s over, and we ought to just acknowledge that it’s over and stop [Songs of Praise], and stop the evening meditation, and all that kind of stuff.”

And apparently, Lord Reith was not charmed by that. And he stood up at the end of the table, addressing the young man who had made this speech, and he said to him, “Young man, the church will stand at the grave of the BBC.” “The church will stand at the grave of the BBC”—and at the grave of Fox, and at the grave of MSNBC, and at the grave of every proud monument raised in man’s defiant, rebellious heart. And you and I, as living in the peculiarly privileged minority status of life at this point in history, need to hear the words of Jesus ringing down through time as he gathers his disciples together and he says, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”[12]

The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.[13] Daniel was looking forward to a day that he did not see. We are looking back to a day we have not seen. And together, we look forward to a day to which Daniel draws us. In the meantime, with the exiles of sixth-century Babylon, to us, the exiles of twenty-first-century Western culture: be encouraged, be comforted. God actually reigns.

Father, thank you. Help us to navigate our way through these things. Help us, Lord, to know what it means to have all the tact and the courage and the grace and the insight of these men, in such a way that devalues ourselves and our own preoccupations and makes much of you. Let your kingdom come, let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.[14]

And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen. Amen.

[1] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.” Language modernized.

[2] 1 Peter 2:11 (ESV).

[3] See John 15:1–2.

[4] John 15:18–19 (ESV).

[5] Genesis 11:4 (paraphrased).

[6] Daniel 9:9 (paraphrased).

[7] Daniel 9:10 (paraphrased).

[8] Daniel 9:11 (paraphrased).

[9] Trevor McNaughton and Brent Dowe, “Rivers of Babylon” (1970). Lyrics lightly altered.

[10] Psalm 137:2, 4 (paraphrased).

[11] Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42; John 6:38 (paraphrased).

[12] Luke 12:32 (ESV).

[13] See Revelation 11:15.

[14] See Matthew 6:10.