Well, hello church. If you would open to the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter 1. We finished Galatians last week. And we will eventually get back to the Gospel of John. But we felt very led as elders to take some time to study the book of Daniel. That's partly also probably because of elections coming up, because of the cultural uproar, and a lot of people are wondering, are we living in the last times? Is the end near? What is going on? And the book of Daniel has a lot to say about all these things. It's 12 chapters and probably those 12 chapters are some of the most controversial in the Old Testament. Daniel's written as a chiasm, which means that the literary style that he's using to write this is telling the same story from multiple angles and then reoccurring themes we continue to see And so I say that before we start this because we won't go the typical way we go through a book of the Bible, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We will do that, but we will also jump around a little bit. Largely, we'll cover chapters one through six, which is more of a narrative. A lot of the familiar stories, Daniel and the lion's den, the fiery furnace, the food issue today. And then chapters 7-12, we'll get into the apocalyptic visions and the dreams and these end time prophecies. And I want to pray again before we start. Let's pray and ask the Lord for help. Father, as Brother Tim has prayed, Lord, we want to hear from You. We have a 2,625-year-old-to-the-month event recorded in chapter 1 of Daniel. And we believe this book is God-breathed and inspired. We believe that Your Holy Spirit, Lord, can change us in and through these words. And so we pray that we would understand them rightly, and that we would truly be transformed into the image of Your Son in and through this chapter. And we pray that in Jesus' name, Amen. Now one of the things that I think we need to remember as we study any book of the Bible, but Daniel especially, is that context, historical context, is very, very important. As Kent mentioned earlier, I think many Christians, and I'm going to I guess maybe speak more to those Christians who know their Bibles pretty well, Even among those who know their Bibles pretty well, I think many of us would say, I'm pretty familiar with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, you know, and it starts getting a little vague, and then maybe the wisdom literature and some familiar Bible stories. And then we are familiar with the end of the Bible, the New Testament. But I do think there in the middle, there is a lot of vagueness. It gets kind of blurry. And that's the part of the Bible that we're in, in studying Daniel. And so I do want to encourage you to grab one of those Bible reading plans back there. put out, that's not only just a reading plan through the book of Daniel, that's to give you the context, the historical context leading up to the book of Daniel, specifically about everything leading up to the Babylonian exile. So that may sound really boring. Imagine if I stood and gave history lectures up here every week. The goal is to read those passages so that when you come here, you have some understanding of what's going on leading up to this book, because it really will help us to have a much richer study of this if we can get the background. So when we say Babylonian exile, really brief, and I'll probably say more about this next week, we are talking about Israel, God's people, not living in the promised land or in Jerusalem because they've broken their covenant with God through sin and they've been exiled into the land of Babylon. And so that is what we mean by the Babylonian exile. And this is not just like a little sliver of an insignificant event in the Old Testament. You could argue that this is about one-fourth of the Old Testament is about the Babylonian exile. Things leading up to it, during it, coming out of it. So for example, so much of the Old Testament prophets, even going back to Moses, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, is about the Babylonian exile. First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles are warning of this exile coming if God's people don't repent. It's warnings about that. So much of Ezra, Nehemiah, and other of the minor prophets are talking about what happens when God's people come out of the Babylonian exile back to the land of promise. And then we have books like Jeremiah, portions of Isaiah, Lamentations, and Daniel that are talking about what God's people are doing when they are exiled in Babylon. Here's a side note about Daniel chapter 1. It's popular for all the wrong reasons. ABC News said this, found this article this week. The new Bible for dieting is, for many, the Bible is the Bible. The Daniel diet, inspired by the biblical prophet Daniel, has become a popular diet among the U.S. Protestant congregations to help encourage healthy eating. According to two passages in the Bible, Daniel fasted twice. During the first fast, he ate only vegetables and water to set himself apart for God. A second fast mentioned in the latter chapter, Daniel stopped eating meat and wine and other rich foods. And this article goes on, pastors across the country encouraging their congregations to participate in similar fasts or diets inspired by these passages to kickstart weight loss. and to strengthen their faith. I'm going to give some examples. In Hawaii, First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu holds an annual Daniel Fast for congregants to encourage healthy eating. Saddleback Church, a familiar church to many. It's about 20,000 people. They have a website and a book that was co-written by Rick Warren. that came on the heels of, I think in the article it says that they were doing some sort of big baptismal, and he baptized 800 people one day, or helped to do that, and he said, most of them, I realized, were overweight. And so he said, this isn't going to sound spiritual, but we're all fat. And he said, therefore we wrote the book The Daniel Fast, or The Daniel Plan. And again, this ABC News article goes on even further and talks about doing the Daniel diet with friends. You know, church people like to go out to eat after church, and they said rather than doing that, you should do a Daniel fast with your friends. And then it goes on even further and talks about Baptist women using food as a coping mechanism. Here's why I bring this up. This is how Daniel chapter 1 is often taught in churches. which is tragic, but extremely popular. Here's what I want to argue for today, because food is not the point of this passage. Food is not the point of the passage. I want to argue that the point of the passage is the need for God's people to take a moral stand against paganism. I believe that's what Daniel 1 is about. So let's get into this verse 1. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. This is 2,625 years ago to the day. It was in August that this happened. 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." Now Shinar, if you remember, is in Genesis chapter 11. That was Babel. Many historians will say this is where the roots of paganism started in Babel. where we get Babylon. So he brought them into the land of Shinar, Babylon, to the house of his God, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. Then the king commanded Ashaphas, his chief eunuch to bring some of the people of Israel, both the royal family and the nobility, youths without blemish and of good appearance, skillful in all wisdom, endowed with all knowledge, understanding, and learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and the language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned to them a daily portion of food the king ate, and of the wine that he drank, and they were to be educated for three years in the language and mythology and literature of paganism. At the end of that time, they were to stand before the king Alright, so what's going on here? The ESV Study Bible I think makes this clear. Nebuchadnezzar, let's quote the ESV Study Bible, Nebuchadnezzar sought to assimilate, important word, the exiles into Babylonian culture by obliterating their religious and cultural identity, creating dependence upon the royal court. For this reason, the exiles were given names linked to the Babylonian deities in place of Israelite names linked with their God. So this is significant. This is what's happening with the name thing here. So you've got Hebrew names like Daniel, which means God is my judge. Hananiah, Yahweh is gracious. Mishael, who is what God is. Azariah, Yahweh is a helper. Those are the Hebrew names. Those are the names that these four men had. But it says the chief of the eunuchs gave them other names to honor the Babylonian gods. So Daniel becomes Belshazzar, which means, O lady, wife, god of Bel, protect the king. Shadrach means, I am very fearful of God. Or command Oku, the moon god. Meshach means I am of little account, who is like Oku, an Abednego, servant of the Shining One Nebo. And Nebo was one of the Babylonian gods. So the king has brought the nobility as they have besieged Jerusalem. And now they're giving them names, they're giving them education, and they're trying to strengthen their kingdom. But they're doing that by assimilating them into Babylonian culture so that they will essentially become Babylonians. Ian Dungid, who wrote a commentary on Daniel, said this, The fundamental goal of the whole procedure was in one way or another to obliterate all memory of Israel and of Israel's God from the lips and minds of these young men. And to instill in them a sense of total dependence on Nebuchadnezzar for all the good things in life. Sounds like socialism and communism. Complete dependence on the government. This is what secular ideologies seek to do. To deceive us into forgetting who we are to depend on. George Schwab said this, the youths were expected to eat new foods, given new names, forced to learn the culture of the Babylonians. They were being systematically indoctrinated and distanced from their Israelite heritage. At the end of the process, the goal was that they would no longer be Jews, but Babylonians. They would have new identities. Now look, some of y'all, I have to say this type stuff in the day in which we live, because some of you are thinking, this sounds like you're getting into these type... I am not into conspiracy theories. Okay? I'm just not. I don't look... I'm not into code words to see how the government's coming against Christians and all... What is clear is that the world is always trying to fit us into its mold. Whether you lived in Babylon 2,600 years ago, whether you lived in early colonial America, or if you live in America in 2020, there is an agenda. There's an agenda. It wants to conform you into its image. It wants to steal your identity as a member of the kingdom of God and to convince you and to give your sole allegiance to the kingdom of this world. There is an agenda. And even though we're 2600 years removed, separated from an ancient Babylon, these are very similar cultures because they both have their roots in paganism. And they're working to do essentially two things. They want to conform you to their image, or break you trying. How is that happening in Daniel 1? Well, at four levels. Isolation. So they want to get them away from their families and their people. You know, ancient prisoners of war, POWs. You know, they would do this. They would steal people. Prisoners of war. Take them away from their family. Take them away from their communities of faith. Begin to indoctrinate them into the ideological beliefs and belief systems of that culture. Isolation was a huge part of that. Indoctrination. Identification. Give them new names. A new identity. And then fourthly, enculturation. At every level, they want to make them Babylonians. How they look, how they dress, how they talk, how they eat. It's all part of the agenda. And this is what pagan cultures do. This week I came across a very interesting article from the New York Times as I was studying this. And it's called, The Return of Paganism. Here's what it said. Here are some generally agreed upon facts about religious trends in the United States. Institutional Christianity has weakened drastically since the 1960s. We all know that. Lots of people who once would have been lukewarm Christmas and Easter churchgoers are now identifying as having, quote, no religion. Or being spiritual but not religious. We've heard that. That America is increasingly spiritual but less religious. He goes on, he says, traditional churches have been supplanted by self-help gurus and spiritual political entrepreneurs. These figures piece together the old orthodoxies, but take out the inconvenient bits and pitch them to mass audiences that want to take part in old-time religion, but don't want anything too challenging. The result is a nation where Protestant awakenings have given way to post-Protestant wokeness of Joel Osteen and Oprah Winfrey. America has become a place where, listen, the right is ruled by the prosperity gospel in Christian nationalism, and the left is ruled by a social gospel with no theological content. And listen to what he says, how he connects this with paganism. He says, the term paganism might be reasonably revived to describe the new American religion. And then he quotes Stephen D. Smith, who's a law professor at the University of San Diego, who says this, what we understand is that secularism, that's the word we hear, right, is an illusion. And that behind the scenes, what's actually happening is a modern cultural war and a return to paganism. And you say, what does he mean by paganism? Here's what he says, that God is fundamentally in the world rather than outside of it. That God or gods or being are ultimately part of nature, so in people, in trees, in animals, in stars, in the sun, rather than an external creator who made them. And he says, this paganism is not materialistic or atheistic, because it allows for a belief in the supernatural. It believes in spiritual things. But, he says, it has no category for objective moral standards. Then he says it's expressed in two ways. Now listen to this. This is where it parallels our passage in Daniel one. He gives. I'm still in this New York Times article. an intellectual level. So he points out people like Nietzsche. I don't know if that name is familiar to some, but it's a historical name that he accredits to the intellectual argumentation toward paganism. But then he says there's modern examples like men like Sam Harris, maybe Jordan Peterson may sound familiar. Most professors in secular universities fall into this category, especially in the humanities. A former Yale Law School dean in 2016 wrote a book, Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan. This is permeating the higher institutions. Now, he gives another level. He says there's also a political level in which paganism is making its way in. He says the civic paganism of old makes religious and political duties identical. It treats the city of man as the city of God. The place where we make heaven ourselves, instead of waiting for the next life or the apocalypse. Guys, there is nothing new under the sun. The Babylon of old is the America we live in. Fundamentally. At its root. At its core. In its essence. We're going to see this even clearer in Daniel 3. Because it's not just believe what we believe. You're not allowed to believe those things. But it's bow to our God. And the government will say, this is your religion. Right? No religious freedom. You believe what we believe. You worship what we worship. You're not allowed to worship who you want to worship. And then there's the pop cultural level. We know that music and arts and TV and movies and YouTube personalities are pushing an agenda into the culture vehemently. So, you know, we tend to think things like education, we're like, oh, that's pretty neutral. You know, a lot of movies and media stuff is kind of neutral. Politics, kind of neutral. I mean, any Christians who were saying that a year or two ago are going, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Not neutral. There's an agenda. There's an agenda. It's to conform you into its image. That's why Paul says to the church in Rome, in Romans 12, 2, do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. There's an attempt by any fallen world, any pagan culture, to conform us into their image. Me and Kent were talking right before this. He said, are you going to mention that Babylon is kind of a type of the world? That's probably significant to say. Babylon is not just a historical city in the Bible. We see Babylon show up again in Revelation as a type of the fallen world. It represents all fallen cultures and societies in the Bible. What we see in Babylon here is going to be true of all cultures and societies where Christ is not ruling and reigning. And then we see these four men, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refuse to compromise with paganism and to be conformed to Babylon. How? How do they refuse? Well, they take the names, but they don't take the names. They allow them to call them by different names, but they call themselves by their Hebrew names. So we see their Babylonian names introduced at the beginning of the chapter, but if you read on in chapter one, they're still using their Hebrew names for themselves. They keep that identity. They don't lose that. At another level, they're saying that they're resolved not to defile themselves by eating the king's food or drink. So we look at verse eight. But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine that he drank. So here's the question. How is he defiling himself with the king's food? I mean, that's really the big question of this passage. And there's a few popular answers. The first is that these men didn't want to defile themselves with the food because they thought it would break the kosher laws of Israel. You know, the Jewish food laws. We read about those in Leviticus or Deuteronomy. The problem with this view is the fact that they're also not drinking wine, because apparently the wine would defile them also. But the law says nothing about wine defiling us. In fact, the law encourages them to use wine on sacrifices to God. Jesus himself drank wine. So we know the Bible doesn't say that wine in and of itself is something that defiles us. Another popular view is that the meat and the wine would have been first offered to Babylonian deities, to gods. It would have been sacrificed to gods. This one is problematic because the vegetables would have also been. So that doesn't really seem to be exactly what's going on. A third view could be that it's both of those, that they're just trying to be careful. Maybe we don't want to break the law, eat something unclean. We also are scared that this may be sacrifice to an idol. That is possible, very possible. And then there's a fourth, more popular view that they're just trying to follow a vegetarian diet for health reasons. And let me just dismantle that one, just for the fun of it, because it's in the text. You know, to take this passage as a diet. Now, if you want to do a Daniel diet, go for it. It's not like that's wrong. But that's not what this is. Because they're not going, hey, chief of the eunuchs, for ten days, give us nothing but vegetables, and look how much more fit we'll be, and look how much weight we'll lose. That's not what they say. They say, check us out in ten days after eating nothing but vegetables, and it says they are fatter. They got fatter. They packed on the pounds after 10 days. It's not a good diet. It actually added weight to them. So it's odd that this is often used as a weight loss diet. Well, obviously, if you eat nothing but vegetables for a few days, for 10 days, you probably will lose weight. That is what would typically happen. But something different is happening here because they eat vegetables for 10 days and they gain weight. So what do we make of that? And it kind of gets at what I think this passage is about. I think one of the things that's going on here is they say, give us the weaker portion. Give us the lesser portion and we'll show that our God is more powerful than yours. We'll have improved health by the weaker portion because our God is better than the God of Babylon. I think that's at least one thing that's happening here. And I say that in part because Daniel in the lion's den and the fiery furnace that come up, that's exactly what they're doing. These are power plays to mock the gods of the Babylonians and to show that their god is superior. And we know. Some of you all know about ancient cultures. When you would win a war and you would go in and you would take all kinds of things, but you would go into their temple and you would steal their gods, lowercase g, and their temple items. And then you would throw those at the feet of your god that was superior to show our gods are superior to your gods. This is a big thing that happened in ancient cultures. And so, I think what's going on with these four young men is they're saying, we can't do anything about the fact that you won the war. Okay? You beat us. These guys are nobility. They're a wealthy nobility. These guys were in high school, likely, Jewish high school, when the war was lost and the captivity came. They're going, we can't do anything about the fact we lost this war. Good for you. You want to call us by other names? Fine, go for it. But we're putting our foot down on this issue. We will not eat the food that comes from the king's table. We won't do it. Why? They say because it will defile us. It's a moral stance. It's a moral stance. It's a small stand, but it's a moral stand. So, what is this story teaching us? I want to draw out some lessons from this. The first one is this. Small obedience is important. So, no doubt, this decision on food is nothing amazing they did. I mean, they just said we don't want to eat your food. But, it was a moral stand to resist complete assimilation. And if you aren't willing to obey God in little acts of obedience, what makes you think that you would put your head on the guillotine? What makes you think you're going to die for Christ if you're not even willing to obey Him on little things? Listen to what Sinclair Ferguson said. He said, small obedience in private must come first. If we fail there, any faithfulness we show in public will be hypocrisy. Small obedience matters, especially when nobody's watching. Number two, I think this shows us that we need to be careful Bible readers. You know, a lot of people speculate about why they're not eating this food. Is it the Jewish dietary laws? Is it that it was sacrificed to pagan idols? Is it a diet of some sort? And the truth is, it just doesn't say. It just doesn't tell us exactly why they didn't eat it. I think one characteristic of a careful Bible reader or a careful Bible teacher is that we allow ambiguity to exist in the text when it's there. So when the text doesn't say why they didn't eat it, we don't come up with our view and make it the view. It doesn't say why they didn't eat it. Here's what it does say. It would defile them. Daniel said, this will defile us if we eat it. That we know. What that tells us is the passage is about taking a moral stance and not being defiled by something that would defile us from the world. Another third lesson would be that to take a moral stand with a few faithful friends is better than to cave in to the majority siding with the culture. Always better. And guys, I don't know how long, I'm certainly not going to sit here and prophesy how long it will be until you have to be in their shoes, be at your job, and everybody else is signing the dotted line, and now it's your turn. And you know, signing this will not only compromise your conscience, it contradicts the Word of God. That could be very close. Your job's on the line. And it may feel like you're standing alone, but I can promise you there are others that will take that stand with you, that moral stand. And we need to be willing to when the time comes. Better to take a stand with a few other brothers and sisters and refuse to defile ourselves than to be tossed back and forth with the waves of popular culture Fourthly, in verse 8, the word resolve is very important for our generation. Very important. Because it shows us this is not a spur-of-the-moment decision for these guys. They're not like, well, that doesn't look good. This was a premeditated, calculated move based off of theological convictions. They knew their Bibles and they knew, for whatever reason, this King's food would defile them and dishonor their God. That came because they knew the Scriptures. Guys, it's not optional for us to know this book. We don't just read it for a nice little devotional to encourage ourselves. We also read it so that we can take a stand when we need to, for the sake of holiness. for the sake of allegiance to our God. Do you know what the Bible says on marriage? And sexuality? And gender roles? And homosexuality? And race? And parenting? And abortion? And on and on. Do you know what God says about that? Because we're going to hear what the culture has to say about it, but what does God say? If you don't know that, how are you going to stand? You're going right with everybody else. These men had studied this book well enough that they had something to stand on. Let me close. I'm quite sure that many, many of us could, if we were to go around the room, we could give what the biblical stance is on many moral issues. That would not be difficult. We could say this is right, this is wrong according to Scripture. I think we could state that. I think you could take a test and get a lot of those right. The Bible asks for more. The Bible doesn't say that if we just merely vote conservative, we've stood against paganism. It says a little more than that. The Bible says in Romans 12 too, do not be conformed to the world. but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. So the goal isn't just to be conservative and not whatever else there is. The goal isn't just to avoid paganism or secularism at the political level or with a Facebook post. The goal is through the renewal of your mind, not only not to be conformed to the world, but to be conformed to the image of Christ. Which is what we see in Daniel. and his friends who are not sitting there beating their chests, demanding their rights with rage and anger. They're not yelling in the streets saying, we're not going to compromise with paganism. Arrogantly. Look at verse 8 and verse 9. It says, he, Daniel, asked permission He asked permission. Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or 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. That's significant. That's very significant. Because there's a type of Christian conservatism that stands against paganism, but doesn't realize they're becoming pagan because they're standing against paganism in pagan ways. Like arrogantly. You know you can do the righteous thing and become unrighteous if you're filled with self-righteousness and pride? Your good becomes bad at that point. Guys, we're going to have to take in the days to come legal stances. We're going to have to speak up. Those are not easy to discern. There's no easy answers to all of that. Those become very difficult decisions to make many times. But in this passage and all over the Bible, it is clear there is a way to stand against paganism that displays a respect for those above us. There is an honor that can be shown while we stand against paganism to the institutions or employers that God put over us. There's a way to do that. We should aim for that. Titus 3 v. 1 says, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities. To be obedient. To be ready for every good work. To speak evil of no one. To avoid quarreling. To be gentle. To show perfect courtesy toward all people. To the left or to the right. Perfect courtesy toward all people. The character of Daniel. How could he be so humble? How could he do that? Well, verse 3 tells us, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. That's how come we can be gracious toward others. We're not better than them. but when the goodness and the lovingkindness of our God and our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior." That's what Daniel 1 is about. Not just standing against paganism, but standing against paganism with a type of character and respect that adorns the doctrine of Christ. That's what Daniel did. That's what God's calling us to do. And let's go to the Lord's church and pray that He would enable us. Lord, we thank You for this chapter of Scripture. It's strange how relevant it is. And we thank You, Lord, that You have preserved it. And Lord, now we pray that You would help us to be doers of Your Word. That we would speak with honor and respect and perfect courtesy toward all people as we take a stand on moral issues. Help us, Lord, for Your name's sake, so that we represent You well. And so that we represent Your church well. Lord, fill us with much mercy toward our culture. But God, put a resolve in us not to be conformed to the culture. And Lord, we know You can do these things. And we know You tell us to ask and that we will receive. And so we ask, Lord, that You would do this for this church and for all the churches that name the name of Your Son. And we pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.