Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 4 - God Protects

Our Lord, we thank you so much that we can be together, and, and on the Lord's Day, meeting with your people. In this country without fear of persecution from the government. from those that would not want us to meet, we know that we have brothers and sisters around the world that do not enjoy the same type of freedom that we enjoy here. We pray for our brothers and sisters in many different parts that have to meet in secret or underneath a threat of death or Other types of persecution.

We know that we have our own things that we deal with here. We just pray. for one another. And we ask Lord that you would just, help us to grow and learn from your word this morning that's been given to us by your Spirit.

And we just thank you for these examples that we have before us in the pages of Scripture in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right. So what would you guys do?

What are you guys gonna do the next time that you're being threatened to be burned alive? Pray. OK. It's not something that happens to us much in this culture.

but this, this is not just something that happened to Shadrack, Meshack, and Amenendigo. These types of threats happen today. We'll be talking a little bit later about, some folks that died in the Philippines. but let's go ahead and do a little bit of review.

Our lesson title is God Protects. We're gonna see God's protection, four of the captives in Babylon and Persia. So, by way of review, Our lesson today. You guys don't see anything back there, right?

OK, that's right. last week, does anybody recall? What we covered. What was the great promise that we covered?

Yeah, Joe. Yes, we have the new covenant. So the new covenant versus the old covenant. And does that mean that the Old Covenant was bad?

Justice. Excellent. This is a very good student right here. So, yes, so it was necessary during its time, but it had expired just like milk is really good until you start drinking it a couple, a week after the expiration date, right?

And yet, the law, we looked at several purposes for the law. The law still has a purpose for us today. It's just we're not supposed to be living under the law, because the law was, the Mosaic law was for the Jewish nation, it was their constitution as it were, and it was meant to tutor them, to bring them to Christ. We talked about seven different purposes of the law to reveal God's character, His glory.

it also provided the sacrificial system through which people could come by faith. And receive forgiveness of sin that pointed to Christ. But the book we've looked at the book of, actually, what was that book in the New Testament that talks about how much the new covenant is so much better than the old covenant. You may remember that book?

No, the New Testament. What's the New Testament? Yeah, Hebrews. So Hebrew, the big theme of Hebrews is, is the new covenant is so much better, right?

Jesus is better than the priesthood according to Aaron, we have the priesthood according to Melchizedek, we have the sacrifice in Christ versus the multitude of sacrifices in the Old Testament and so on. And, and so then we, so we're not meant to live underneath the law. The other thing we have to be careful of, we talked about this last week, is being careful about how we bring Old Testament theology into the New Testament, right? What's the rule of thumb if you have an Old Testament teaching.

That is abrogated in the New Testament. What do you do with the Old Testament teaching? Do you still live under it and try to obey it? Let me say that again.

Let me use different terms. If you have an Old Testament teaching, that in the New Testament says, don't do this anymore, do it a different way, what do you do with the Old Testament teaching? You don't do it, right? So like we talked about the Sabbath last week.

Sabbath was a big deal for Israel. You get to the New Testament, every day is the Sabbath, Hebrews 4, right? And we're told in specific places in Colossians, other places, not to let anybody judge us according to Sabbath, new moon, so on and so forth. We even see an early church history, just a martyr having a debate with Tripho, right?

And Tripho saying, hey, you Christians can't have it right cause you guys don't keep the Sabbath. That's in the 2nd century, right? but if you have an Old Testament teaching that Let's say like Jeremiah 31, that says, God's gonna bring a new covenant. The New Testament comes along and says, hey, this is still going.

In fact, it doesn't just apply to Judah and Israel, it applies to everybody. What do you do with that Old Testament teaching? You let it continue forward, right? And, so that's just a rule of thumb on how we treat our Old Testaments, New Testament use of the Old Testament, and so on.

Are we back up? Yeah, cool. OK, so let's, so today we're gonna talk about two really amazing acts of God's sovereignty while these individuals are in captivity. Now, if you guys remember, there were 3 different waves of captivity.

at least the Babylonian captivity. First, Nebuchadnezzar came down and attacked Jerusalem. That's where Daniel and Meshael and Hananiah and Azariah, their names, we know their names as what? Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo, they get taken into captivity.

Unfortunately, in all likelihood, they become eunuchs, right? We talked about that, and they're in the service of the king. So these guys have gone through a lot of tragedy, but then there's also the second wave of captivity, that involves an, Nebuchadnezzar coming and taking several of the items out of the temple. And then there's a third wave where the temple is completely destroyed, the walls are burned, and so on and so forth.

And so, we're in that period. And remember through Jeremiah, God had warned Israel that this is going to happen, but while you're there, I'm gonna bless you and just settle down. You're gonna be there for 7 years, have houses, plant vineyards. wait for the 70 years, and then I will bring you back into the land.

And so that was the basic command. So, let's go ahead and open up to Daniel 3, and we're gonna look at one of the, the narratives that has to do with God's people in this foreign land, just like there's a sense in which the New Testament speaks of us as living as strangers in a foreign land. these brothers were living in a foreign land, so we're just gonna read through starting at verse one. And makes several running comments.

Verse one, I'm reading from an ESB this morning. King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth was 6 cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. OK.

Kids, is, is that bear over there? Bear, what is a cubit? I just have cubit's a a weird word. What'd you say?

That's a really good answer. Yeah, it's a little bit bigger than 1 ft, about 1.5 probably. There's different qubits and different kingdoms, but, we're talking about approximately 90-foot image and approximately 9 ft wide. This golden image, it's set up in Babylon.

And based upon the dream that had just happened before, it could be that this image was Ali of Nebuchadnezzar himself, and he took the dream of God telling him, hey, you're the head, there's gonna be these other kingdoms, and he said, well, wow, I'm the head. Makes this big image of himself perhaps, or perhaps to the, the moon god Nabu. His name is Nebuchadnezzar Nabu. And so we don't really know for sure, but then in, in 2., the, it seems like these ancient peoples, Babylonian prisons, they're always running to one extreme or another.

These, these, these tales or these narratives, they read almost like Grimm's brother tales. it's like you're reading along and all of a sudden it's kinda like they will be thrown into the fire. They will be cut in pieces in their house. It's like, wow.

So verse two, then Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, prefects, governors, counselors, treasurers, the justices, magistrates, and all of the official province officials of the provinces to come to dedicate the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. So at the very least, 8 or perhaps 9 categories of officers within his kingdom were all invited to come to this big celebration. Then the satraps, verse 3, prefects, governors, counselors, treasurers, justices, magistrates, all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

It keeps telling us Nebuchadnezzar had set this thing up.

There seems to be a little bit of some irony that this big image that's going to be worshiped was set up. Set up, set up by Nebuchadnezzar. And the herald proclaimed verse 4, aloud, you are commanded, all peoples, nations and languages that when you hear the sound of the hornpipe, lyre, trigon harp, bagpipe, and every music that you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. They're set up again.

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. Just something that then The Babylonians like to do. If people weren't obeying, throw them into the furnace, and we'll see a little bit later the Persians throw them into the lion's den. You may not know this unless maybe you check your Bible notes, but verse 5, there's this mention of hornpipe, lyre.

These are actually Greek terms for instruments and some people have raised questions. How do you have these Greek terms jumping into Babylonian literature or literature about Babylon, and some people have tried to late date these, this text, to during the time of Alexander the Great. But we've archaeology has actually discovered that there were Greek instruments and Greek musicians up in Babylon, from Babylon's own documents that predate Nebuchadnezzar. It's just the Bible continually affirms itself.

We have to be very careful, by the way, I'm gonna say this for free. We have to be very careful about how much we bank on archaeology. some of the best archaeologists will, they, they tell us that really, like 0.1% of all of the possible ancient things have been uncovered and only 1/10 of those things have been cataloged and only 1/10 of those things have been studied. And so when we say archaeology just doesn't support this aspect of the Bible, what you're really saying is like 1/10 of 1/10 of 1/10 of information has not come to us.

And yet the Bible just, just over and over and over again affirms itself. So be very wary when you're watching the History Channel and they say, there's no place in archaeology that we've uncovered anything about this, this or that. The other thing that we, that people forget is that the Bible itself is an archaeological textbook. These documents come from ancient times and so if somebody says there's no evidence from archaeology, you say, well, what are these manuscripts but archaeology?

these are ancient manuscripts that give us evidence of these things. So all that's just a little side apologetic. So then in verse 7, therefore, as soon as all the people heard the sound, the hornpipe, lyre, trigon harp, bagpipe, in every music, all the people, nations and languages fell down to worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. The phrase had set up, it may be said a little bit different in your translations, that is there for a reason.

You don't say it had set up that many times. Without the author wanting to draw attention to the fact that this is just some golden idol that Nebuchadnezzar had to prop up himself. Kinda like Dagon back in, was that First Samuel, it kept falling down. They had to set him back up and it was falling down.

And so this is an image that's just been set up. So that sets up the problem, right? No pun intended. We've got a problem now, and everybody's being commanded to worship this thing.

And if you've been following in the book of Daniel up to this point, that something, what are the Jews gonna do? What are, what are these guys gonna do? Verse 8. Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews.

They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, O King, live forever. That was the, it seems like that's the way you addressed a Babylonian or Persian king at this time. You, O king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the hornpipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every music shall fall down and worship the golden image. Whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace.

There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. So if you guys recall a few weeks ago we talked in chapter one that the head eunuch was aware of their, of, of these Jews and their scruples and desire to follow the Lord, but there would be no indication that Nebuchadnezzar at this point would have known that they were following their Jewish regulations and worship and so on.

When they stood before Nebuchadnezzar, he found them very wise and brought them into his council. But there's no indication necessarily that he knew that they were gonna despise the worship of Babylonian gods. So verse 13, the Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage, commanded that Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo be brought. So they brought these men before the king.

