Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 1 - Daniel Obeys God

Lord, we're just so grateful to be here together as the people of God, as the family of God, and We thank you that you've given us your word. To guide us and that you've given us this Holy Spirit to help us understand and apply your word. we just pray that this day of worship, Lord, that you'd be with us as we talk now and as our children study, as we sing to you later and hear your word preached from Pastor Milton. Lord, just, may you feed your people.

We are so needy. We thank you that you've ordained, this day for us to worship you. It, it meets our needs. We do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of your mouth.

We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. I don't know how many of you guys got my email yesterday, but I want you to imagine. That 4 of our church youth were captured, kidnapped, taken to Iraq.

And put into an intensive brainwashing training program to make them top tier propagandists for Islam, for Allah. And so they changed the name of Brandon to Mahaja. And Jesse's name gets changed to Ollie. And Donovan's name gets changed to Kaheel and Caleb's name gets changed to Ahmed.

And these guys are put into a 3 year training program to To go out and promote Allah. That's not too far removed, actually, it's pretty close to what Daniel and his compatriots went through in the chapter that we're gonna be studying today as we begin a new quarter dealing with God's Really restoration and protection, So, you've got Daniel and His friends, we call them Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo, but that's actually they changed names. That's their Babylonian names in honor to three different gods in Babylon.

Their, the names their mothers gave them.

are Azariah and Mel, and then you have Hananiah, and then, of course, Daniel. And so we're gonna be looking at these guys. And. And really, we're, we're gonna see some challenging things here.

these guys are, Taken into captivity, into exile. And then they have to make a decision on whether they're gonna remain pure and undefiled to the Lord, or they're gonna compromise, and are they gonna start worshiping the gods of Nebuchadnezzar. And then we see, we're gonna see how the Lord really protects and preserves them in the long run. but when you think about, just imagine that you're in these guys' shoes.

Nebuchadnezzar comes down in around 605 BC. This is the first wave. I think Dan talked about the three different waves of exile, and Jehoiakim is the Lord hands him into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. And so these young men, in all likelihood, their parents have been executed.

They've been taken from their homes, brought to a foreign land where they don't understand the language. Everybody's speaking Aramaic. Jews didn't know Aramaic at that point in history. And Not only that, but when we look at, we'll look at the text here in a second, they're put into underneath the rulership of the chief of eunuchs.

If the chief of Eunuchs is your head guy, what do you think you are? You're a eunuch. And so, we're talking about young men anywhere from the age of probably 13 to 1718 years old that have been taken from their land, brought to a completely different land, brought into the clan of eunuchs to be trained to serve. In Nebuchadnezzar's court.

These guys have been through some pretty tragic stuff. And you can imagine there'd be many reasons to just get bitter and angry at God. God, you took me away from my home. My parents are dead.

I will never marry. I will never have children. Here I am living in a foreign land. And how do we see these young men Respond and behave.

what, I think it is true that we can say of Daniel that God loved Daniel and had a wonderful plan for his life, but I don't know if Daniel really thought that that's what his life was gonna be, living in a foreign land as a eunuch in Nebuchadnezzar's court, and the nether ruler's courts all the way down to Cyrus. And yet the Lord uses him in amazing, amazing ways. So let's go ahead and open up to Daniel. And And let's begin to make some observations of this text.

And I want you just to imagine again yourself or your children. Being in this scenario. We're gonna basically make 3 points from this chapter. We're gonna look at the exile, it sets up the setting for the problem.

It's a sec in verses 9 to 16, the problem of defilement. And then. Their promotion and preservation in verses 17 and following, but let's pick it up in verse 1. The exile In the 3rd year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

So you guys know ancient besieges, these take These take a while, right? We're not sending rockets into places at Scud missiles. You can tell these, they would have known pretty far in advance that Nebuchadnezzar's coming and then he's building up his fortifications and all this stuff. But verse 2, and we're gonna see that the Lord, God is very active in this chapter.

The Lord gave Joakim. king of Judah into his hand with some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinnar, that's a synonym for Babylon. To the house of his God. And placed the vessels in the treasury of his God.

It's interesting, this is actually in fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah where Hezekiah had shown the vessels of the Lord to Babylonians. And God said, the time those vessels that you showed to the Babylonians, you were trying to make this treaty because you didn't trust in me, those vessel same vessels are going to be carried away into the temples of their gods. 100 years later, it happens. Nebuchadnezzar takes those vessels.

This isn't the full-on destruction of Jerusalem yet. But now they've subjugated Judah and they've killed or, made a puppet government and they've carried away a lot of the best young men and so on. Definitely, we don't like to talk about it, but definitely some of the young women were also carried away into harems and whatnot. And And so you just imagine these vessels, we're talking about like the menorah, we're talking about the plate for the show bread, probably maybe the altar, places where you'd burn the incense.

All these things have now gone away from being used for Yahweh into the worship of Bel. And Madrak and other Babylonian gods. Verse 3, then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch. Now some of you, it's not gonna say chief eunuch, it might say chief officer.

Raise your hand if your translation says officer or something like that. Raise your hand if it says eunuch. OK. So, the reason for the discrepancy is because the The Hebrew wordsaurus, its original meaning was eunuch.

And so normally, a eunuch was somebody who was emasculated in order to be in one of the government officials early on in ancient history to oversee the king's harem, right? Use your imagination, you can see why they would put a eunuch in charge of the harem. And but then over as time went on. Euchs began to also serve in other functions, and then the word got a little more generalized to just officer to where even like Potiphar, remember Potiphar, Joseph, and they have Potiphar and Potiphar's wife, he is called a saurus even though he was clearly married.

however, in this case, we're gonna, I, I think it's a pretty good guess that Daniel and his compatriots really were, are gonna be underneath a eunuch officer and they are gonna be eunuchs because one, the prophecy of Hezekiah, the prophecy was, is that, that they would be carried away into captivity and part of the punishment would be is your sons, the king's sons, in other words, his subjects would be made eunuchs. But also there's another prophecy in Isaiah that when they return back to the land, that though somebody is a eunuch, they will still have favor with the Lord and the Lord will grant them blessing though they cannot have children.

And so clearly there are people that are being brought back from the land who have been made eunuchs. They're like, Lord, what is, where's our inheritance?

And he says, I'm your inheritance. And and so because of those types of that language and these prophecies. It's a pretty good guess that Daniel and his compatriots were, were, were Eunuch officers. Yeah, Joe.

No, there's no evidence of that with Daniel or, of course, Shadrack, Meshek, and Abendigo, they fall off the pages as time goes on after the, the fire incident, the image and being thrown on the fire. But yeah, there's no indication anywhere that Daniel married or anything like that. There's no mention of his wife or stuff like that. So that's, that's what would lead people to say that this is the situation that they're in.

So anyway, back to, there in the middle of verse 3, the chief eunuch to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family or the royal seed and of the nobility, verse 4, use without blemish of good appearance, skillful and wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, competent to stand in the king's palace to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. So, Apenaz is supposed to go from the, the Jewish slaves to find some that are just really high quality.

They would have probably been, maybe they were being groomed to be officers or high standing individuals in the court of Jehoiakim. And so these would be go underneath the training program to be taught both the language and the literature of the Babylonians, we'd be talking about all the mythology and, and so on and so forth.

So clearly these are, these kids are no longer in their Jewish homeschool environment. They have now been shoved into the Babylonian school and for 3 years to learn all of these things that they were forbidden to really learn and think about as Jewish young people. Verse 5. so the king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate.

And the wine that he drank, they would be educated for 3 years and at the end of that time, they were to stand before the king. So among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Michael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. So we're not gonna go into all the, what all the names mean, but each one of those names is a Jewish name that is basically some praise or ascribing something to, to Yahweh, right? And, and they're from the tribe of Judah.

What's significant about the tribe of Judah? Well, that's where a lot of your kings are arising from, right? And so that's another reason why these, these, these individuals clearly came from the royal court or royal seed. And so they're dignitaries, they're of royal blood, and so, just another reason why Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians would not want these young men to propagate is they don't want Israel to have any hope or you to have any hope of some future king coming through these young men, right?

And So verse 7, and the chief eunuchs gave them names. He called Bel Daniel Belshazzar, Hananiah, Shadrack, Michael, he called Meshach, and Azariah, he called Abednego. So these are all, names that are given to To various, gods of The Babylonians, there's Bel, Nebo, and Marduk. One's like the moon god, I forget one of them, I think is a god of fertility, I forget what the other one is.

But these are just, it's basically your name is being changed to worship of another god. And so that's got to be. devastating. And, and at this point, these young men, they don't know any Aramaic, so they don't know what's going on.

they're just listening to all this babble, literally, and they don't know what, what's being said. But there must have been, probably Ash Pnez probably knew some Hebrew because he's able to evaluate these young men and they're able to have some dialogue right here very early on. In, in the exile. so we see in verse 8, so that's, 1 to 7 sets up the problem, sets up the exile, and, and I don't know about you, but there should be a sense, I think there's meant to be a sense of like, wow, this is tragic.

This is like one of the big, this is like the beginning of one of those Charles Bronson movies where some bad guy breaks into his house when he's not there and kills his wife and kids and then he shows up and he's like. I'm gonna get my revenge, of course, that's, this is what Daniel and those guys decide. so that's, that sets up the problem. And so then we get to You, even more of a problem and that, from 8 to To 16.

That's really, so what are, how are Daniel and his friends? How are they gonna react? Are they gonna fold in the culture and just start worshiping Marduke, Bel, and Nebo? Are they just gonna go with the plan just to keep, make sure that they stay alive and keep the peace?

Well, in verse 8, but Daniel, so he seems to be the lead spokesman here, 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 eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. In all likelihood, he's probably speaking in Hebrew. that it could be that they learned some Aramaic being part of the royal court.

We don't really know for sure. Probably speaking Hebrew. Just there. in Hebrew.

The general is talking in Hebrew. Yeah. Hebrew guys down, don't, don't, talk in Aramaic, we. Yeah, yeah, or yeah, talking to Mick because we don't want the people on the walls to understand, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Real good connection. So then in verse 9, and God gave Daniel favor.

So this is the 2nd time that God's entering into this narrative. 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. A lot going on here.

So, the Lord and His sovereignty clearly is entering in. He's, he's, who does this remind you of that Daniel is getting favor with his captor? Yeah, it reminds you of Joseph, right? And then Joseph's also one that prophesized about the, the cupbearer and the baker, right?

The cupbearer survives, the baker has his head cut off, and so that this eunuch, if he doesn't behave properly, the eunuch official, he could have his head cut off. And so he's listening to what his Jewish, boys are saying and, and they don't wanna defile themselves. Let's go back to that question. What do you think?

Why would Daniel be worried about eating the king's fare? Say it again. OK, so yeah, so that could be one thing is it's not kosher. We do have evidence, we do know that the Babylonians ate pork and lots of things that the Jews were forbidden from eating.

And so it is possible that it's because it's not a kosher meal, it would defile them ceremonally. The problem with that is that wine was perfectly permissible for a Jewish person. There's nothing un-kosher about wine. OK, so that, but, but that's a possibility that maybe there's some aspect of that, at least with the food.

Yeah, Joe? OK, where could it have come from? Right. Yeah, it's very, very likely that the king's meat was offered to a god, then set before the king and then brought to the eunuchs.

And so it could be that they're like, Wow, we don't want to defile ourselves with food that's been offered to an idol. Very possible. The problem with that view is that they're OK eating the vegetables and the grains, which would have also been offered to an idol. Everything they would have put in their mouths would have been offered to an idol.

Did you have something, Larry? Same, OK. So that's one possibility. A third view is that Daniel and his friends, they were just very concerned about healthy eating.

They want to eat health, healthy, be trim, slaves, and just wanted to eat well. that's a modern anachronism that just does not fit. There's nothing in the Levitical law that says, hey, Don't boil a goat in its mother's milk and eat it because that's unhealthy. Rather eat this way because that's healthy.

Yeah, grass-fed beef. All of the dietary regulations in the Book of Leviticus have to do with what allows us to approach God or not approach God, whether it makes us clean or unclean. I'm talking about Jews., which, what's tied in to what the peoples were doing in Canaan. God just wanted them to totally disassociate from anything the Canaanites, the Parasites, the Jebusites were doing so that there would be the least possible poss least possibility of, of Israel following them and conforming to them.

Even things like don't shave the sides of your beard. That seems weird to us. But no doubt the Canaanites were shaving the sides of their beards in order to worship their false gods that were also causing their children to pass under fire, temple prostitution, every, all of the gross things that come up in the book of Levicus where you're reading it and you're like, you wanna skip those phrases during Bible time because you don't want your children to think about some of those things.

Those are things that those people were doing in Canaan.

That's why they get mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And So anyway, so, so that's the whole purpose for the dietary regulations. It's not some health food diet. so, if you wanna read Rick Rick Warren's Daniel's diet, go ahead, just ignore the exegesis.

He co-writes it with a, a, dietitian. And so, I, I'm sure there's good information there about good eating, but, Just very poor ex-Jesus to say, hey, this is what Daniel was doing. so 1/4 possibility is that It's a combination view that basically says that Daniel and his buddies, they all decided, what, we don't want to defile ourselves with like the sumptuous luxurious nature of the king's table and get tempted into just rejecting. Yahweh.

And yeah, there's some defilement aspect, there's some pork and there's probably these things are being offered to, to false gods, even the vegetables, but we wanna, as much as we can separate ourselves from that so that we maintain our identity. By the way, it's Daniel that's writing this material and every time he refers to himself, he's referring to himself by his Jewish name. Not Bel Belshazzar. and so it seems, seems like that might be the way to go.

We don't know exactly. We just know that they decided we don't wanna eat the king's food. This makes, man, how do I say his name again? Ash Panaz.

That's a pretty cool name. Maybe I'll name if I ever have a, another kid, Ash Paez. that makes them nervous, right? And, and let's think about this, Daniel.

And his friends are saying, can we drink water? And then in most of the text, it says eat vegetables. The idea of vegetables is more like nuts, grains, and whatever leafy type of stuff was happened to be in Babylon, leeks or That all of that would have fit into this category of vegetables. Just not the fatty pork, meat and wine and what have you, had no in and out or anything like that.

So, Why do you think? Why would the chief eunuch be nervous about that diet for the people under his care? has Right. Yeah, he wants, his goal is to fatten up these slaves, right?

When they appear before the king, he wants them to look healthy and fat. If you, if you research the concept of fatness versus thinness in the ancient world, to be thin is not good. That means you're poor and you're sickly. But if your bubble's in the middle, you're on the level, right?

That's the basic idea. So you wanna fatten up your slaves so that they are looking nice and healthy. And so, by experience, he knows if I give these guys just nuts and grains and water, these guys are gonna lose weight and I'm gonna be in trouble. So what does Daniel say?

Let's go back. So we're at. Verse 12. So he's test your servants for 10 days.

let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink, and then let our parents and the parents of the youths be, 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 10 days. So this is the 10-day fattening up diet, right? So if we were gonna do a diet plan here, it wouldn't be to lose weight.

It'd be like, hey, Ashpenaz, we're going to put on weight in 10 days by eating grains and leeks and water, and we're gonna gain so much weight in 10 days, you're going to see our cheeks are fatter and our overall body mass, we're just gonna be fatter individuals. Now, do you think that is likely to happen just by pure biology within 10 days by eating grains, nuts, and drinking water? No, it's not very likely. Unless these guys are just completely stuffing themselves, but I don't know about you.

When I, sometimes I'll eat a little bit of oatmeal in the morning and by like 9 o'clock, I'm hungry again. And so, so verse 15, at the end of the 10 days, it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate at the king's, king's food. So you compare all these other guys that are eating pork chops and all this stuff and wine. And then you look at the Jewish guys, they're eating their nuts and grains and oats, and they're fatter after 10 days.

I don't know about you. That's miraculous. That's God entering in and saying, I'm gonna honor your decision to honor me, to want to to maintain your identity as Yahweh worshippers. I will bless you and I will restore, I will rescue you.

And so verse 16, so the steward took away the food and the wine, they were to drink and gave them vegetables. So he didn't look at the diet and say, wow, this is a better diet. I'm gonna give grains and nuts and oats to everybody. No, he recognized what was going on here.

There's something special going on with these Jewish young men. I'm gonna allow them to continue to eat the vegetables and water, but I'm still giving the pork and the wine to everybody else, right? And so even he seems to know. There's something miraculous, something unique going on with these young men.

And so then we, so that, that's the exile, that's the the, the test of defilement. What are they gonna do? The Lord enters in in a very special way, but then we see the Lord again in verse 17 to the end. Where we see this, promotion and preservation.

So let's look at verse 17. As for these four youth, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. This is a very interesting passage. Who's the actor here?

God. This is the 3rd time God enters into the narrative as the actor. 1st time, he gave Jehoiakim into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, right? 2nd time, he gives Daniel and his friends favor in the eyes of Ashkenaz and compassion.

No doubt Ashpen is looking at these poor young kids who have lost their parents and they've been made eunuchs, and he has compassion on them. The Lord gave that to them. And now here we have the Lord, basically giving them learning and skill in all literature. What literature?

What literature are they studying? Babylonian literature. So, even though they're studying the literature of the Babylonians, which is a lot of it's just about mythology and about these false gods and stuff like that. they're being forced to study this material, and yet God is giving them wisdom.

And knowledge and how to use it and how to cut, probably cutting through it, figuring out, every people is made the image of God, right? And so we would, if we really thinking through our sociology from a biblical perspective, the worst pagan nation is going to have some good things in it. You think about the Aztecs, they had some amazing, amazing organization to Mexico City, right? you go back and look, and it's incredible, some of the, the science that was, and yet they're tearing the hearts out of their children and offering them up to false, the sun god.

and so with every culture, you're going to see the image of God in some way and you're gonna see depravity in other ways. And so God is, these Jewish youth are studying the Babylonians and, and my guess is that he's helping them discern between the image of God's stuff. And the depravity stuff and, and, and Lord's given them the ability to not give in. To the depravity that they see on the pages of the Babylonian literature.

This is the same thing that so many of us have to do. When we are in school or going to college. When I think back upon my college days, I was a literature major in college. And my pro the program that we were put through was an anti-Christian, God demo demoting program.

So many of the people that we read, John Stuart Mill, Raise your hand if you've read John Stuart Mill. This guy's an atheist who hated God, and it was his writings that influenced Bertrand Russell away from God., the poet Shelley, people talk about the romantic. Shelley's such this wonderful poet. The guy was a rank atheist who hated God and was totally immoral.

you just look at some of the greatest, what's considered the greatest writers. Most of what I was told I had to read in college as a literature major were people who were polemically trying to oppose God. But as a literature major, I was also exposed to Anne Bradstreet for the first time, a Puritan poet. I was also exposed to Jonathan Edwards for the first time.

Amazing. and some of the early American writers, and so these guys are being exposed to things that no doubt were just, if they had a heart to, to move away from Yahweh, they could have easily moved away from Yahweh, but God was able to give them wisdom to discern. But not only that, notice the rest of that, that verse. So they were studying The literature.

And Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. And I'll tell you what, that must have been a comfort. These guys have been ripped away from their parents. They're not able to go to synagogue anymore.

Mom and dad aren't having Bible time when they rise, when they go to bed, they're just alone. And God in His mercy decides to give Daniel the prophetic gift and is giving him direct divine revelation. These guys didn't have a Gideon Bible in their back pocket when they got carried away into captivity. And yet God is giving them revelation of Himself.

And, and they're able to com to hear from the Lord directly while they've been carried away into captivity, while they're studying all this literature of the false gods and stuff. Yeah, Joe. Totally. Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah.

So, yeah, later we're gonna see some of the dreams that are laid out and he's able to give the interpretation and then Daniel's just, I think no doubt getting his own dreams and so on. We sat fleshed out in the rest of the chapter. So then verse 18, at the end of the time. When the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them into Nebuchadnezzar.

How long was the end of the time? So 3 years. So let's just say for argument's sake that these, Jewish young man becomes a man at 13 and let's say they all get carried away. Let's say they're around 15 years old when they start this program.

And so, theoretically, they'd be 18 years old now and, and they've been fattened up, by their grains and oats and stuff like that. So they come, they stand before Nebuchadnezzar, they've learned Aramaic now. verse 19, and the king spoke with them, and among all of them, none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mel, and Azariah. Therefore, they stood before the king.

The first stood before the king was their interview time. The second stood before the king as they're now part of the court. Just imagine what these guys have been through. They are now part of the court of the most powerful nation on the earth at this time.

They're in Nebuchadnezzar's court, giving him this pagan leader advice., I don't wanna, I, I know there's political spectrums all over the planet and stuff like that. But I just think of, from what I can discern, Mike Pence seems to be a pretty sincere guy who wants to honor the Lord. And here he is, he has the ear of the president of the United States. I don't know about you, but I'm, I'm pretty jazzed about that, that Mike Pence is able to speak into the ear of a guy that, it's a little, goes a few different directions, that are interesting.

And And here, Daniel and, and his compatriots, they're, they've got the ear of Nebuchadnezzar. And giving him advice. Verse 20, and in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in his kingdom. So not only are they there with Nebuchadnezzar, but the people they're working with, I, I wanna suggest to you this wasn't the most positive working environment.

When your compatriot, the people you're working with, your co-laborers are magicians and enchanters, that means these are guys that are probably speaking via demons. And, and, the ancient, when you read even about Balaam and some of these folks that were diviners, these are people that would fall on the floor. The eyes would roll in the back of their head, they'd be like start babbling something that was probably coming from a demon, and that's your buddy that you're working with.

That's who you're talking with around the water cooler, right?

And, and yet, Nebuchadnezzar is looking at these guys, they're 10 times better. Then Nebuchadnezzar wouldn't have said this, but these demon possessed guys. And they're giving just amazing counsel. Obviously from the Lord.

And then verse 21, we see like, this is the I don't know what you wanna call it, the grand finale. this is the big fireworks show at the end of the fireworks show, verse 21, and Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus. Now, for most of us, we don't really know what that means, but any ancient reader who would have been reading this, it's like he outlasted Nebuchadnezzar, he out outlasted Naboniti, he outlasted the other Belshazzar. And now he was actually giving advice to another kingdom, Cyrus.

We've now moved from Babylon to Persia, right? And Daniel's still there. and so in one chapter, we see these kids taken from their parents, and by the end of the chapter, Daniel's been the one consistency through this, these kingdoms. And I think we're meant to just be like, wow, praise the Lord.

That's just incredible. How is it That you have 4. Teenagers. That are Put in this environment.

I don't know about you, as a parent, I, you, you make these decisions to try to do the best you can to set your kids up. To honor the Lord and that they're gonna be accosted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. Yeah, but after everything you do, you're just dependent upon the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts, right? You just don't know.

You gotta, the Holy Spirit's gotta show up, convict them of sin, get them look to Christ. But here amidst a very dark period in Judah and Israel's history, God is preserving this remnant of young people totally outside of parental supervision, right? Nobody was telling them, put the game box away or put the PlayStation away. These guys just said, we're gonna honor the Lord.

And And the Lord's in the business of doing that. So I just wanna, as we move this into a little bit of application, just ask ourselves. how would we, how are we doing? we're not.

we're not, we haven't been taken captive and sent to Iraq. But we're living, as the scripture says, each one of us in this room, we're living as strangers and aliens in a foreign land that is hostile to the things of the Lord. we are not of this world. The flesh that we deal with is not on our side.

The devil is not on our side. The world, we see the term use of the world, the term world in the Bible, that just, you can just say culture, culture is not on our side. And so how is it that we survive? How is it that Daniel and his friends were able to survive?

I think one of the things, once you turn first, we'll look at two passages. Once you turn to Romans, or I'm sorry, John 11th. John 10 I think this is the first place that we need to start, and then we'll go over to the Romans passage, but We need to see this from God's perspective first. Even when, as Dan was talking about, I think last week, even when God had predicted that they would be taken into captivity, he was given instructions through Jeremiah on how they were gonna persevere through those 70 years and how they were gonna come back.

God had already set it up that he was gonna preserve a remnant. And he give them instructions to submit to their leadership, to not worship false idols, to not defile themselves, and they were promised that God would bring them back through the very difficult time. And we have a God who is is ready and willing to bring his people through the gates of hell shall not prevail. And how do we know that?

Well, part of the way that we know that is, is in John chapter 10. If you look at verse 27, Jesus speaking. Hear my sheep, hear my voice. I know them.

And they follow me. Daniel and his friends, they were his sheep. And even way off in Babylon with no scrolls of God's word. No connection with their parents.

God is visiting them. And they heard his voice. God is, is, is speaking. He'll speak to his kids.

Verse 28, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. Nobody can snatch God's true children out of his hand. Verse 29, my father has given them to me, so the Father has given them to Christ.

He's greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of my father's hands. We're in a double grip. We're in Christ's hand, and we're in the Father's hand, and we can't be snatched out of either, either of their hands. And by the way, verse 30, I and the Father are one.

We're unified in this. So nobody can snatch God's true children. So even though Daniel and Meshael and Hananiah and Azariah are all off in this pagan land, learning about pagan gods, hanging out with demon possessed people in Babylon's court, in, in Nebudnezzar's court, God says, they're mine. Nobody's going to be able to snatch them because I'm the one who has begun this work.

That's part of where it needs to start in our own hearts. is to be reminded of how secure we are in Christ and to, and to start with that. now, when it comes to when we're thinking of our children, we have to be careful about how we pronounce that because we want to make sure that they've genuinely been converted, right? They've generally called upon Christ and that's difficult to discern sometimes as a parent.

But for you who as adults, that you've called upon Christ, you've seen the work and the fruit of God in your life, you, you can claim that, you can look at that, these passages. But then secondly, in light of that, turn over to Romans 12. The Lord tells us how we can survive this. This life that we live in a foreign land.

In Romans 12:1, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God. To present your bodies as a living sacrifice wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. I appeal to you, therefore, what's the therefore, therefore? Yeah, it's referring back, most commentators would say to the previous 11 chapters of gospel.

All this stuff about how God has justified us by faith and if they're neither height nor depth or any other creature will be able to separate us from God. Therefore, I appeal to you by these mercies that we've been talking about. To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, these believers would have been aware of the Levitical system where giving our bodies rather than a lamb or a bull is a sacrifice wholly and acceptable. So we do wanna understand our holiness in Christ as we talked about Romans 6, but also the rest of Romans 6 talks about us not presenting our members as, as unto unrighteousness.

And this is your spiritual worship or some would say reasonable worship. This is our, it's logical based upon what the Lord has done for us, for us to seek to live wholly for Him. Verse 2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed how? By the renewing of your mind.

That you may test and discern what the will of the Lord is, and then it goes on through verse 5 to talk about how we're doing this within the body of Christ, that we're not just individuals doing this, but it's all happening within this body context. And so our minds are being transformed as we remember chapters 1 to 11. And we don't want to be conformed to the world, but be transformed as we're just being constantly reminded of all this gospel truth. That's where the power of God resides, right?

The power of God is in the truth of the gospel of what God has done for us and how that he has begun a good work and you will complete the day of Christ. And there is this connection between our justification and sanctification. He's made us holy in Christ and he is making us holy in Christ, in, in this life and And so, somehow through God's spirit and grace, Daniel and his friends, they caught that. Somehow their parents had taught them these things.

Probably his, their parents were teaching them just like Deuteronomy 6. They were waking up, they were going to bed, they had learned the word of God, they had learned that he has won. And then when tragedy struck, the Lord by His grace held them in his hands. And even though they were just surrounded by demonic activity and bad teaching, They persevered by God's grace.

I don't know about you, but that gives me hope. when I think of, my own kids, when I think of my own self, am I gonna last? Am I gonna make it? the Lord says to me, my sheep hear my voice.

And this is not some guarantee. That all of your kids necessarily are gonna follow Christ and know the Lord. that's a complicated subject. but as they have embraced Christ and believed in Him and come to a depth and understanding of their own sin and the need for Christ, I think we can go to them and remind them of these truths of who they are in the Lord.

And how that they're unpluckable, they're unsnatchable. anyway, I hope that's encouraging to you. Let me give you one little footnote here from this material, and that is, I think one of the sideline lessons that we can learn from Daniel one is that Christian people can be a great blessing to pagans. Daniel, as a Jewish believer, was a tremendous blessing.

In his pagan context. And so Christians, I don't think need to, we don't know, the Lord and the sovereignty puts us in situations sometimes that we wouldn't choose for ourselves. but we don't necessarily have to always see that as a bad thing. Man, I've got this boss at work that just will never let up.

He just hates the Lord and he's always on me. Well, why did the Lord put you there? How does the Lord want you to be a blessing to this person who may never know, come to know Christ? How can we just both share the gospel light but also share a sense of common grace with unbelievers in our lives?

Most of us are gonna work in our lives in environments where God is not being honored and lifted up. I remember when I, I went to, when I was in college, I did literature and then I decided, OK, well, I think I'm gonna study to be a teacher for a while before I go smuggle Bibles into Russia, which never happened. And And so, I'll tell you one of the most shocking things to me is when I started my first job as a teacher, walking into the teacher's lounge and realized that teachers cuss and tell nasty jokes.

And speak derogatory things about the children.

And I walk in, I'm just like, I thought I was in a teacher's lounge. I'm like, oh my goodness. I, I spent like the first year of my, probably a year and a half years as a teacher out with the kids on recess. I just avoided the teacher's lounge because it was just such a nasty environment, so I just go out and play basketball.

But then after a while, I was just like, man, maybe, what can I do? So I, I just started hanging around with our, with some of our teachers in our core and, and every time I sat down, it's like they're just telling nasty jokes, I'd have to sit there and not laugh and then everybody's like, what's wrong with this guy? And I just endured it. And over time, one of the teachers came to know the Lord and then we started a little Bible study.

And before you knew it, like just the environment, at least in my little circle of the world, started to change a little bit. And it took a long time and it was really tough. But it was like, and I, I, I felt like the Lord, even with the, a lot of our, pagan teachers, the Lord used me in some ways to just remember the guy that taught next door to me, he was the meanest teacher on campus. All of the kids couldn't stand him, so it was great for me because I could send my kids to his room if they got in trouble.

They'd be like, no, no, no, don't send me there. But then as I started getting to know this guy, I realized it wasn't just the kids that didn't like him. This guy didn't have any friends. Nobody liked him.

And then he just started inviting me to go, like he invited me to go to like the auto, what was the big LA auto show. And I just went to the auto show and I'll just be honest with you, I didn't want to go. There, there was, I, I would have much rather have gone fishing or lots of other things, but I went to the auto show and, and, and got to know this guy and we became really good friends. And and so the Lord can use you.

In your context to just be a great blessing. So don't, don't view, we don't want to always view our place in this world as we're just enduring all the pagans until we go to heaven and they go to hell. Well, obviously, we want to share the gospel. But also we can just, the Lord can use us to be, to do kind things for them, to be a good employee and bring profit to the business of your pagan employer, right?

to make some decisions that really help the business thrive and do well. that's That's great stuff right there for people, wow, Christians, all Christians aren't lazy, right? they actually work hard and, and, and they, and they try to do well for their business. Let's see, a couple of final things and we'll pray.

how can we better live as aliens? How can we resist the brainwashing pressure all around us? How, how do you guys answer that? In light of this morning or maybe just any other thoughts you might have.

Yeah I think we have to Yeah It's great. So Dan says we have to remember, we're here, who, who we belong to the Lord. We're here to be in the world but not of the world. Tell me your first name again.

Flagenncio, that's right. OK. Yeah, that's great. Being culture changers rather than just letting having culture change us.

That's excellent. You answered it Better as alien but Brainwashing pressure out us. This has been a. Hmm.

just Gals I know, and the big thing that we Saying over and over is don't listen to yourself. That's good. So it's like taking, the Bible gives us instructions. All around us We take those last Replace them with all of those.

That's good. Good. Mantra, ooh, I'm joking, yeah, that's good. Oh yeah, so yeah, totally mix it in there, yeah, a little syncretism.

Yeah, so don't, don't listen to yourself, talk to yourself. I love that. Yeah, Heather. Right, I think that's in 1 Corinthians, maybe.

Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I think, Milton, where, where is that where When you're, you're in a situation about me eating or this or that, and you're supposed to prefer the believer as opposed to try to make the unbeliever feel 1 Corinthians 8, I knew he would know because he preached through it. But yeah, that's, that's a fantastic, I was thinking that too that yeah, if we are in that situation, we should prefer the brother or sister and let the unbeliever be offended in that respect.

So I know like I, I used to do the opposite.

I would feel like I needed to placate my unbelieving friend and you're, oh, you got these scruples, forget you, we need to minister to the unbeliever. But it's actually the opposite. I think Jaime or, yeah. Yeah, it's just To answer the question, just Yeah, recently just been challenging.

As human as believers Oh. I think that's just me. Is that you too? Yeah, so we're fickle and forgetful.

We just need to be sad. There's other things That's awesome. Saturated, consumed with truth. Yeah, the Lord's been hitting me with that afresh, lately, just how much I really need, your man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

And I, I don't know, the Lord's been hitting me with a more, a deeper sense of like, reading the word of God is not just something I should do because it's, I need to check it off. I need it or I'm a danger to myself. I've been, I picked up, this is one of my favorite new toys is the ESB study Bible. It's really killer notes.

It's like the big one. It arrived. And that's the big boy. But it's a, it's got really cool notes in it.

But one of the things that my wife and I, we started doing, she did it last year. And I just thought, I don't think I have time for that, but she, she started this 90-day challenge. It's where you read through the Bible in 90 days, and actually, Soderman has a little 90-day Bible. And, but then I started looking through what the program is, it's like, if you do their, their Bible, it's 12 pages a day.

It's about 45 minutes of reading a day to read through the Bible in 90 days. I'm like 45 minutes, man, that's a Designated Survivor episode, right? I could, and so, I'll, and I'll wake up in the morning and. I kinda cheat a little bit because I, I'll listen to some of it, as long as I'm paying attention.

So, I'll put it, I'll hang this up in the shower where it doesn't get wet, and I'll start off that way. And then on the way to work, I'm already halfway done by the time I get to work, and then I'll read the rest. But man, it's been really encouraging and it hasn't, I don't feel like it's been overwhelming. For some reason, I just thought that's completely overwhelming.

I could never do that. But 12 pages a day, 45 minutes a day. Yeah, Zondervan has a little Bible. I bought a couple of used ones for like 8 bucks, cause I guess people got rid of theirs after their 90-day challenge, or they never got through it.

I don't know. But so anyway, Yeah, so I'm in, what is this? I don't know what even today is. I'm in Deuteronomy 28 right now and it hasn't even been hard.

I don't know why I thought it was so hard. Anyway, tell me your first name again. I, Daniel, that's right. Oh, cool.

Yeah. Yeah, so the first that came to my mind I right Yeah. Yes. Totally.

Totally. So that they may see your good works, glorify your Father in heaven, not just acts, but the fruit that's coming out. Yeah, that's, that's awesome. I could, yeah, I don't wanna.

I was gonna say something, but I'm gonna edit myself. So that's one of the fruits of the spirit. I've been editing myself a little better lately. So.

Yeah, one more, Joe. Uh-huh. Yeah Yeah, the satraps and stuff we're opposing him later. Yeah, totally.

So Joe's just pointing out that, God, he, he moved on the heart through, through Daniel and his friends on Nebuchadnezzar and, what's his name again? Ash Panaz. And Page I don't know. And, but at the same time, there's guys that were after Daniel, so we, there's gonna be different reactions.

Kinda wonder, you wonder what happened to Epinaz. Did he? you come to know the Lord or who knows. We'll see.

Let's go ahead, so. Oh yeah, that's right. He wrote the diet book right after. That's right.

The 10-day. Yeah, the Babylonian Actually, it would have been the Yeah. Yeah. The oats and vegetable, 10-day oats and vegetable fattening up diet.

Need to come up with a good title for that. Maybe I can write a book. Make some college tuition money. All right, let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for just the encouragement from this section of scripture and the other passages we've looked at. Help us. Lord, to live in, as foreigners in a way that we would honor and glorify you and at the same time seek the good and benefit of those that you've placed in our lives. we pray that we just gain encouragement and And for our hearts this morning, bless us as we sing to you and hear from your word as Pastor Milton preaches.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen.