Let's turn again in the Bible to the book of Daniel, chapter 1. Daniel, in the approximate middle of your Bible, is there on page 737. Daniel, chapter 1. Our plan is to go through the first seven chapters of Daniel, and then we'll go on to another book. So, Daniel, chapter 1, on page 737. Please read along with me as I read to you the Word of God. 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, youth without blemish, of good appearance, and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competence 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 Nazariah 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 are 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. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who ate 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 manner 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, and all literature and wisdom. And Daniel had understanding and 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. I did not plan to start the book of Daniel on the same day on which we would see people take their church membership vows. It's how it's worked out. But it is fitting, because if we consider the three younger people who were up here, they may well be about the same age that Daniel and his three friends were. After all, you can tell what Nebuchadnezzar wanted. He didn't want fully grown adults who were perhaps set in their ways. Nor did he want small children that they'd have to take care of. He wanted to take young people right on the edge of adulthood, who don't have to be babied, but who can still be molded. He wanted to take these young men of the nobility and the royalty, and he wanted to assimilate them to his purposes, to his empire, to his ideology. to his religion. He wanted to destroy the leadership of God's people and strengthen his own empire. And as the world still seeks to assimilate all of us, and especially the gifted and talented, this is a timely message. We begin with a crushing defeat. In that first paragraph, you are introduced to two kings and two gods. You start with Jehoiakim in his third year. That's 605 BC. As the Old Testament starts to deal with major empires, you start to be able to correlate different texts, different documents. You can start to date it very precisely. Jehoiakim's third year, 605 BC. And he meets a king stronger than him. Nebuchadnezzar besieges him. Nebuchadnezzar conquers him. Nebuchadnezzar won. Jehoiakim, zero. Now what about the God spoken of? If Nebuchadnezzar is stronger than Jehoiakim, is it not because Bel, that is Marduk, king of Babylon, is stronger than the Lord God of Israel? That would be the pagan assumption. If my nation beats your nation, it's because my God beat up your God. And here's the proof. We've looted your temple of its golden cups and taken them and put them into the temple of our God. See? Our God is greater than your God. However, there is something else that Nebuchadnezzar would not have known. And that is that the Lord God of Israel had been sending prophets for a couple centuries telling his people that if they did not repent of their sins, he was going to send them into exile. Some of them named the country. Babylon will take you into exile. You get that in Isaiah and Jeremiah. You get that in Amos and Habakkuk and Zephaniah. Prophet after prophet had been telling them, if you do not repent of your sins, you will go into exile in Babylon." And so what looked, on an earthly level, like Bell conquering God, was in fact, as it says here, the Lord gave Jehoiakim into Nebuchadnezzar's hands. But you had to have eyes to see, that is, a heart to believe the words of the prophets. And the words of the prophets, you might say, might be scarier than a pagan way of looking at it. After all, maybe if you just get back onto the right turf, your God will make a comeback. But if your own God is against you, what hope do you have? Well, the same prophets who had said, if you do not repent, God will send you into exile, had themselves also said, and after you go into exile, then the Lord will remember his covenant and bring you back again. This matches the Torah, which in Deuteronomy 30 says, you won't stop sinning, and God will send you into exile. But when you repent wherever it is, then the Lord will bring you back. And to sustain that hope, there are two little odd notes in this first paragraph. To sustain the hope. of those who listen to God's word. One funny detail is, why are we told that these vessels are taken to the land of Shinar? Shinar is an ancient place name. It's the geographical area that Babylon was in. Sure, but why not call it the country of Babylon? Well, you read the Bible. You discover that Shinar is the name of where the Tower of Babel was, where people first joined together to oppose God. And Shinar is one of the places where a king came from Shinar and captured Lot, Abraham's nephew. But what happened next to each of those stories? Abraham gathered up his men, pursued after those kings, defeated them, and set Lot free. As for the Tower of Babel, it did not reach to heaven. God came down and scattered them. The name of Shinar is there to say, in place of ancient menace, ancient evil, but nothing beyond the power of God. The other weird thing, I hope you felt it was weird as we read it, was when we're talking about people going in exile, why are you wasting time on vessels, on cups? Like, who cares? Aren't the people far more important than the vessels in the temple? Well, the vessels are in there for two reasons. One, they'll be back in the story. And when they come back into the story, the writing will be on the wall. Have you heard about the writing on the wall? It's from this book. And when the vessels are back in the story, that is when the first original time when the writing goes on the wall. The second reason that they're mentioned is this. Earlier in Israel's history, they had without authorization, on their own authority, taking their most precious thing, the Ark of the Covenant, into battle. And God had given them and their Ark into the hand of the enemy. And the Philistines had done what pagans do. They'd taken this Ark, and they took it into the house of their god. And they set it up before the statue of their god, Dagon. Dagon has beaten up your god. In the morning, Dagon's statue had fallen over. The Philistines put Dagon back up. The next morning, Dagon had fallen over, and his head and his hands had fallen off the statue. And the Lord continued to work on the Philistines until they sent the ark back out of exile. And so we have here a little note of hope. It doesn't look good when your temple of your god is raided, looted, and the vessels are put into the other god's temple. However, god's people have been here before. And God has vindicated himself. So we began with a crushing defeat. But with those with ears to hear, there is still hope. But you have to listen pretty closely. Having your capital city conquered is pretty loud, if you live in Essen. But things got worse before they got better. Nebuchadnezzar then set out to make the leading young men, the leading youths, of Judah into traitors. Notice, he takes not everybody, not even interested in the girls for this job. He wants the older boys, younger men, however you want to say it, from the royalty and the nobility, i.e., the guys who would grow up and want to fight for Judah's independence because they would run Judah. Those are the ones he takes away. And he takes them hundreds of miles away, separated from their families, who may or may not still be alive. They have to speak a new language. They have to learn a new writing script. And they are indoctrinated in the literature and the wisdom of Babylon. Notice the mention of enchanters and magicians towards the end. That's the kind of thing they're learning. They're not just learning the Babylonian version of the flood that exonerates people and blames the gods. No. Beyond that, they're learning this magician kind of stuff. And is this to make them bilingual? Is this so that they can code switch between Judah's ways? No. That's signaled by changing their names. And so Daniel, you notice that L ending? That's God in Hebrew. The names have that, Daniel, Samuel, Michael. So Daniel means, God is my judge. He says, no, no, no, no, Belteshazzar, may Bell protect his life. Hananiah, you see that I-H ending? That's Yah, as in Yahweh, the covenant name of God in Hebrew. Hananiah is Yahweh is gracious. No, no, no, no, no, Shadrach, the command of Aku, the moon god. Mishael, who is like God? No, no, no, no. Mishak, who is like Aku, the moon god? Azariah, Yahweh has helped. No, he hasn't. Abednego, you're the servant of Nego, another god. Notice the tremendous pressure that is being put on these 14-year-olds. They're from a small, defeated people. They're wrenched from their family and exiled. Their god's temple has been looted. Their god-honoring names are erased and given new pagan names. Do they have any hope? They could think of Joseph, who similarly was exiled and rose through a pagan palace. They could think of Moses. brought as a baby into a pagan palace, could have stayed there, identified with that, but identified with his people instead. But you know, those are the good examples. I give you bad examples from the Bible. A century before Babylon conquered Judah, Assyria had tried to conquer Judah. And as they're being besieged and they're facing starvation, the Assyrians sent someone who could speak Hebrew. And the king's officials, the king of Judah's officials, said, whoa, whoa, stop it with the Hebrew. Let's speak your language. This is diplomacy. And the rabshakeh, that's the guy's name, said, I'm not switching out of Hebrew. Aren't all those men going to have to starve with you? And then he calls out in Hebrew. If you don't want to starve, and he puts it very crudely and vividly, then come out to me." Now, who is this rabshakeh who can flip into Hebrew? It's probably a renegade Israelite who's doing very well by himself, working for the enemy. That's one negative example. And then there's another one. When the Israelites had conquered Jericho, they were told, you're not taking any of that loot, not this city. You're going to burn it all. But one man didn't do it. And why not? He said, I saw in the spoil a cloak of Shinar and a lot of gold. And I took it. You see, Shinar is not just a place of ancient menace and evil. It's also a place of ancient temptation. There was a bigger civilization in Israel, more ancient, larger, more wealthy. So it's a place of temptation. Now, there's something lurking just under the surface of the text, something like a shark. And it shows why, in some ways, Daniel and his three friends had it much worse than Joseph or Moses. It's something captured in a word that keeps popping up through the chapter. Did you notice that Nebuchadnezzar brought in the chief of the eunuchs to Jerusalem? Did you notice the chief of the eunuchs gave them new names? Did you notice that when Daniel wanted to change his diet, he had to appeal to the chief of the eunuchs? If you have to keep going to the chief of the eunuchs, then who are you? You're a eunuch. Now, what's a eunuch? I'm afraid I have to tell you, because I don't think you all know. Recently, my father had to straighten somebody out. Somebody said to him, the only difference between males and females is the outside plumbing. My father said, let me tell you about living on a farm. When I was five, I got to be on a farm. And it was awesome. Because I could pick up a stick and I could make a thousand pound cow go wherever I wanted it to go. Cows can crush little kids. Cows can crush adults. But they don't. You can smack them and go, I love this big cow. All right. Do you know what you can't do that to? A bull. What's a bull? It's just a boy cow. The difference isn't whether something's hanging down behind it. The difference isn't the horns exactly. The difference is that the bull is nasty. It's aggressive. And it'll stomp you. It's the male of the species. The same can be said of horses. Stallions are more difficult, generally, there's exceptions, than mares. Same can be said of chickens and roosters. And the same can be said of people. Who's in jail? Men. A few women, but men. Who gets in trouble in school? It's not sexism when the boys get in trouble. The boys are causing trouble. The males are the more aggressive, dangerous side of a lot of species. Is there any way to deal with this male aggression? Ritalin! Yes, Nebuchadnezzar didn't have it. Some ancient person did an experiment. What happens if you cut the testicles off a bull? Well, the bull will never make a cow pregnant again, so you'll never get another calf thanks to that bull. But it's easy to deal with. If you have two bulls, and one's a real pain, you might try it. The same is true of horses. And the same is true of men. A eunuch is a man who has had his testicles cut off. That is, he's been castrated. And the ancient emperors liked to do this so that they could have a palace full of servants who couldn't do anything with the women in the harem and were less aggressive and less likely to pick up a sword and go after the emperor. It was a way of getting more docile civil service. And once you are a eunuch, if you survive this unpleasant surgery without antibiotics or without anesthesia, if you survive, why not live for yourself? Your family line ends with you. Even if Nebuchadnezzar does not completely assimilate them, he knows one thing, there'll be no more nobility after these guys. It's the end of the line for them biologically. Yes, it never quite says it, which is why you haven't heard a preacher say it before. But look, he keeps reporting to the chief of the eunuchs. So that also was pressure on them. They did something done to their bodies that does, in fact, take the fight out of you. Which is why it's only four of them, perhaps, who still want to fight. Which is why it's amazing that it says, but Daniel resolved. There's a two-step turning of this grim tale. Two steps. Daniel resolves, and the Lord gives favor. Daniel resolved that, nonetheless, he would not simply be swallowed up by Babylonian waves. He would not simply assimilate and forget his God and his people. He resolved, well, what's he going to do? He's not going to be Ehud, an assassin. God had given Israel over to the hand of their enemies because of their sins. He's going to be there a while. And so his resistance can't be total. But he's resolved not to defile himself with the king's food and wine. That is, in Old Testament times, God's people were under the Mosaic covenants and were not to eat certain foods. We know this today as the kosher laws. And so he resolved not to eat the king's food. He's turning down the best. He's turning down the best which is being given to him to help bribe them, given to them to help symbolize for them. Yeah, we're treating you well for now, as long as you cooperate. But bear in mind, who's the hand that feeds you? It's the king. You're not supposed to bite the hand that feeds you. Now, why not the wine? There's nothing in the kosher laws I'm aware of, at least in the Torah, about wine. Why not drink the wine? What's wine for in Scripture? It's for joy and gladness. And at the same time that he's in the palace, there's other Israelites writing Psalm 137. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept. Our captors demanded a song of us. How will we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? This wine is for joy. This isn't joyful. Wine is also for forgetfulness. We're not going to forget. So he resolves not to defile himself with the king's food and wine. He, of course, has a problem. He can't run out to Wawa. Where else is he going to get any food? He's got one source. So he goes to the chief of the eunuchs, he goes to the principal, and he somewhat unguardedly asks for permission not to defile himself. Now that's a dangerous word. You're supposed to be a happy little captive. What do you mean, defile yourself with the king's food? That's why it says that the Lord gave him favour in the eyes of the chief of the eunuchs. You notice, first it says God gave him favour, and then the guy says no. Like, how is that favour? Well, it's favour because the guy didn't record him. And the guy gave him clues about what to do next. He said, I'm scared. The king assigned it. I don't want to change it. Can't have you looking bad. And Daniel has enough to go on. He says, fine. I'll go talk to the teacher. I've learned from the principal what the principal is worried about. Now I'm going to go talk to the teacher. Because I know now how to manoeuvre the teacher in such a way that the principal doesn't know. Principle doesn't want me looking unhealthy or rebellious. So I will make sure that we look good. I will propose a test to minimize risk, and I will count on God to make it work out. And if this steward is withholding the king's food and wine, what do you think the steward is going to do with it? He gets to eat it. So he goes behind the chief's back, And God blesses them. They get permission, they do the test, and nobody's the wiser. Because they still look good. They look like happy little cactus. Except that actually they are retaining their obedience to God. And at every meal they are reminding themselves that they are not simply going along. That they're obeying their God. And they're remembering where they came from. And that's a small thing. They're still conquered eunuchs in the civil service of Babylon. They're still captive students at the University of Babylon. But they're obeying God in this small thing, which is not a small thing. Look at the trouble they had to go to preserve it. They're obeying what God said through Moses, eat this and not that. And they're obeying what God said through Jeremiah. Go on, live in Babylon, pray for it. You'll be there for 70 years. And God blessed their studies. Their studies in pagan literature. Notice their nuanced engagement. They're not going to eat the king's food, but there's nothing forbidding reading pagan literature. You can read it all you want. Just don't believe it. So they read it. And they master it. And they do the best at it. And so you have this irony that the four who actually are resisting, are the four who do the best in their studies. And they advance then in the civil service. Here's the final twist. How long is Daniel there? Daniel's there a long time. Daniel's there until Babylon gets defeated. When it says Cyrus the king, you're supposed to know that Cyrus is not a Babylonian. Cyrus conquered the Babylonians. Cyrus is a Persian. And the Persians let the Israelites go home. Cyrus gives the order. You may go back to Jerusalem. You may rebuild your temple. With Cyrus, the exile is over. And so Daniel is there through Debuchadnezzar's life. You don't expect that. He's younger. But all the way through the Babylonian Empire, you don't expect that. He's there until conditions change, and the conquerors are conquered, and the exile's over. Now, the world still wants to make God's people into traitors. When I went to college, I was blessed to be able to go to a very high-end college, Swarthmore College. If you're not in the top 10 of your class, don't bother applying. That's who goes there. And in God's plan, we had a large, dynamic Christian fellowship group. And so having this large group, we We set out on a noisy, unavoidable evangelistic campaign for 10 and a half weeks. We called it 10 Myths About Christianity. We had what somebody else called the best placed boards in school history, covered with neon orange. We had the campus minister denounce us. We had the Presbyterian pastor, who was a religion professor, stand on a chair outside our boards and preach against us. What I want to focus on is that the Dean of Students came by, because people said, who are you guys? So we all signed it. Karen Jeffrey, 92. Because at Swarthmore, you always put your year of graduation on there. Karen Jeffrey, 92. Mike Hawkins, 93. John Edgar, 94. Tim Jenea, 94. So on and so forth. And the Dean of Students came, and he looked at the years. There were a lot more freshmen and sophomores signing it than juniors and seniors. He said, see, as they stay here, they take on the values of the community. Now, in the short run, he was wrong. We just had two bigger classes after a bunch of small classes. But in the long term, there's a lot of truth to what he said. You know, when I go to my regular Joe high school reunions, up or dark, working class, very diverse, when I go to those reunions, People want to come up to me and tell me, John, I've become a Christian. So when I've gone to my Swarthmore College reunions, the people who were Christian find out I'm a minister, and they just want to go talk to somebody else. Too many of those people have taken on the values of the community, which is to say, they've wandered from the Lord. As the world seeks to co-opt you, particularly if you might fit this description, if you are some special use to the world, if you might be useful leadership to the church, the world would be especially interested. Keep a close eye on your future career. And so you better resist, and you better know what God is and is not promising you here in this passage. God does not promise you that, like Daniel, you'll be the valedictorian. That's not a promise here in this passage. Daniel was. That's not a promise for us. The promise for us is that even in wrath, God remembers mercy for his people. I hope that none of you see a day as bleak as the day that Daniel and Hananiah saw. They could only survive by keeping God's promises in mind. But whatever you see, you will also need to keep God's promises in mind. And his eternal promise is that whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will be safe with God for eternity. And his temporal promise is that Jesus is building his church, and the gates of hell can't stop it. That Jesus will be with you always, even to the ends of the age. That if you abide in Jesus, you will bear much fruit, and he will be in you. Now, the Jews in Babylon began to have two constellations. One, the word of their god had proven true in the first half. They were in exile. So they should trust that the second half would happen. They would get out of exile. That's the main constellation. But they had a second constellation. And that is that steadily, they began to have a friend in high places, Daniel. Our consolation is a blending of those two. Because Jesus Christ also was tempted to choose power and ease over obedience to God's will. Jesus also never reproduced. Jesus also sits in the high place and never lives to intercede for us. Only his suffering was greater than Daniel's, because he died on the cross. And his power is greater than Daniel's, because he is at God's right hand. And he will last much longer than Daniel, because he's been at God's right hand until the day of Constantine, or the day of Charlemagne, or the day of Martin Luther, and on and on and on. Even a great sufferer, God is merciful and powerful to watch over his people. So look to Jesus. and belong to Him. Let's pray. Father, we thank You that even in Your wrath against sin, that still You remember mercy, and that You preserve Your people. And we thank You for our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we can stand before You, the one who ever intercedes for us, sitting in a high place. Help us, Lord, to remember your words, not to be assimilated by this world, but to remember who you are, and the much greater value, the much higher worth of your promises, as opposed to the kingdoms of the world. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.