Daniel 1:1-7 Introduction
Dannys Story
Well tonight we are going to begin looking at another Daniel
a young man who lived several thousand yrs
ago
Daniel is the last in the
books known as the Major Prophets and just before the Minor Prophets in the OT
A)
Daniel has two parts: The prophet and the prophecies, the man and his message.
B)
Chapters 1 through 6 deal with the man and 7 through 12 deals with his message:
1
through 6, the prophet,
7 through 12, the prophecies.
C) Although
there is overlap in all of the book those seem to be
the major thrusts
Two
Major themes
#1
Sovereignty of God God determines the course of nations and establishes Govts
Most
high God 13 times -
#2 How to live in
It tells me how to live for God in this evil
age and it tells me what it will be like when I live with God in that golden
age.
It
shows how a man who sees the future can live to the glory of God in the
present.
A)
Daniel teaches us how not just to survive but to thrive. Those are the two major themes
B)
Satan hates both of those things hates that we believe God reigns because
he wants to reign
C)
He hates that we want to live for God in the world
Daniel
is associated with some pretty great men. Major Prophets..Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel are the four known as the Major prophets,
A)
These four men stand out as great prophets of God.
B) Where does Daniel fit in
with the other Major Prophets?
Isaiah
ministered more than a hundred years before the Babylonian exile.
A)
He ministered to the same people, basically, but he ministered in
B) Then there was
Jeremiah.
Jeremiah came some time after Isaiah. Jeremiah
Prophesied during the last five kings of
C)
He was the prophet right at the end. And he saw the things that Isaiah
began to see coming to full fruition. Jeremiah saw the captivity as very
imminent.
Then
there was Ezekiel.
A)
Ezekiel prophesied to a group of exiles in
B)
Ezekiel's message tends to be hopeful and the closing part of his book presents
the glories of the kingdom to come, giving hope to that sad and exiled
people.
C)
So moving along a time line It's Isaiah a hundred years before the
captivity.
It's Jeremiah imminent at the
captivity.
It's Ezekiel during the captivity
ministering to a group of exiles captive in
And then there's Daniel.
Daniel ministered during the exile also but not from the vantage point of
moving among his people, but from the vantage point of being a Hebrew with a
prominent position in the midst of the world powers of
Today Gods man in the white
house
Daniel
was written in 6th Century BC and called the Back bone of Bible
Prophecy Sweeping Prophecies
A)
Over ½ the Prophecies of the book of Daniel have already been fulfilled -
B)
If you Follow current events world economics
C)
The World stage like never before is being set for the coming of the Antichrist
and Daniel is going to tell us about Him
D)
Interesting the book of Daniel is always under attack by the Critics
1) One
reason is His Prophecies are so exacting Frighteningly accurate to the
unbelieving mind They just cant believe that it was written in the 6th
Century
Daniel Prophesied with great
accuracy about the Medo Persian empire the Grecian
empire and the
Critics
claim it had to be written in 50-165 AD
Doctor
Crisswell in his commentary on Daniel says, "There is not a liberal theologian in the world, past
or present, who accepts the authenticity of the book of Daniel. They all
deny its integrity declaring the book to be a blatant, patent forgery.
They define its contents as pure unadulterated fiction," Crisswell
This
is known as modern rationalism.
A)
There is at the bottom of humanistic philosophy the idea that man's mind is ultimate and if I can't conceive of
it and if I can't understand it by my rational mind, then it can't be
true.
B)
Liberals want to deny Miracles and Prophecy
Daniels
authorship: For me the issue is over
A)Now for me that is It
I can stop there because If Jesus is wrong on the authorship of Daniel if he is
mistaken here He is not God He cant be the messiah cant be my savior
B)But
because he died on the cross and rose again after 3 days proving He was
exactly who He said He was if He says Daniel wrote it that is good enough for
me
But
for those who are a little more stubborn there is other evidence of the
authorship of Daniel
A) Daniel is
included in the Septuagint the Septuagint is the account of the OT
scriptures translated into Greek
B)
Happened 285 yrs before Christ that Greek was becoming the common language
72 Jewish scholars got together and translated the OT into Greek making up
the Septuagint The book of Daniel was a part of that
Josephus the Jewish historian so trusted that when archeologist are excavating
in the middle east they will readily read Josephus and find artifacts within
inches of where he said they would be buried
TRUSTED
HISTORIAN
Josephus
writes that the high Priest Jaduthan met Alexander the
Great when he got to the gate of
Alexander
was so moved by the accuracy of Daniel that Alexander ended up Sparing the city
Writing
style:
A) The
writing is very interesting beginning in Ch.2:4 Daniel writes in Aramaic
from
B)
Those are chapters dealing with the Gentile Kingdoms
C)
In Ch. 7 he starts writing to the Jews
D)
The chpts He writes in Aramaic are written in a
style that was very consistent with 6th century Aramaic Subject object verb
E)
Later in history about 250 BC when Aramaic became more popular as a language
the style was different Subject verb object was the style but Daniel writes in the style that was used more in the 6th
century BC
Daniels
name
A)
Another good proof of Daniels authorship Daniel mentions his own name over
80 times in the book
B) It is almost as if the
Lord anticipated the controversy so Daniel says over 80 times
C)
So those are some reasons Major one to me Jesus confirmed it good enough
for Jesus good enough for me
D) Jesus referred to the
book of Daniel many times...many times.
1)
In Matthew alone there must be four or five references to Daniel
Paul
and Peter on Daniel
A)
The Apostle Paul believed in Daniel.
In 1 Corinthians 6:2 he refers to Daniel.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:3 he refers to Daniel.
In 2 Timothy 4:17 he refers to Daniel.
B)
The author of Hebrews in Hebrews 11:33 refers to Daniel.
C)
And even Simon Peter, in 1 Peter 1:10 refers to Daniel.
D)
Example of where they use the name of Daniel or quote from his book.
READ V.1-2
Two
places are mentioned, Judah and Babylon.
A) You have Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of
B) Now what you have in
these two places, is an infinite contrast.
1)
Where did all false human religion begin?
C) Where, according to
1)
D) And where, may I ask, is
the seat of God's throne?
So at
the very beginning we see these two very opposing very opposite things.
A) One is Satan's place and
one is God's place.
B) One is the Promised Land
from where the blessing flows,
1)
The other is the cursed land from where flows all of evil spawned out of the
terrible evil of
C) One is the place of true
worship, the other the place where idolatry was born.
D) One is the house of God's
people; the other is the house of pagans.
1)
And so they are infinitely contrasted.
And
with the opening words mentioning how Gods pp were carried away captive it
would seem that the Bad guy is winning
A) But take note of Daniels
perspective The Lord gave Jehoiakim
B) Daniel watched the
invading Babylonian army and had the where with all and insight to realize
1) This was Gods hand God
was behind this
C) This was the fulfillment
of the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah
1)
Election
yrs: Will we see
grace or will we get what we deserve. Options arent two good either way
this time around.
How
ironic it is that when God needed to punish His people
A) He chose the most
despicable and despised place on all the face of the earth,
B) The place where evil
idolatry originated,
C)
You want idols I will send you to the land of idols you want other gods I
will send you to the place where Plethora of gods/
How
did Nebuchadnezzar and
A)
In 625BC the Assyrians were losing Power their empire was starting to
collapse their last great ruler died
B)
In 625 BC - when he died, the thing began to disintegrate.
C)
That is when a man by the name of Nabopolassar he
was the vice regent of
1)
The Assyrians controlled that whole region and the Assyrian King had placed Nabopolassar as the Vice regent over
D) When the King of
So
he gathered up his Babylonian forces and attacked the Assyrians hard. They took all of
B) And they chased all of
the Assyrians as far as they could chase them to completely destroy them.
1)
By 610 Nabopolassar had taken the whole region.
So in fifteen years he just took the whole thing over.
C)
Well this is how it ended. There was a remnant of Assyrians and they ran
for their life to make a last-ditch defense at a city called
And
at
A) They were going to make
what we would know as Custer's Last Stand.
B)
Down in the south was a group of Egyptians. They had a ruler by the name
of Pharaoh Necho.
C)
Now Pharaoh Necho looks up and he says, "Aha, the
Assyrians have had it and the Babylonians are going to be fighting the
Assyrians and if I'm smart I'll take my whole
army up there, we'll knock them all off after they've knocked off the
Assyrians and we'll rule the world..
Converging
of world empires
A)
Now that is the setting of
B)
He has had some success He starts thinking He is pretty hot stuff Sees the
Egyptian army passing near by on their way to Caremesh
Josiah decides he is going to attack
C) Pharaoh Necho gives him a stern warning Dont meddle where you dont
belong.
D) Josiah doesnt heed the
message and ends up getting slaughtered.
Within
3 months of that time His son Jehoiakim is reigning
in his place that is who we read of here.
A) In
the mean time Nabopolassar feels like he is getting
old time to turn things over to his son Nebuchadnezzar.
B)
Nebuchadnezzar. Leads the Babylonian army down to
C)
In fact, Alexander
the Great tromped right over
It
was the end of that great civilization.
A)
And they even chased the Egyptians all the way back to
B)
That is when they took the first group of captives which included Daniel, and
the captivity began. 605 BC in the 3rd year of Jehoiakim the king of
Conflict
on time line
Now
we know when it takes place. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, that's a very specific time reference and
immediately the critics pull up their red flag,
Aha, you see, Jeremiah said in the fourth year of
the reign of Jehoiakim, that proves the Bible
contradicts.
A)
The fact of the matter is this, Jeremiah used Hebrew dating, Daniel used
B)
The Babylonians never assumed that the first year of any king was to be
considered in his reign.
C)
It was isolated from every other year and according to Babylonian chronology,
that was his accession to the throne year and it was not counted among the
years of his reign.
D) Daniel writing from
1)
Not a Contradiction at all
3 Then the king
instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to
bring some of the children of Israel and some of the king's descendants and
some of the nobles, 4 young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking,
gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had
ability to serve in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the language
and literature of the Chaldeans.
Go
and get the cream of the Crop:
A)
No blemish physical deformity
Good
looking / Gifted in wisdom
B) The best and the brightest of
1)
Daniel was a part of that group.
Indoctrination
A) The plot was very simple.
They would brainwash them.
B)
They would manage to eliminate in their thinking, their homeland, their
heritage, their religion, their God, their loyalties, and everything they held
dear
C) Nebs plan was to take
the youth and rear them in the ways of Babylonian culture
1)
Indoctrinate them into their system of belief and let them influence the rest
of the Jews
2)
Influence of Govern their peers
From
one stand pt Great plan - Still
Satans plan today
A)
Satan knows that the real wealth of a nation is not its silver and its gold
the wealth is its youth you can get the silver and the gold and completely
miss the wealth
Karl Marx declared give me the poets and the
musicians and I will take the nation.
B)
Still Satans plan today He is after our youth
C) We see a reeducating taking place especially w/ Young
people { Re writing history books
D) Thru such ideas as SITUATIONAL ETHICS which basically says there are
no absolute answers in life everything is dictated by the situation
Dd) There is no ideal no
basis of right & wrong {everything is arbitrary & open to debate
1) Sexual preferences /
ethics morality is all a matter of opinion and debate
Not just in School but especially thru the media
A) You tube
and see Beautiful young pp engaging in kissing and sex -
B) They make
it look so natural normal and cool.
How old were
these young men?
A)
Daniel was probably about 14 yrs old
B)
Plato tells us that when a young man was 14 he was handed over to the Kings
instructors to be prepared to stand before the king in his court
C)
At 17 the training was completed 3 yrs
Dobson Child rearing experts Most important yrs formative yrs they have all
switched - now they say: Jr. High
Makes
sense because when our kids get to that age the culture is starting to throw
things at them that they might be able to handle
physically but not emotionally or spiritually
So
Daniel is taken along with 50-75 of other young men trained in
Imagine
the scene kids taken from their homes their parents they leave all that is
familiar to them
A)
At this time
B)
They are carted off 1500 miles thru the desert suddenly out of no where it
seems is this mighty city
C)
Jerusalem would have seemed like a truck stop in comparison to
The
city of
A) The walls that surrounded
the city were 340ft high like 33 story building - walls 80ft thick
B) Chariot races 6 across on
top of parts of the wall
C) Interesting thing about
Inside
the city were 200 open altars 153 different temples
1) One had an 8 mile
perimeter around the building another had a 3 mile perimeter -
C) City full of wealth glitz
but also gross paganism sexual immorality and idolatry
D) Imagine these young boys
coming to this great city like nothing they have ever seen before
1) Reminded family like the
B Hillbillies
ELEVATOR - Go get
Mamma
That
is what
A) How would your 14yr old
handle that
B) Forget the 14yr old how
would you handle that
This group of boys was
brought for the purpose of being indoctrinated into the culture
A)
C) He wants them to forget
about their God Our God wiped your God and invaded your temple.
READ V.5-7
Change
their names
Daniel = God
is judge Good thing to be reminded
of every time his name is called One day stand before a holy God
Hananiah = God is gracious
Mishael = Who is like the Lord
Azariah = The
Lord is our help
Great
message in those names
A) God is Judge but He is
also gracious who is really like Him perfect blending between Love and
Justice righteousness and grace Justice and Mercy
B) Although we fall short of
His standard of righteous In His grace and mercy He had a plan to Help
send His son
These
4 would become incredible leaders: But
A)
Daniel would become Belteshazzar = Baal protects
Daniel it is not Jehovah who Judges it is Baal
B)
Hannah becomes Shadrach illumined by Raw One of their deities Raw will illumine you
to what is really going on
C)
Michael becomes Meshach Who is like Aku
The
name Azariah was changed to Abed-Nego (meaning
Servant of Nego).
Take
away their identities: That is still the plan of Satan
A) He wants you to forget that
you are a person made in the image of God
B) As a believer You are
His workmanship
C) Many pp today on a quest
to find themselves worried about how the world views them -
1) That is the trap of the
Devil
D) Most important thing you
can discover is who you are in Christ
The
story is told of a wealthy Englishman who had a collection of rare violins.
There
was one instrument which was of such quality and such magnificence that the
eminent violinist, Fritz Kreisler, desired to have it from this wealthy
Englishman. OWNER REFUSED
One
day Fritz came by asked Can I at least play it
Granted
-
Amazing
Skill poured his soul into it
Englishman
was enchanted - afterwards Cant buy it
but you can have it ...I have no right to keep it...it ought to belong to one
who can make such beautiful music with it.
Listen,
God can make beautiful music with your life. You'll see how He did with Daniel,
but you've got to give Him your life.
Give
Him your life...and take a position of uncompromising character, to live on the
principles of the Word of God.
The plan is to indoctrinate
take away their identity
V.8
is a Beautiful Phrase But Daniel / But Daniel purposed in his heart
A) Purposed comes from the
Hebrew word that means to pull together pull something together
B) Other translations use
the word Resolve has the idea of making a mental determination and this
certainly involves that
1) But purposed carries the idea
of something more than that
C) Here is young man who is
ripped away from his family ripped away from his place of worship taken out
of his country and culture taken away from everything he knows to be true
D) Given different names /
given different value system told their God wasnt the true God
Put with the chief of the
Eunuchs
'And they shall take away some of your
sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs
in the palace of the king of
It says here they
were made a Eunuch two ideas the other
A) One is that they were
made servants Potiphar was a Eunuch
B)the other though is that
they were surgically emasculated the reason for this was so these men who
were rising in the Govt could get into the Harem
plot an over throw Surgically emasculated -
C) Taking away their manhood
Again
another objective today of Satans Emasculate men Metro sexual man is it a
girl is it a guy
A) Not leaders not
portrayed in an honorable light men are weak or Buffoons limp wristed
So everything is taken from
these boys their name their home their parents their manhood
A) But it is there that
Daniel takes a stand and says You have taken away my name / you have taken away
my parents / You have taken away my home /you have taken away my manhood /
B)
But you will not take away my relationship with my God
NOT Defiled!
The word for defile carries
the thought of polluting, staining.
1)
Maggots in Yugo
I felt defiled - / Felt the same way Movie { BEACH RECENTLY
Defiled Religious conviction
C) Why would Daniel and his
friends consider the kings food defiled?
1)
First, offered to idols - participating in their idolatry
D)
It not kosher. Special diet avoid certain foods like pork meat with blood
C) Daniel pulled together
the pieces of what He knew of His faith and clung to that
Are You allowing yourself to
be defiled ?
Here
is what we find is when Daniel does this Hannah Mishael
and Azariah follow Daniels lead
A) Listen sometimes it only
takes one person to stand up one person to say I am not doing that I am not
going there
B) I am not going to
compromise!
Daniel
purposed in His Heart Not going to do this
A) Here is what I hear a lot
of today I am going to try try to be better
B) I am going to not do it
as much
C) Need to take radical
measures
D) I am going to eliminate
this from my life I dont want to be defiled
I care
so much about my relationship with God that I am going to get Radical
A) Others around me might be
going with the Flow
B) Others around me might
be saying that is too fanatical
C) But I dont want to be
defiled anymore.
Is
there an area of your life that you can help where you are allowing
yourself to be defiled?
A) Purpose in your heart
tonight it is over it is done no more Jesus name / blood / Power
B) I am done - Watch how God blesses!
C) We will see next time how
Daniel and his friends were radically blessed because of their Stand
1) You will be too.
D)
Not without opposition Fiery Furnace
DL
Moody tells the Story of - a young man that came up with a little handful of
men to attack a king who had a great army of 3,000 men.
The
young man had only 500 and the king sent a messenger to the young man saying,
that he need not fear to surrender for he would treat him mercifully.
The
young man called up one of his soldiers and said, take this dagger and drive it
to your heart. And the soldier took the dagger and drove it to his heart.
And
calling up another, he said to him, leap off that cliff and the man leaped off the cliff.
The
young man then said to the messenger, now go back and tell your king I've got 500
more like these.
We
will die, but we will never surrender. And tell your king another thing, that I
will have him chained with my dog inside half an hour.
And when the king heard that, he didn't dare to meet them and his army fled before them like chaff before the wind and within 24 hours, he had the king chained with his dog."