And one of the things that gets raised here is, where's Daniel in all this? And we really don't know. It could be that Daniel was sent on a, a public relations mission. He could have been out of the area, out of the country.

It could be that the, those that had accused Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo knew that they couldn't touch Daniel, that he was too protected by the king, but they could go after these guys. And so Daniel just doesn't really show up in this particular narrative. Verse 14, Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, Is it true, oh Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I've set up? Now, if you are ready, When you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every music to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good.

That gets translated a couple of different ways. It's difficult. The language there is, is challenging, the Aramaic. but if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning, fiery furnace.

And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands? Whenever you see a king saying stuff like that, that something's about ready to happen. Remember Sennacherib when he's like, who is the God who's gonna deliver you, Hezekiah, out of my hands? And what happens to Sennacherib?

All of a sudden he's finding Thousands of dead soldiers lying about. and so that this is just a setup for God to come in. And do some pretty amazing things. So in verse 16, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo answered and said to the king, and actually let's, let's pause right there.

what would you do? here you are, you're standing before really, the most powerful ruler on the planet at the time, and they're telling you, you need to bow down before this image. Well, I'll tell you, that was, Christians in the early church handled this different ways. during the Roman Empire, a Christian, if they want to be able to buy or sell and stay in good standing with Caesar, they had to offer a pinch of incense as worship to Caesar.

and so, and then there were different times where, I, I don't know what you call them, basically police officers, that it's not really the right word, but they would go around and make sure that everybody had offered and you were given a certificate. Archaeology has discovered these certificates that you had to have signed that would say that you had offered a pinch of incense to Caesar. And so Christians would do a couple of things. Some would just say, no, I'm not gonna offer that pinch of incense.

I can only worship the Lord. I will not worship Caesar, and many of them paid dearly for it many times with their lives. Some people would forge these certificates and, and present them as we have done this, and, and hoping that they could save their lives, but, but not worship. others did offer the pinch under pressure, and, but tried to say, in my heart, I'm still worshiping the Lord, but I'll go ahead and offer the pinch just so that I and my family will not be killed.

And you can see the, the, the challenge. if it's just you, but you're looking down at your six year old and your seven-year-old, realizing if I don't do this, my whole family's gonna get wiped out. And this creates this problem. And it actually, that problem did not go away because after the Roman Empires were defeated, and Christianity became the state religion, so to speak, then there was the big problem.

What do we do with all these people who worshiped Caesar and left, left us and even left us to be persecuted. And so what would these guys do? So we see in verse 16, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace.

And he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. And this is, this is awesome. These guys are willing to stand up, and there's some really good Old Testament theology here is, we believe that the Lord can save us.

But we're not word faith, we're not following Creflo Dollar, right? If he decides not to save us and we do burn to death, we're OK with that too. And so there's some real good lessons in theology. we have the word faith movement that basically says that God's gonna heal all of your diseases and make you rich, and if he's not healing you and protecting you in every way, it's because you lack faith, right?

Big problem, that's just not what the Bible teaches. We have God who's going to do some amazing things here, but what about Stephen in Acts 7? Steven gets stoned, right? What about Isaiah later by tradition, he gets sawn in half.

there's all kinds of examples, both Old and New Testament, of believers who stood fast and paid the price with their life. Even Peter, who, how the, the Lord protected him with an angel early in life, but tradition says he was eventually crucified. most of the apostles eventually came to their deaths, death. Through some form of persecution.

And so they realized what could happen here, and yet they know the Lord is powerful to deliver them. They've seen the Lord fatten them up with vegetables in 10 days. They know that that was a miracle, right? This wasn't just a good healthy diet.

These guys gained weight, fat. On vegetables and grains in 10 days, and so they know God can do miraculous things. So verse 19, the Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury. And the expression of his face was changed against Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo.

He ordered the furnace heated 7 times more than it usually heated. So this can mean a couple of different things. ancient furnaces were, I'm not like an expert, but just from my reading, they were heated with, billows. And so theoretically, there would have been like 7 billows that go into this furnace.

And so maybe 1 billow had previously been pushed, however they do that, and then they decide to have all 7 of them go in. some commentators would say that, 7, this is more a metaphor, 7 being the perfect number. Heat it as hot as it can possibly go, it could go either way. so, and he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrack, Meshack, and Abend to go to cast them into the burning fiery furnace, and these men.

were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. So they're, they're decked out in their Babylonian garb, these are Babylonian officials, right? council people. And so they don't even get the privilege of being able to strip down so that their clothes don't catch on fire.

And the mighty men come over to throw them in. But verse 22, because the king's order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo. This may indicate that there was actually some explosion or some flare as they came to throw them in, it flared up and would have killed the mighty men, because we're gonna see in just a verse or two that Nebuchadnezzar gets close enough to try to talk to them. so something happened that killed the men that were trying to throw them in, and it should have killed Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo immediately.

But verse 23, and these three men, Shadrack, Meshach, and Amengo fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, Did we not cast 3 men bound into the fire? They answered and said to the king, True, O king, he answered and said, But I see 4 men unbound walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the appearance of the 4th is like a son of the gods.

Some translations say Son of God, some say son of the gods. This is a, a, it's a, an interpretive issue to figure out which way should you go because the word Elohim. is, is a Elohim in Hebrew, this is Aramaic, so it's like Hebrew, Aramaic to Hebrew. Elohim can mean gods or God.

Em is actually the plural form, but most of the places where it speaks of the Lord your God, says Elohim. And so it's normally interpreted or translated as singular, but since, since Nebuchadnezzar is a pagan ruler who believes in multiple gods, some translations say he would have been speaking of Son of the gods rather than Son of God. Whatever the case, he sees 1/4 member there. Yeah.

Say it again. Yeah, it could be. So Brian's asking if this is a Christophane, would this be a, a pre-incarnate view of Christ or some people call him Theophany? It could be.

There's, Nebuchadnezzar thinks it's an angel. We're never really told in the text, but whatever the Lord did either send Christ or perhaps an angel, there's clearly something miraculous going on here. And so in verse 26, we see then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door, probably not too near, of the burning fiery furnace. He declared, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo, servants of the Most High God, come out.

And come here. Then Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo came out from the fire. And the satraps, prefects and governors and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over their bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed.

No smell of fire had come upon them. And somehow, though, the binding, whatever was used to bind them is gone, because they're, they're not just, it doesn't seem like they're hopping out, they walk out. And so, so the miracle seems to be both that their, their, their bindings are gone, they're not singed at all, and then there's this fourth individual that's visible in the fire. So what is Nebuchadnezzar's response in verse 28?

He says, Blessed be the God of Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants. He trusted in him and set aside the king's command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own. OK, so this is, this is awesome. Nebuchadnezzar is, is recognizing the power of Yahweh.

so what's Nebuchadnezzar going to do as a result of seeing this clear, this clear miracle, before him? Well, he does what Babylonian kings like to do. He goes to the other extreme. Therefore, I make a decree, any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrack, Meshack, and Amendigo shall be torn limb from limb and their houses laid in ruins.

And for there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way. Then the king promoted Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo in the province of Babylon. It's pretty amazing move of God's sovereignty. there's, there, is there any indication here that suddenly now Nebuchadnezzar is going to worship Yahweh alone?

No, in fact, we're gonna see in the very next chapter, he gives his testimony that he was not worshiping God alone, he was still glorying in his own kingdom. but there is a recognition of at least the God of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo is able to do amazing things. I think what are some of the takeaways that we're meant to take away from this narrative is we have this image that Nebuchadnezzar set up. He kept setting it up, he set it up, and yet the God, he says, what God will deliver you from this fiery furnace, Yahweh comes along and delivers them.

And Nebuchadnezzar himself is saying, What God is this? Who, what God can possibly do these kinds of things? And so it's very interesting if, if you just remember, you think about what has led to this point. Why was Israel, taken captive to or why was Judah taken captive to Babylon in the first place?

Say it again. Idolatry Right? They had repeatedly gone back to worship false gods. And yet God says, I'm gonna bring you into captivity.

And, but I will bring you back. And so this becomes one of the narratives. one of the pieces of evidence that Judah is beginning to be purified and learn their lesson. Right?

We already see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo aren't gonna eat the foods of the king's table. Now we see they're not gonna bow down to false gods. That's why they were, that's why they were there in the first place. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo as representatives of Judah are not gonna bow down to the false god.

They're gonna, they'll go to, they'll go to the fire if need be. And so God is beginning to purify them. And get them ready for this return back to the land. It's interesting if you read, I've, I was just reading through Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah.

recently, and when they come back to the land, we'll probably hit this in the upcoming lessons, they don't just come back by themselves, but they come back with converts. There are people who are now following Yahweh that come back with them from Persia and no doubt, as Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo and Daniel and we think of Esther and everything that happened in, in that situation, people are beginning to see the works of Almighty God in their midst amongst this lowly people.

And, and so you have people from the foreign lands that are coming to know the Lord. And that just makes you even just trip out even more that God in His sovereign plan sends Israel or sends Judah up into Babylon, and people get saved, while Judah is being in captivity, and then they're brought back down to the land.

Just think of in your own life, as you think back upon the trials and challenges that the Lord has brought you through. That God was, has just done things time and time again that you didn't understand at the time, but it ended up being for His glory, right? my sister, Michelle and Melissa and I, we all of a sudden just got ripped out of our home environment, had to go live up in Bishop for about 6 months when I was in 4th grade. actually, it's 3rd grade, going into 4th grade.

It's very, it's like, kids are somewhat flexible, but, it's very upsetting to be just ripped from your home. All of a sudden, you're living with grandma and grandpa. But it was up in that environment that our aunt started bringing us to Good News Bible Clubs, and then we came back down to live with my non-Christian dad. He tried to get babysitters, but we drove them all off because we were like, not super, yeah, we were not very good kids.

And then all of a sudden, my dad meets this Christian lady, an older Christian lady that was a little strict, and he's like, please come work for me. And she's like, well, I'm getting offered more money over here. please come work for me, please. I need somebody to help me watch my kids while I'm at work.

Well, if you'll let me teach them the Bible, I'll come work for you, OK? Don't tell me anything about it, but you can talk to my kids. And so then she begins to give us the gospel. What's the Lord?

What's the Lord doing in all this? It's like the Lord just, he moves pieces around. And in his sovereignty and his wisdom and kindness. And, and even with persecution, we see God, here's three people that are really hitting persecution, right?

There's a definition of persecution, it's right here, being thrown into a furnace, and yet God turns it around. Let's, let's go over to Daniel 6. And we see, now Daniel's back in the scene. He has his own experience with persecution.

We've now moved into, we've moved past Belshazzar. Remember the writing on the wall and all that stuff, and Daniel's there to predict that. And now we've moved to, Daniel. Katie and I and Sam watched a movie, by the way, last night.

I don't know if you guys, do you guys ever watch any of those pure flick movies? We watched the one on Daniel. Oh my goodness. I was just sitting there.

Well, I, I cry anyway, but, it's just a great movie. Really, really, it, it's the whole book of Daniel in about 90 minutes and it's really well done. And, and so the whole scene of the writing of the wall and all that stuff, they did a great job then it moves into Daniel in the lions' den. So now, now we're with Daniel and so let's start in verse one.

We'll read through, make some comments here and then we're gonna make some applications. It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps. To be throughout the the whole kingdom. So, so now we're with Darius.

So we've moved past Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, his son, and, he gets real cocky and prideful, thinking that nobody can really defeat me. And then the Lord brings up really Darius and Cyrus. Darius becomes like the, the, the king of this area. And so he is the guy now.

Sap traps. I, when I was a kid, I used to think that was some weird trap or something, but these are actually governors or officials, so they've divided the, the land in 120 areas. But then there's 3, over the 120, and Daniel is one of those. so verse 2, over the, over them three high officials of whom Daniel was one, to whom the satraps should give an account.

So the king might suffer no loss. Then Daniel became, distinguished above all the high officials and satraps because of his excellent spirit that was in him, the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom, and then the high officials in satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault because he was faithful. No error or fault was found in him. Then these men said, we shall not find any ground for complaint against Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.

So they've got a, this is a, it's interesting. Persia is somewhat pluralistic at this point in history. They've been allowing Daniel to worship his God, and Daniel is serving underneath Darius, who is worshiping the Persian gods. And, and Persia is, just allowing different groups to worship as they wish.

And so these guys wanna set him up. They can't really find anything else wrong with him. So let's set him up when it comes to his God. Kinda reminds me a little bit of the Michael Pence rule.

Yeah, have you, have you guys heard of the Michael Pence rule? It used to be called the Billy Graham rule. Billy Graham would never meet with a woman alone, lest he'd be accused of impropriety and people would make fun of Billy Graham, right? And Michael Pence has this thing where he'll meet with women for politics or whatever, but he's not gonna just go to some restaurant with a gal that's not his wife, or he's not gonna be just off in some room somewhere by himself with another gal.

And, and so people, they don't find a whole lot to bag on Michael Pence about, but that's the thing they wanna go after him on is this guy is sexist, this guy, doesn't respect women. because he won't meet with a, a woman alone. So you gotta find something. then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, O King Darius, live forever.

All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects, the satraps, councilors, governors are agreed. That the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction that whoever makes petition to any god or man for 30 days except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, what they're saying isn't completely true because Daniel wouldn't have known about this, but they're making it sound like, hey, everybody's on the same page. We've taken a tally, everybody votes that we should just worship you for 30 days.

Probably, perhaps the motivation behind this is in this pluralistic society to try to bind everybody together. That's why the Caesars wanted everybody to worship the Caesar is, yeah, you're gonna worship all your other gods, but we want you to give allegiance to the highest god, Caesar, the highest lord, and that was meant to be a unifying, have a unifying effect on the empire. And so this perhaps would have been appealing to Darius to make sure that there's at least one rallying point.

Yeah, if you wanna worship Marduk or Baal or Nabu, that's great, but let's all rally around the emperor for the next 30 days.

And then perhaps that would, cause the, those that were not, the rats and the, the people who are not totally dedicated to Darius, it would cause them to rise to the surface. So verse 8, now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked. Therefore, King Darius signed the document and injunction. Now verse 10, when Daniel knew that the document had been signed, what did he do?

He said, oh, I'm gonna kinda just pray in my heart. I'm gonna go pray in my prayer closet. No, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chambers open towards Jerusalem. He got down on his knees 3 times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God.

As he had done previously, or his, as his custom was. So he decided, I'm not gonna change my customs at all. I'm gonna still pray towards Jerusalem with my windows open, so people can still see. Verse 11, then these men, they knew that he was gonna do this.

They came by agreement, found Daniel making petition and plea before his God, and they came near and said before the king concerning the injunction, O king, did you not sign an injunction that anyone who makes petition to any god or man within 30 days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked. Then they answered and said before the king, Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition 3 times a day.

Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel, and he labored till the sun went down to rescue him.

Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed. Then the king commanded, Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. This is really interesting from a political standpoint because there aren't too many ancient civilizations that would bind the king to law. and this may be one of the earliest examples.

Definitely we see it coming with the Greeks and the Romans, but, this is Persia. And so, Darius really sees himself as being bound to the law that he had enacted, unable to just change his mind, no doubt underneath some rebuke from the gods. so there had to be something that would keep him in check. There's the law, but probably some sense that if he broke the law that he would, come underneath some curse.

So then in, so in the middle of verse 16, the king declared to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continually deliver you. So the king was fully aware that Daniel was serving his God. He knew his character. He knew this was one of his right-hand man, right?

And And so he's, he's hoping that Daniel's God will deliver him. Then in verse 17, a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den and the king sealed it. With his own signet and with the signet of his lords that nothing might be changed concerning his own signet and the signet of his lords. I'm sorry, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.

Then the king went to the palace and spent the night fasting, no diversions. That word's difficult, we're not really sure what it means. We're brought to him and asleep fled him. So he's just up all night tossing and turning, wondering what is gonna happen to Daniel.

the signet ring is probably, the stone is probably sealed with wax to indicate that no sto that the stone had not been moved in the middle of the night. And we, we don't really know exactly what this den would have looked like, other than the fact that there's some stone that can be rolled in front of it. It seems like there's some sense in which you go down into the den. And so it's, we, we don't really know exactly, but there, there is some archaeological evidence of, of dens where beasts would be kept and you could throw your enemies in there.

Verse 19. Then at the break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions, and as he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out. In a tone of anguish, the king declared to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you serve continually been able to deliver you from the lions? And then if you watch the movies there's like silence for about 1520 seconds.

Turn away. Is Daniel gonna respond? Yeah, so then, then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth, and they have not harmed me because I was found blameless before him.

And also before you, O king, I have done no harm. Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den, so we're not really taken up out of, that might give us some indication of what this looks like. So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no harm was found on him because he had trusted in his God. This is, clearly there's a parallel.

We see that Shadrack and Meshach, not even the smell of smoke is on them. And there's not even like a scratch. It's not like Daniel was in the wrestling with the lion or anything and just outmaneuvered him. he's just not even touched.

Verse 24, by the way, how old is Daniel at this point, do we think? Yeah, he's around 80 years old, so it's not like he's some nimble, young Samson type guy that's in there taking care of the lion. No, he's, this is an old man. That's in there and he's just protected.

Verse 24 and the king commanded. And those men who had illicitly accused Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions, they and their children and their wives. And before they reached the bottom of the den, the lions overpowered them and broke their bones in pieces. So again, this is the Grimm's brother part of the tale.

This is just what the Persians do, right? There's just There's no like intermediate measures, it's, we're going to throw you in prison for 6 months. No, you are going in and your children and your wives. And The next time people would think twice about accusing Daniel of something.

verse 25, then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, languages that dwell on all the earth, Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in all my royal dominion, people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God. Enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed.

His dominion shall be to an, be to an end. He delivers and rescues. He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.

So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus, the Persian. That last phrase is not incidental, for it's Cyrus who commands the return back to Judah and the rebuilding of the temple. And so, I think what are we, what are we meant to walk away with? What's the original intent here?

is again see God's preservation of his people during this time of captivity. And that even the King of Persia is making pronouncements about God, Daniel's God. Do we know for sure that Darius rejected his polytheism and started worshiping Yahweh alone? We don't know that.

but we, what we do see is he sees that Yahweh is doing amazing things. No doubt he would have heard. Of Shadrach, Meshack, and Abendigo. He would probably also have heard of the testimony of Nebuchadnezzar and the things that had happened underneath Nebuchadnezzar.

And so the Lord is just setting up the stage of return for God's people. Again, that does not just involve Judah coming back to the land, but also converts from Persia, which is just amazing. and so we see the, just the amazing hand of God in these two stories amidst persecution in a foreign land. Let's talk and, last, few minutes here.

About just the whole concept of suffering. again, you think about Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo. In all likelihood, these guys were young or middle-aged teenagers. When they were ripped from their land and their homes, there's no indication that they had any other connection with their parents.

so we could think the worst, that perhaps their parents are dead. Then they're taking into the hall of eunuchs, and we've already talked about what that involved. And so there's no hope of them ever having their own families. and then they're put into the service of pagan kings and some of their workmates, I imagine, you go to your workplace, I know, a lot of us that work in the secular workplace, it, it can be, bummer and, and, and there's things that are happening out there that are difficult to handle.

But imagine your workmates being people that are calling upon demons and spiritists and mediums and, and, and the worship of these false gods. And you're working underneath the type of boss that at any second he could snap his fingers and your head is cut off, if you displease him in any way. just remem remember Nehemiah, he was afraid to come into the presence of the king, not happy. Why?

Because at that time, if you were not happy in the presence of the king, you could have your head cut off unless the king extended. Yeah, just like the cupbearers, yeah. Underneath, yeah, with Joseph and stuff. So, But so here's the, The situation where these guys are just, in, in really not very good situations, suffering in, in a lot of respects.

And yet they, they keep their integrity. They're, they're following God in a pagan land. Let me just tell you that when they're at work, they're not able to turn on the Christian radio station. I doubt that they're pulling their Gideon Bible out of the back pocket, trying to sneak some verses in.

They're just having to work in a completely pagan environment, merely with the word of God that they had put, put in their hearts and just trusting that the Lord was gonna protect them. calling upon God and, and depending upon him, and yet God was faithful. to help these individuals and, and we're gonna see in future weeks, not just them, but we see how the Lord preserved the Jews in the time of Mordecai and Esther. we see God with, I'm, I'm sorry, not, yeah, Esther.

And then we see, God just, just preserving his people as we head into Ezra and Nehemiah. Well, let's just, let's think of a couple of Bible verses and what, this isn't gonna be a real long, but just a, just a short survey of what the Bible says about persecution. remember Jesus told his disciples that the world is going to hate you. That's just what the world does.

One of the characteristics of the world, which means the system that is aligned against God, is they will hate you. If they hated Jesus, they will hate you. If they persecuted me, Jesus says, they will persecute you. And so it should not be surprising that we face that.

In fact, one of the promises in the Bible that you can hold on to and say, yes, this is the promise of God. verse 12, 2 Timothy 3, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Just write it down in your promises book, your little prom what, what is those little figures with the big eyes? For precious moments.

Yeah, I, I want a precious moments figuring that says, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Maybe it can be a precious moments, figuring of like Justin Martyr with like an ax through his head or something. Of all of us will suffer persecution. it's just a guarantee if you wanna be godly, there may may be different types of persecution, but it will happen.

And so how do we, how do we think about that? 2 Corinthians 4:7 and following says this. but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed, perplexed but not despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed., so Paul, just indicating that everywhere they go, that they are being persecuted.

First Peter says in verse 3 and, who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good, but even if you, should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. So how should we think about suffering? We should think of it as, it's a blessing, not a curse. A lot of times when bad things happen into our lives, we, we ask our first question we wanna ask is, what did I do wrong?

Why is this bad stuff happening to me? When in reality, it might be that God is wanting to bless you and one of the ways he blesses his children is with persecution. Why would that be? Let's think about Philippians 1:29.

For you, it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in his name, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here in me. So it's actually something that God sovereignly grants his children to suffer for his sake. Jesus Christ suffered, he was persecuted, he was hated. One of the ways that we are granted by God Almighty the opportunity to walk in Christ's footsteps, the little footsteps, pictures and stuff.

Let's imagine like bloody footsteps, yeah, OK, we get to walk in his bloody footsteps, is that we get to suffer and it's granted to us to suffer for his sake. And so the question can be asked, what does persecution look like in your life? And I, I think biblically, I think we have to come to the conclusion. That if you just, if you just, if you're just a Christian.

And you just try to live for Christ, you will suffer persecution. It's not always gonna look the same. It's not always going to result in martyrdom. But I, I just know, as soon as I became a Christian, I became a Christian at 14 years old.

All I did was show up at my school and stopped cussing and started telling people I had believed in Jesus. And within about 2 weeks, my whole set of friends changed. I had a bunch of people that just left me like the plague, and I started going to the church and suddenly I had a completely different set of friends. I didn't, I didn't like ditch my friends, my non-believing friends.

They all ditched me. And it wasn't because I was necessarily being, I don't know, maybe I was being a weirdo at times, but, but I just stopped doing things that were obviously pagan. And start trying to follow the Lord, and my complete set of friends changed., in, in college, it just seemed like every college course I took, Christianity was the problem for all of the world's ills. And if you raised your hand and ask the question, you are a marked man.

marked woman and. And so we will, we, I, I think our young people need to be encouraged that, hey, if you lose some friends because you won't go to that movie or you won't laugh at that joke, so be it. hey, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego got thrown into a fiery furnace. So if a couple of your friends were immature right now, who, by the way, might come to know the Lord 20 years from now and come back, as has happened to me and said, I remember you in high school, you were that crazy Christian guy.

I'm a believer now. But, and they said, when I became a believer, I suddenly thought of one person, Mike Berry. You were that guy that wore that Jesus pin on your shirt when you were like 16. Who does that?

only somebody filled with the Holy Spirit. If you are not currently experiencing any any persecution, why might that be the case? We do have to ask this question, if you get no persecution whatsoever, and the Bible says that we're promised to be persecuted, Look at this quote from Kirkegaard, Christianity has been made so completely devoid of character that there is really nothing to persecute. The chief trouble with Christians, therefore, is that no one wants to kill them anymore.

Why do you see this in our culture? Why is it that people just, they don't really, they're not all that bothered by Christians a whole lot anymore? I'll tell you why. Because when it comes to the culture, a lot of us as Christians, we just do exactly what the culture does.

We listen to the same music, we would dress exactly the same. We go to the same movies. We're, we're compromising when it comes to some of the cultural issues, whether it's gay and lesbianism or whatever else. We just try to mold and fit right into whatever the culture's saying, lest we be persecuted.

all you have to do is really be a little bit different, and people are gonna think you're right. I remember when I first became a public school teacher, I thought, wow, I'm done with, college and stuff like that. I'm gonna go be a public school teacher and be around all these adults that I can enjoy being around. And I remember going into the, the teacher's conference room for the first time and meeting with some of my colleagues, and I just couldn't believe how filthy they were.

not that I'm like, I, I don't want to give you guys the impression that I'm not like. Some saint, I never have troubles or whatever, but I was trying to honor the Lord with my speech and thoughts and, and so being sitting around with a bunch of teachers and having to not laugh at dirty jokes like every, like, 5, 10 minutes, I'm just kinda like, you're a marked man as soon as you're not laughing at their dirty jokes. And what's wrong with you? Well, I'm a Christian.

You wanna meet for Bible study? I don't know what else to say. So anyway, so we will, we are gonna get persecuted. what is the relationship between knowing God and his character and trusting him to face trials?

I think to me, and this is where we will end is if we really know Jesus, we, and we come to love Jesus, the bottom line is, when Christ, and how much he suffered on our behalf, and you really care about him and his glory, Then, when you hear his glory getting demised, right? You see people trying to put down the church or put down Christ, or they're out there speaking things that are just completely contrary to the Bible or in ignorance. There's just things that well up within a person, I think, where you just feel like, man, I gotta say something, or at the very least, I need to walk in a way that, that would demonstrate that I'm honoring.

This God, not the God of Nebuchadnezzar, right?

I'm ordering this God, not Baal, this God, not materialism, not your gods, I have a different God. And, and at the same time, God calls us, and we'll look at this more next week, to love our enemies and to love those who persecute us. So it's not just, hey, we've got people who persecute us, and the Nebuchadnezzar, pronounces some threat upon them or Darius throws them all in the lion's den. We're actually called to love our enemies.

And that's the opportunity that we have to do something that is completely countercultural, and that is to love the people that persecute us and let that be part of our gospel witness. I think of this gal who recently was given testimony against the Nassar guy that, that, molested all these gymnasts, and I forget the gal's name who stood up and gave her testimony. You remember her name? Did you guys see it?

The her testimony? Yeah. this, this guy had molested 260 US gymnasts for years and she was one of them, and this guy's going to prison for 260 years or something. And, and so several of these gals got up to speak at his arraignment and, and one of the things she did is, yes, you did these things to me and yes, you deserve judgment, but guess what?

God is a merciful God and if you truly repent, you can still be forgiven and I forgive you. What in the world, standing there before the whole world saying, I forgive the person that molested me. Brothers and sisters, that just doesn't happen in any other religion. that is, that is just a mark of God.

That is, that it really is as much of a miracle as being delivered out of the fire in the lion's den, for someone to stand before all those people and say, I forgive my molester, and they can be forgiven if they will trust in Christ. What God is this that could take somebody that wicked. And actually would save them if they would call upon him. Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll take questions if you guys have any, you can come on up.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word and just what a blessing it is. To read about Shadrack, Meshach, and Abendigo, Meshael, Hananiah, Azariah, Daniel. To see, Lord, how that in your sovereignty, you were just setting things up for a return back to the land that you may continue to get glory through these people whom you had chosen for your name's sake. And as your word tells us, these were not people that you had chosen because they were more mighty or better.

Lord, they were actually a stiff-neck people and let, and yet you had covenant to love them and keep them. And through your sovereignty, you sent them and cast them into a pagan land and then brought back converts for yourself. Lord, we are people that live very much as it were in a, as strangers in a foreign land that all around us, at work, at school, we live amongst people who don't know you, don't care about you, are finding their significance and many other false gods and deities.

And yet we have the opportunity to stand and to stand and suffer for your sake.

And to as it were, fill up your suffering. We get, this is something that's been granted to us. Let us not shirk from it. Lord, we just ask that you would help us to bear up underneath and to love our enemies.

And Lord, that you would get glory and honor that we'd be jealous for your honor. At the same time that we'd be hopeful that there are those that you want to save who are our persecutors. And so help us to love them, be ready to forgive them. And we know that you are ultimately in charge, and you will take us to that day of glory, hopefully with many, many people with us.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen.