Matthew 4:17-25... Fishers of men

Jesus says, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men". But wait a minute - fishermen catch fish! They try to trick them with maggots or fake flies. They hope the fish will bite, then they fight them onto land!  Or they scoop them up in a huge net. Out of water, the fish die. Then they are sold, cooked, eaten.   The fisherman gets paid, and the fish gets, well, dead.

In fact, in the Old Testament, fishing is used 4 or 5 times, as a metaphor -- for evil & judgment! Listen to this:  "I will send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will catch them. ...I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images (Jer 16.16); "I will put hooks in your jaws" God says to Egypt (Ezk 29.4); "The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks" (Amos 4.2);

“You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler.

“The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net,

“he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.” (Hab 1.14-17)  

So, does "Mission" do harm?  

IT CAN if we take this image the wrong way...
(a) fish have to be killed. If we think this is why Jesus used this imagery, then mission can turn into a processes by which people are destroyed, their uniqueness taken from them, they are expected to dress in a certain way, listen to a certain kind of music, and suppress parts of their personality to make them acceptable at polite Sunday services... For example, when we only have room for one type of person, we “kill cultures”. This is what happened when mission and colonialism meant the same thing. But shouldn't people be encouraged to flourish and grow into the unique people God has made them to be?
(b) The image can lead us to develop a type of mission that thinks “we just need to throw out some nets”, or “we trap people with bait.”In France, lots of people think “evangelism” is all about handing out tracts. But to hand out literature without talking to someone and finding out whether this particular tract, or any tract for that matter, is neither helpful or appropriate. We throw out our nets and think we're fishers of men. (c) It would be important for a fisherman to catch a certain amount so he knew he would have enough money. So the “fishing” image can also depersonalize those you were trying to reach, and encourage you to only concentrate on numbers. It can turn people into a means for a Missional end rather than as persons to relate to.Working with the homeless as I did for a few years, yes we want to help as many people of the streets,  but if we focused on the “many" and not the individuals we would not have given the help needed and people's recoveries would not have been sustainable. How much more so when we are inviting people into relationship with Jesus.
 
Why did Jesus use the “Fishermen” image?
So with all this potential misunderstanding, why does Jesus call Peter and Andrew to become “Fishers for people”?   Simply this:  because fishing was their job.  He did with them, exactly what he did with so many people – he built bridges with them by entering their world and speaking in a way they could understand and relate to.   Jesus uses "fishing" as a metaphor in conversation with fishermen -- so he is modelling "relational" & incarnational.  He might say to Ruth, “Follow me, and we will cook up a feast for people’s souls!”  Or to Sandra, or Alan "follow me and I'll make you  a musician for my glory" ... He did say to my Mum a few years ago in a prophetic word, that he was giving her some boots for climbing spiritual heights.  

And when Jesus called Peter and Andrew to become “Fishers for people” he was assuring them that he could use what they were, and their unique insights into the world. 

How would he call you like that, what image would he use?

So let's look a little closer at what being a fishermen meant to Peter and Andrew in their context... which will help us get to the real essence of what Jesus is saying to us...

What positive assets did the fishermen bring to the task of evangelism?

• Perseverance. There were times when they worked all night and caught nothing. They didn't give up. They couldn’t because fishing wasn't a spare-time hobby they could turn to when they felt like it. If they didn't fish, they didn't eat. So they kept going even when things were difficult. There's an idea going round, that we "shouldn't waste our time" on people who are not interested in Jesus. Now we need to respect people's space and not keep on about Jesus; we become boring and people will end up trying to avoid us! But we need to NOT drop people just because they don't respond quickly to Jesus.
• Courage. I respect the guys who go out to catch fish because it takes a lot of physical courage; they face danger & discomfort. Galilee is famous for its fierce and sudden storms , and could be just as dangerous as the open sea. If we are going "fishing" we need to go where the fish are: that may mean we spend time in places we don't find all that pleasant: city streets at 1a.mm. for Street Pastors, for example. Or a workplace where people regularly show open contempt for Christianity and Christians.
• Hard work. They were used to rowing, raising sail, pulling nets of fish, sorting out their catch, keeping nets, sails and the structure of their boat in good order. Mission is a call to hard work.

As I mentioned we could think that all we need to do is throw out a net and if we get any bites, we'll be good... but these were professional fisherman, and there was a little more to it than that. They would know the sea, which type of fish would be in the shallows and the deep at what time... and would use different nets and lines for different types of fish... the “Fishermen” image shows that we cannot simply approach people with a "one size fits all" mentality. Not everyone reacts the same way. People need different things and to know different things about God...

For example, our little church plant has around 10 people, two of whom are just exploring what it means to be a Christian... One of those is a Congolese Single mum with a young family and mobility issues, who needs to know Gods love and care in her situation. The other is a young French lady who loves talking about philosophy, who needs to know that you don't have to turn your mind off to believe in God. If we started talking to the Congolese lady about philosophy she would feel intimidated. In the same way if we went to the French lady's house to help her change lightbulbs, she would just be really confused.

As we mentioned, Jesus talks about fishing for men, with fishermen.  Fishing wasn't just something they did, it was their livelihood, it was their identity. For them this would mean a complete change of lifestyle, and of identity. As dad mentioned, being a fisherman was hard work, and they would know from this image that following Jesus would leave no room for complacency. They also would know from days and nights of fishing without any catches that, although they mustn't be complacent, they also cannot be self-reliant... you can do everything right and still not catch any fish. It is the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That should be comforting when we try and things don't go right, that ultimately it doesn't come down to us. We must be faithful fishermen, but it's God who brings in the fish.
 
So how do we bring all that together and take something home with us?

Jesus is announcing the kingdom! (v. 17) He lives the Kingdom as he heals the sick, drives out the demons and builds bridges between people and cultures. And he calls us, first of all, to follow him. Then, he makes us fishers for people.

Fishers for people is something we ARE not something we do. It's not something Jesus tells us to do. It's something Jesus promises to make us.

What he calls us to do is follow him.

• Follow Jesus into the Kingdom of God
• Follow Jesus  & experience an ongoing transformation.
• Follow Jesus you will be made to fish people into the total reality of God's kingdom. Not just into our church!

What we are can be part of that, when we answer the call of Jesus, simply to follow Him into his kingdom. And guess what, unless we are following him, we are never going to be fishers for people. The best we can hope for is to hook a few people into our organisation! I'd rather be bringing people into God's Kingdom!

© November 2016 Gilmour Lilly (Material in black type) and Peter Lilly (Material in blue type)

Daniel 11:

Wars, Casualties, and the Last Battle.

I want to tell you what we know of the story of an Olympic champion – a young woman called Berenice, (Bearer of victory) who won the equivalent of gold at the Olympic games in 256 BC. She was of royal descent, the daughter of Ptolemy II of Egypt. Four years later, she was taken to Egypt’s northern border with the Seleucid empire, destined to marry Antiochus II days later. She brought the possibility of peace between the two empires and a considerable dowry with her. Antiochus divorced his first wife to marry her. She had one son, but by 246, she and her son were dead, murdered by supporters of Antioch's first wife.

That’s the story that Daniel foretold in verse 6 of chapter 11. It's a story repeated over and over again: the story of people, individuals, who are treated as nothing more than pawns in the great games of politics and war. When Bashar Assad of Syria was recently asked

Aleppo - Public Domain image

whether he can sleep at night knowing about the suffering of children in Aleppo and other theatres of war in his own country, he laughed, assured the journalist that he sleeps just fine, and remarked “this is war, not charity”. When German storm troopers were hunting down the Jews of Warsaw, they found a wee Jewish girl named Zosia, who had bright, sparkling eyes: one of the soldiers remarked, her eyes were like diamonds and would make two lovely rings, one for him and one for his wife. In an orgy of unspeakable cruelty, her eyes were torn out; a few days later she was taken to a death camp.

Whether in wars, or acts of terror, or company takeovers, economic downturns or government cutbacks, all too often there are little people, women, children, people with disabilities or with few resources, who become the collateral damage. Berenice reminds us that in the midst of wars and political crises, there are real people getting hurt.

And Berenice reminds us that God knows about all the twists and turns of history. Remember she was a real person. Like the mighty king of v. 3 (Alexander the Great), the king of the south (Ptolemy's empire in Africa) and the King of the North (the Seleucid Empire based in Syria) the wars between these two powers (verses 11-20) and the contemptible person (Antiochus Epiphenes , v. 21) who desecrated the temple (v. 31) it was all written in the book of truth. It all happened. Even that fact that some of the Jews compromised with Antiochus, while others stood firm against him. (v. 32) God knows all of that in advance.

And God knows about our history. He knows about the millions slain in World War 1 (750,000 from the UK, 1.1m from France, 1.7m from Russia) He knows about the fact that there has not been a single decade of peace in the century since then. British troops have been deployed in conflicts ranging from Ireland, Palestine and the Middle East, Suez, Aden, Kenya, Eritrea, Korea, the Falklands, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. God knows about Hitler; about Saddam and Assad and Putin; he knows about Trump and the dangerous rise of right wing extremism that is happening in the Western world. He knows about the school kids abusing Hispanic students in Bend, Oregon yesterday and those in Detroit chanting “Build the wall!” The whole of history is God's book of truth. He knows. And as verse 1 – linking us with the previous chapter – reminds us, back of evil stuff is the evil one; behind our human struggles is a spiritual battle.

So why does he allow it? Why do things happen that treat little people as disposable? Why did he allow what happened to Zosia? Why does he allow millions to die in wars? Why does he allow a holocaust or ethnic cleansing or ISIS? But God answers with silence. Bishop James Jones asks “What sound would God make? And if he did cry out who would be able to stand the sound of his wailing.”

Ron Wallace says “History is foreknown but in such a way as to allow for human choices.” But why give us these choices, knowing what we would do with them? Ravi Zacharias, an Indian Christian whose ministry has been devoted to finding answers to some of these difficult questions says this: “The supreme ethic God has given to us is the ethic of love...which places value on the other person.. but you cannot have love without weaving into it the freedom of the will. If your are compelled like some machine to a certain decision, you can never love.” God's silence is the silence of one who created us for love, created us with free will, and who sees the world he made racked by a spiritual battle.

And there's something else... if Daniel was written by someone else after the Maccabean revolt, that someone didn't know his history that well. In verses 31ff we are told about things that didn't actually happen to Antiochus – or anyone else. Suddenly, the clear fulfilments run out. Whereas the chapter up to verse 35 is all about things that have actually happened, the rest of the chapter tells of things that we are still waiting for. So the “king” in verse 35 is a different person. Antiochus desecrated the temple, but he never turned against all the Gods of his own people. He didn't turn against the gods of his ancestors or the “one desired by women” (probably a god called Tammuz who was thought to die and rise again every year and for whom the women would “Mourn”.) There is no evidence that Antiochus came again to invade Judea, Egypt or North Africa. In other words, this bit is still to happen. The King that Daniel is talking about here, is the Antichrist or “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess 2. 3)

We can't really figure out what all the details of this section mean. Like the prophecies in the earlier verses, they would be recognised when they were fulfilled and not before. I believe it is the same here. We're not meant to figure it all out – and if we try we will probably get it wrong. But what we do know is that a figure will appear who will be the great final enemy of the people of God. And that he will come to his end, with no-one to help him. Defeated, gone, his supporters wiped out, no-one to help him.

1. There is warfare. All the rubbish that happens in our world, all the oppression, all the violence and terror, all the suffering that comes to individuals, is part of an ongoing, cosmic battle.
2. That battle will eventually reach a climax of godless evil, violence and greed. The world isn’t' going to start becoming a nicer place so that Jesus come and can set up his Kingdom. It's going to get worse, until Jesus comes back to set up his Kingdom. We need to be ready for that. Like the Jews in the time of Antiochus we have the choice between, selling out to the enemy or firmly resisting him (verse 32) the people who know their God will firmly resist him.
3. And in that warfare, the enemy will be defeated. His end will be brought about by the glorious return of the Son of God from heaven. When Jesus comes back and the enemy is defeated, all that is evil, all that is bad, all that is brutal, frightening, oppressive will be swept away for ever. There will be no more crying, because the old order will pass away. Jesus will make all things new. That's the triumph and the victory that we await.

And what happens to Berenice, or Zosia, or you or me, has as its context, not only the power of God, or our choices, or the spiritual battle. It also has as its context, the coming final triumph and victory of Jesus. In the 1300's lived a woman who wanted to devote her whole life to prayer, so had a tiny cell built for her in the wall of the Church of St Julian in Norwich; so she became known as Julian of Norwich. She lived and prayed through a time of upheaval, and is famous for her statement of faith, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

© G Lilly November 2016

Daniel 10 Warfare

Daniel is now an old man, in his 80's.  Cyrus has come to the throne of the Persian empire – and has allowed some of the exiles to go back to their own country.  Daniel isn’t among them: maybe too frail for the journey, maybe only younger people were sent, maybe he still had a job to do in the Persian court.  

The timing of this vision is around Passover.  And at Passover, Daniel is thinking about God's people, Israel. He thinks about the bitter herbs that were part of the traditional passover feast, and the bitter bondage in Egypt that they represented.  He may well be thinking about the bitter bondage for seventy years in Babylon.  He thinks about the passover lamb that was shared, and how God showed his power on the night of the first passover when the angel of death “passed over” every house that had the blood of a lamb painted on the door. He thinks about eating the passover with unleavened bread, dressed as though ready to go on a journey – because as soon as they had eaten, they left Egypt and God miraculously brought them through the Red Sea.  That was the defining story of his people, and now it was happening again, seventy years after the exile, just as Jeremiah had prophesied (see Daniel 9). 

But Daniel has this other number ringing in his ears: seventy weeks of years, 490 years, 483

Banvie Burn, Blair Atholl. Photo G Lilly

before the Anointed One would come, and then a final period of trial (chapter 9).    So this  old man sets himself on a three-week prayer retreat....  he wants to understand.  He wants to be right with his God. Whatever God is doing, Daniel wants to be walking humbly with his God.  So he goes to a location beside the Tigris, possibly with a few friends, and he fasts and prays, only eating the basics, no meat, no wine.

The whole process – fasting, praying, wrestling to understand, was in itself a battle.  NIV and other translations, quite wrongly, say in verse 1, “the message was true and concerned a great war.”  The Hebrew literally means “the word as true and the warfare great”; that refers to the whole process of receiving the message.  It was difficult to find.  It was contested both on earth and in heaven.  When it came it was difficult to grasp.  

And it is in his old age, as the climax of his ministry, that he sees this most powerful vision.... 

I want to encourage all of us – myself included now I have my bus pass – not to give up expecting great things from God, or attempting great things for God.   Jesus tells two parables about people who make an amazing find: one is the farmer whose story begins when he finds treasure hidden in the ground – and goes and sells all he has to buy that piece of land.  The other is the pearl dealer who keeps on searching until in the end he finds the pearl of great price, then he goes and sells all and buys it. Some of us stumble over God's goodness.  Some of use spend years searching.  (Matthew 13. 44-46)  Whoever we are, however we have waited for
God, he does want to speak to us.

What Daniel sees is a man, dressed like a priest in fine linen, but with a face bright as lightning, eyes like fire, arms like bronze and a voice like the roar of a whole army, loud, powerful; but maybe not always easy to understand..   A man, but a man clothed in amazing glory.  I believe he saw Jesus, the eternal Son of God, in the glory he had before he was conceived as a collection of cells in Mary’s womb.   And this man stands over the river Tigris, and over all the currents of human history.  People, we need to see this Man.  He is the Victor.  He stands above the ebb and flow of history.  He is Lord and King, and the triumph of his Kingdom is a more important matter than whether Daniel gets to return to Jerusalem, or whether Jerusalem is restored in 70 or 490 years, or what happens in your life or mine. He is the lynch-pin of history; he has triumphed and will triumph, and he demands our obedience.  We need to see him. 

But what do we make of the state of the world and the church in our day?What Daniel sees   Once again this vision was so overpowering: Daniel fell on his face, unconscious.  Someone – possibly an angel  –  shakes Daniel awake, and begins to explain that he was sent with the answer as soon as Daniel started his prayer retreat – but was hindered by the “Prince of Persia.”  It was a battle for Daniel on earth because there was  battle going on that Daniel could not see: the very desire of God to answer Daniel's prayers, was being contested by this Prince of Persia. That fight will continue: when the prince of Persia is beaten it will be the turn of the prince of Greece. 

The angel is describing an unseen dimension occupied by spiritual beings representing or corresponding to nations, peoples and movements in the world we can see. 

Image: "sannse" Creative Commons

Some of these spiritual beings are doing God's will, while others are opposed to God's will.  And these beings are engaged in a conflict – “a strange and dreadful fight” as Martin Luther put it.  Until the final triumph of Christ's Kingdom, the world is a battlefield. In order fully to understand the problem of suffering in our world, we need to factor in the realities not only of God's power (why should a good God allow this stuff to happen?) and of freewill (humankind has rebelled against God) but of spiritual conflict (at the present time God's purposes are challenged by another power). 

That has some implications for us:
1. The heavenly battle affects us in the earthly battle.  The battle on earth – the one  we feel when we struggle to pray, to understand, to humble ourselves before the Lord, to serve him is a crazy mixed up world – corresponds to the battle in that unseen, heavenly realm. Paul says we are “not fighting against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  (Eph 6. 12)
2. And the earthly battle affects the heavenly one. We engage in the warfare by prayer, discipleship, submission to Jesus, and acts of service in our world.  Same way Daniel did.  We pray “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.”  And we live the life of the Kingdom – speaking truth, seeking justice and peace, caring for the last, the lost and the least, the broken and the dispossessed.  We don’t need to name or call out the spirits that are opposing God's Kingdom in the heavenlies. Leave that to those who can see them: the angels of God.  

Finally, Daniel needs to know certain truths, and we need the same truths:
1. He is “highly esteemed” (v. 18, NIV)  “God loves you very much” (Living Bible). He is beautiful.  In the midst of the warfare, we need to hear that: you are beautiful. God loves you very much.
2. The future history of God's people, is written in the “book of Truth”: it is aWhat Daniel seeslready in God's hand. God, despite the spiritual battles, will triumph in the end.  The idea that God and evil are kind of “equal and opposite” is called “Dualism.”  It would be neat and tidy and would cleverly solve the problem of evil.  But it is not how the Bible sees things.  We live in a universe where God has had to make some tough choices. There is warfare. But God will triumph. It's written in the book of truth. Jesus is the victor.
3. And Daniel is invited to continue to play his part. Verse 21b sounds a bit sad.  “No one supports me against the princes of Persia and Greece except Michael, your prince”.  But it is an invitation to Daniel, to stand with the angels of heaven, in the spiritual battle, by the way we pray and the way we live. Jesus is the victor.  And we are like Daniel invited to stand with the angels of heaven, by the way we pray and by the way we live.   

© Gilmour Lilly November 2016

Daniel 9: Daniel at prayer... and God at work!

Once again, Daniel is back at the top level of government:  when the Persians took over, Darius quickly made Daniel one of the three governors and he was soon recognised as head and shoulders above the other two (Daniel 6).   I love this guy.  He is hugely gifted, highly educated, a capable leader and administrator, at the peak of his career.  But he is also a guy who walks with God and continues loyally to be a part of God's people, to pray every day facing Jerusalem, to immerse himself in the Scriptures... and to face some puzzles.... Like “What's happening Lord?” 

This prayer happens because of Scripture and history.   Daniel had a copy of a prophecy that was written at the beginning of Judah's exile time, by a guy called Jeremiah.  And Jeremiah told God's people that they would be in Babylon for seventy years.  Now, those seventy years were running out.  Persia had taken over the Babylonian empire – and the end of the exile seemed no nearer.   So Daniel sets himself to prayer and fasting.  He needs answers, and desperately wants to get himself and his people beyond whatever is blocking them from returning to their own city, Jerusalem.

Mind the gap... Can you see a gap between the faith we read about in Scripture and the Kingdom we experience in our world?  Can you see a gap between the Kingdom Jesus brought, and how we live today?   Can you see a gap between the Church of Acts 2, and the Church of 2016? We need to pray – with our Bible in one hand and the daily paper, or the church's annual report, in the other.

 Scripture, prayer, visions and miracles are part of his life.  Here he prays  one of the longest prayers set within an Old Testament story.  So let’s look at his prayer.

1. It is soaked in Scripture. The Book that helped create the Gap, also fills Daniels prayer about the gap. It informs his awareness of Gods' character and his understanding of why judgement has happened.  The Hebrew in this chapter is better better than elsewhere in Daniel – because so much of the prayer is quoted from Scriptures that Daniel had read, and memorised.   It's like Solomon’s prayer  in 1 Kings 8.  The Phrase “My servants the prophets” comes from Jer 26. 5.   The law had outlined blessings for those who kept it and curses for those who broke it (Dt 28. 11ff, 15ff)  and Daniel well knows how God brought Israel our of Egypt (Ex 13. 3)

Our prayers need to be soaked in the bible...       His grasp of the word tells him that what as happening was a result of their turning away from the Lord to worship idols.
       
2. It confess both corporate and personal sin.  Daniel confesses the sins of God's chosen people.  But he doesn't say “They have all done this, he says “We have” - ten times in English translation.
we have sinned and done wrong. (v 5)
We have been wicked and have rebelled; (v 5)
we have turned away from your commands (v 5)
We have not listened to your servants the prophets (v 6)
we have sinned against you (v 8, 11)
we have rebelled (v 9)
we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept his laws (v 10, 14)
all this disaster has come, yet we have not sought the favour of the Lord (v 13)

We need as we look at the state of our nation, and our Western world, a world under god's judgement, it's easy to point the finger of blame.  “Society has gone far away from god's plan; traditional understanding of decency have been thrown aside, Sunday has become a day for shopping, football and DIY, people are more interested psychics than Jesus.”   But it's not enough to point the finger at “the world” we have done it.  Alan Donaldson at the BU Assembly on Friday, preached on John 12.  24 “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.” and he said that the reason we struggle with that, is because we have bought into the world's value system.  Listen to Harry Emerson Fosdick's prayer, written for a wealthy Baptist Church in New York City in 1930:
Cure your children's warring madness; bend our pride to your control;
shame our wanton, selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul.”

And as individuals, even if like Daniel we have tried to be 100% disciples even when others are not, we still need to confess “We have sinned against you.” 

3. It's about glory and shame.  It desires the removal of shame from God's people (v. 16), for the glory of God  (v. 17)  Doesn't that ring a bell in 2016?  The latest Church statistics (from the BU Assembly: 1/3 drop in Church Attendance since 2002.  I love canon J John's answer to the question “What do you do?”  He says “I work for an organisation that cares for people from the cradle to the grave.  We run nurseries, hospitals, schools, relief programmes. And operate in just about every country in the world.”  The guy on the plane says “Oh, what is it called?”  Answer, “the Church.” 

It is the Church's shame that we are not perceived as being a place where God is encountered, but only where he is talked about
It is the Church's shame that we are perceived as being against stuff, instead of for people, for life
it is the church’s shame that we are perceived as being outdated and irrelevant,
it is the church’s shame that we are the custodians of costly Victorian architectural antiquities
it is the church’s shame that we live in a vicious circle of self-perpetuation: where outreach is more about recruitment than about Kingdom

But that mess, reflects on our Heavenly father.  So like Daniel, our prayer has to be “For your sake, Lord, look with favour on your desolate sanctuary.”  (v 17, 19)

4. It seeks mercy.  “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.”  (v 18).  The word “mercy” isn't steadfast love; it isn't chesedh the covenant word.  It is rechem, the word for compassion, and the word for “womb”.  Daniel is saying “Lord, look on us lying helpless as newborn babies in the blood and filth and shame of our situation; look on us like the mother who has just given birth, and care for us.  We're desperate for you. 

5. It is answered!  Gabriel comes again.  The strong man from God, the one who always announces hope.  God sends this mighty spiritual being to reveal truth to Daniel.   (Just a word about angels. We don't ask for them.  We don't pray to them.  We don't need them to take our prayers up to God. But sometimes God sends them!)

And what a revelation.  The seventy years since Jeremiah prophecy, were almost up. History tells us that shortly, Ezra would be sent back to rebuild Jerusalem.  That happened but God doesn’t mention it here.   The weeks (or, “sevens”) in verses 24-27 are blocks of seven years. God says that the real sorting out will take seveny-times-seven years... After seven “seven” and sixty-two “sevens” (483 years), the Anointed One will be put to death (v. 26)   And about  483 years later (some people figure almost 483 years to the day from when Ezra was sent to Jerusalem) Jesus was crucified. 

And then, in the “last seven” another “abomination that causes desolation” will be set up in the temple.  That seventieth seven seems to stretch.  It's the prophetic telescope again. The minor events of Judean history – including the restoration of the temple in 160BC, and its final destruction in 70 AD – are simply pointing forward to the very end of time.  Wallace says “in the shape of earlier and smaller events, we can discern the patterns that are going to be manifested in the final events.” 

What does that mean for us? 
Firstly, we know that God is working out his purpose.  We don't know when the end will come. God isn’t interested in giving us a timetable.  But we do know that the final throes of this universe, lead to god's victory, because they are the answer to the prayer of Daniel, and the fulfilment of the word of Gabriel, God's mighty man. There will be trials;  there will be a man of lawlessness; Jesus will return; and he will take us to the place he has prepared for us.
Secondly, we recognise that our history, as Daniels, and Ezra's and Maccabaeus' are mere details, in God's plan
And thirdly, we live for Jesus, prayerfully, missionally, confidently, whatever happens.  John Lennox says “if thinking about the book of Daniel leads us to endless speculations and fails to produce a life like Daniel's we have understood neither his message nor his call to live for God as salt and light in the world.”

© Gilmour Lilly October 20

Daniel 8

The Babylonian empire was eventually over-run by the Medes and the Persians, some-when around 550 years before Christ. And the Persian half of the partnership became the strongest, and soon controlled an empire that stretched from Macedonia and Egypt to the Modern Pakistan. It was massive,amazingly organised, incredibly powerful. The Biblical stories of Esther and Nehemiah take place against the setting of the vast empire, one of the biggest the world has even seen.

Two hundred years after Daniel's time,between 334 and 331 BC,the tiny nation of Macedonia (Northern Greece) moving with incredible speed, won a a series of battles against the Persians, and so the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great replaced the Persians. But Alexander’s empire grew too big too quick, and after his death at the age of 32, it was divided between four of Alexander's Generals. One of these guys was called Seleucius, and his bit became the “Seleucid Empire” and included Judaea. The Seleucid empire let the Jews do their own thing, for about 150 years, until a guy called Antiochus Epiphenes became empereor. A mean spirited, calculating sort of person, Antiochus was called Epiphenes because he claimed to be a god in human form; he insisted that everyone in his empire worship him; he wouldn't allow the Jews to sacrifice to the Lord; eventually he rededicated the Jewish temple for the worship of Zeus. But God didn't do anything. At the end, Antiochus outlawed every trace of Judaism – reading the law and having your son circumcised, became illegal, and as a result, the Jews rebelled, fought against the empire and won, 160 years before Christ.

Why am I giving you a history lesson? Because over 350 years earlier, God gave Daniel the same history lesson. We read about it in Daniel chapter 8. He is given the main points of the story in picture form, and given the interpretation. The Medo-Persian Empire was the ram with two horns. The goat that flew into the attack was the Greek empire of Alexander the Great. The four horns are the four kingdoms, the last horn, the one that started little (literally came from smallness) is Antiochus. The Abomination that causes desolation happened under Antiochus' rule, and the eventual restoration of the temple followed immediately after Antiochus's defeat.

Isn't it amazing how accurate Daniel's vision actually was? And what an encouragement for the Jewish people going through all the unpleasant experiences of Antiochus's reign, to know that God had already foreseen all that stuff. Not that he sent it; but that he knew about it and would bring them through it. That small-minded ruler who came from nothing and caused desolation and abominations to happen in the Temple, would eventually “ be destroyed, but not by human power”.

Daniel was still  doing the daily grind of a fairly obscure job in Belshazzar's civil service when he had this vision two or three years after the vision of the beasts (Dan 7). This vision is different in a number of ways:

1. It wasn't dream-like; it seems to be a different sort of experience. Daniel seems to have been transported in the vision, from Babylon where he lived and worked, to Susa, the capital of the Persian empire. In Daniel 7 the whole revelation happened in a dream. In chapter 8, Daniel is so overwhelmed by what he hears that he falls to his face, and falls asleep (v. 17-18); but the angel won't let his sleep. He needs to be alert and ready to listen and obey. As we welcome the Holy Spirit, God is the God of surprises: he may speak to different people in different ways; and he may speak to you, in different ways at different times! Be ready to listen for God's voice.
2. As we have noticed, it included a clear historical interpretation.
3. It involves a conversation with the angel Gabriel. Gabriel turns up again in Chapter 9, and then in Luke 1 where he visits Zechariah (father to John the Baptiser) and Mary. His name means something like “a strong man of God” or “God has shown himself strong.” This was a significant message about the power of God and the triumph of his Kingdom.
4. And it is recorded in the Hebrew language. That may be the result of some accident; but it may be that Daniel writes here in Hebrew not Aramaic because he was bringing a message that specifically refers to the situation of his own, Hebrew people. To his people, in the most difficult of circumstances, God speaks, in their own language. To his people, in their most difficult circumstances, God has show himself strong.

The vision is for the "Time of the end" (v. 17) Not “the end of time”, but the end of the worsening season of persecution against God’s people. It answers the question in verse 13: How long will this time of desolation last?

So Daniel 8 is about the Greek empire. Daniel has to seal this message up, because it's for "Many years hence". How does that speak to us, today? 160 years after Antiochus turned the Lord's temple into a temple of Zeus, Jesus stood in the same temple claiming to be God, and used the language of Daniel to speak of a coming time when the “abomination that causes desolation” would appear in the temple. (Matt 24. 51) And a few years after Jesus, his followers were warning of a man of lawlessness appearing.

Our world is still soaking up the influences of Greek and Roman culture: our mathematics, our ideas about “truth”, our laws, are built on Greek and Roman ideas. We all learned Pythagoras' theorem at School. Pythagoras was one af many Greek mathematicians. Philosopehrs like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (all Greeks) still influence our ideas today. John Lennox suggests that the Greek world contained seeds that are still bearing fruit today. "It is a as if we were looking through the contours of Antiochus and his time to a much bigger and more terrible scenario..." Ronald Wallace says, “The spirit that possessed Antiochus is the same Spirit that will inspire the final Antichrist in the last days.” so...

• We must be on our guard, ready to judge with discernment every new movement around us.
• We must be sober, and not imagine too soon that this means the end of the world. For generations if not centuries, Christians have been quick to label individuals they disagree with, as the Antichrist.
• We must be confident. Gabriel, God's strong man, always brings hope. What he says to us, what he said to the Jews in 165 BC, he says to us: Antichrist “will be destroyed, but not by human power”.
• And we must be both troubled and getting on with the job as Daniel was. He now had to find a new way of living victoriously with deeper unanswered questions than he had faced before.
• Daniel is still taking time to read his Bible (at least the bits of it that had been written by that time), to keep himself up-to-date with what was going on in his world, and to pray continually  for that world; and, from time to time, something supernatural would happen: we must be informed by Scripture, aware of our surroundings, and filled with the spirit.

© Gilmour Lilly October 2016

Daniel 7

The story
In chapter 7 Daniel begins the second part of the book.  He turns the clock back to  the beginning of Belshazzar's reign.  He could look back to the days of Nebuchadnezzar, when  he had interpreted the King’s dreams about a giant statue (ch 2) and about a tree that was chopped down (ch 4).  But now he is going through a time of obscurity; he is no longer at the heart of government.  And before he interprets the writing on the wall for Belshazzar, and then works for Darius, he himself has at least two visionary dreams. In the first of these he sees four beasts emerging from a raging sea, and then he sees God himself, and “One like the Son of Man”; and in the vision has some of these images explained to him. They are about the world's empires and powers.

And although he was used to dealing in the supernatural – his life with God wasn't just about learning about but about encountering God – the vision shook him

The point
Kingdom, empires and other political powers, will rise and fall.
God knows their beginning.  These beasts come from a churning sea (Verses 2, 3) and the interpretation (verse 17) says the kingdoms rise from the earth.  They emerge within the created world. The Babylonians had long told a creation story, about the primeval sea, that churned up terrible monsters, and the gods slew the monsters; and the sea churned up another monster, and the gods killed it, and so it went on, forever...  But Daniel knew the Genesis creation narrative: the earth that was chaotic, once for all tamed by the word of God.  The spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep.  Another prophet from the exile time, Ezekiel, wrote about the Spirit in Ezk 47. “Come from the four winds....” 

And it is right that the evil empires of this world (and I don't believe there has been a really good empire yet!) emerge because we live in a fallen world.  They are about the evil that is in every heart: greed, selfishness, indifference to the sufferings of others.  The Times newspaper once invited readers to write in with their answers to the question, “What is wrong with the world”  and later published letters under the same heading including the following:   “Sir, I am – Yours faithfully, G K Chesterton”.

But it's wrong to think that the power-games that empires and nations play, are running out of control.    When one stops, another one starts.   They don't come from a source that is "Equal & Opposite" to God but from a source that is created but in rebellion.  Despite the evil in the world, it is still God's world; the spirit of God still hovers.

He knows their middle. You can hear echoes of Nebuchadnezzar's experience (ch 4) in the description of the Lion with eagles wings – losing the wings, then eventually gaining the mind of a man.  Then it seems as if the next beast, the bear, represents the Persian empire.  The third, the leopard fits the Greek empire of Alexander the great, which spread with leopard-like speed. And the fourth – could well the the Roman empire and the Western cultures that follow on from it.   How did Daniel know about the Greeks and the Romans?  Well, unless the book wasn't written when it says it was written, he didn't specifically know about the Greeks and the Romans.  But God showed him these things, and in v. 24  tells Daniel some details of the "fourth kingdom." So God knows all about the nature & actions of all kingdoms. He didn't need to read Machiavelli's "The prince", to know how powerful people and institutions think and behave.  

And he knows their end. He knows where they are going.  After seeing the four beasts, Daniel sees into God's heaven; he sees God enthroned in glory, worshipped by thousands; and “one like a Son of man” given glory and authority and Kingdom. He saw past the coming of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus  (Verses 9-14)  God's kingdom is going to come & is going to triumph!  And verses 17f say,  “The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it for ever – yes, for ever and ever.”  God's people you and I are to receive the Kingdom.  How cool is that?  God's kingdom is going to come & is going to triumph! The four beasts are no big deal. 

The Problem
Initially Daniel was deeply troubled. (v. 27)   and rightly so because the vision raises questions that should trouble us too.  The problems with this chapter are at core moral problems.  They are about the difference between right and wrong, and how we live our lives.   

1. How specific is Daniels vision about our times?   Does every detail refer to a specific event or person? And if it does, what difference does that make to how we live our lives today?  For many Christians, puzzling out the meaning of the beasts leads to living disconnected to our world, just waiting for the Son of Man to come back, and ignoring the world we live in. But that wasn't Daniel's way; he remained deeply involved with the his own world, walking among its pagans and engaging in its politics. 

2. Usually, our attempts to puzzle out Daniel 7 narrows our vision down to the Western world. But “four kingdoms” correspond to four winds and represent all kingdoms and empires. We can focus on the world of the Mediterranean, and North as far as Britain, West as far as America. But what about East and South? What about the Far East & Africa?  I am not being frivolous. We betray our narrow self-centredness if we look at Daniel 7 and only see Western history: Britain, the USA, & the EU. The majority of the people in the world live in the East & the South.

3. Does God do right?  If the four beasts – and all the empires and powers that have ever oppressed men and women, emerge from the sea of creation, why is that?  We may wonder why a good God allows bad things to happen. Or we may think God isn't in control at all. The idea of a cold, calculating god who causes had things, and the idea of a world  out of control, are both scary.

The Difference
Daniels vision shows us that although the world is in a mess and right now is not the way God planned it, there is a better world coming.   God is good. God is still good.  When people ask – and indeed when we ask ourselves –  “Why does God allow suffering?” we know that there is this a terrible tension between the Spirit of God blowing like the wind, and the turbulent chaotic sea. So God is not the inventor of evil.   There is a tension between human wrong-headedness and fallen-ness,  divine love, and devilish opposition.  And that tension is only broken when the “Son of Man” dies on a cross.  It is in his death and resurrection that Jesus receives the Kingdom that will never be destroyed. The Lion who can open the book of the last times is  Revelation a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain (Revelation 5. 6)

How was Daniel helped by knowing this stuff and how are we helped?

• We know what to expect of the powers. They always become subhuman, animal-like, and hungry!
• We know we can trust in our God's moral character. 
• We know we can anticipate God's victory.

And that knowledge,release us to live as moral beings, transformed and transforming beings, in our broken world.  That’s how Daniel lived, it is how Jesus lived,and it is how he calls us to live.  We call it “the life of the Kingdom”.   And the Son of Man's kingdom is one that will never be destroyed (v14) and “the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it for ever – yes, for ever and ever.” (v18)

© Gilmour Lilly October 2019

Daniel 6: Witness in a changing world.

So Daniel is a bit older, now.  He has lived through exile, then been picked out for special training –like a university education – in Babylon.  He has had a great career as a government advisor, followed by a time of obscurity; then been appointed “third highest ruler in the kingdom” (coming after Belshazzar the Prince regent and his absentee father Nabunaid), only hours before Belshazzar and Babylon fell into the hands of the new boy on the block, the Persian empire of Cyrus and Darius. 

There is in other words a massive political & cultural change... in 24 hours, everything changed.  A new centre of gravity in Susa. A new government; a new ruler; a new administration;  a whole new concept of government, “The law of the Medes and the Persians” that even the King had to obey;  and new words like “Satrap”.  It was not long before Daniel became one of three governors who were in charge of those “Satraps.” 

We are living through times of change, and the pace and scope of that change is faster and deeper. 
In the past fifteen years, a number of things have happened that have each, in their own way, changed the world:
the bombings on 11th September 2001;
the global financial crisis in 2008-9;
the British vote to leave the EU (I refuse to use a word that makes something momentous sound like the latest breakfast cereal.) 

Attitudes to justice, faith, family life, marriage, sexuality & gender are changing across the Western world, and those changes are being enshrined in law. 

Underlying all of that, in the realm of how people think, we are living through the move from "Modern" to something else: we sometimes call it "postmodern".  That affects everything.

• Suspicion towards authority (church, politics, police) and  absolutes (like absolute truth)   As part of that, Spirituality is valued (because it is do-it-yourself), while dogma is rejected (because it is authoritative).

• Literature and language are “deconstructed”.  That means that instead of having a clear “meaning,” a book or a film – or even a word –can mean what the hearer wants it to mean to them.  So if someone says that Sally's cakes or Ruth’s shortbread are wicked,  that's a compliment!

• Pessimism... instead of hope. We used to believe science could sort everything, Now - despite the confidence with which the new atheism makes its pronouncements - nobody is  convinced that science can save mankind.

• Global culture: Coca-cola, Macdonalds, Facebook. We now live in a truly global village.

Pic: Buky Schwartz CreativeCommons SA2..5

• The internet changes how people's minds work, how they (we) learn & relate, and technology gets smaller, smarter.

• Double-coding: buildings made of concrete & glass have a classical façade. People can be scientific and superstitious; secularism & spirituality can co-exist.

Change is the one thing that isn't changing.

Now which is right? The Modern world or the postmodern one?  Daniel's experience was that both the big cultures he lived with, have strengths & weaknesses.  Under this new government, some things remained the same.  There was still an undercurrent of opposition and even hatred towards God, his way of living, and his people.  It has been that way since almost the beginning of time. This time it didn't come from a power crazed king, but from fellow governors. Jealousy and suspicion towards this wise and experienced Jew came to a head when the King recognised Daniel's ability and integrity and decided to make his the chief of the three governors.  The only way they could bring Daniel down was by finding fault,and try as they may, they couldn't find any faults, except... he prayed every day, facing Jerusalem.  He had always put his God first.  So all they needed to do was set up a situation where it would be obvious that he put his God first,before the King... and they would have him.  You know the story of the decree they got the king to sign: he was quite flattered by this idea; and didn't see it as a trap for Daniel. 

In every culture there area strengths and weaknesses;things that help the church's witness and thing that get in the way.  And in many situations of opposition to us as individuals or as a church in the nation, the roots are a messy mixture of idolatry, jealousy, conniving and self-interest.  That's the way of it in every culture.  It's not always that people hate God; they simply love themselves.

The Law of the Medes and the Persians.
There was a system of thought underlying the Persian rule. It was more than the emperor's whim. he was at the mercy of the system. Nebuchadnezzar threw Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego into the furnace because he was angry at them. Darius threw Daniel to the lions because he was cornered by the system.  Babylon was at the mercy of one man.  Persia was at the mercy of a committee.  So Daniel was thrown into the lion's den.  The law would be satisfied.  Daniel would be out of the way, and the state would save a couple of quid in lion food. 

We live in a world where the law is often used and manipulated by the powerful for political ends: bolstering a secular agenda, redefining how family life works, or making the rich richer and the poor poorer.  We have to know when to remain silent and when to protest..  And in a democracy, we have to make our voice heard to seek for a godly and just society.

So How did Daniel survive the transition and thrive in the new realities of the Persian  empire?  How did he survive a sharp cultural change and opposition enshrined in law? 

1. Diligent service.  Whatever the culture he lived in, Daniel was prepared to do the best he could.  If he had read the message Jeremiah sent to the Jewish exiles (Jer 29. 7: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile”)  He  spoke Aramaic like a Babylonian. He knew and understood the Babylonians and their culture. He did it in Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon; he was prepared to do it for Darius' Persia.
2. Devoted surrender.  Did you ever wonder why when Belshazzar was killed, Daniel,the next man in line of authority survived?  The answer is that he wasn't Babylonian.  He was Jewish. Yes,  he was always prepared to do the very best he could to serve the country he had been obliged to live in for most of his life.  But he didn't do it for Babylon,he did it for the Lord. Throughout his life,every day,three times, he would go upstairs,to a room in his house that faced south by south east,where Jerusalem was.  like Daniel, we serve Scotland or Britain or Canada or France or Iraq,but our real citizenship is elsewhere. our real loyalty is elsewhere. Our citizenship is in heaven and our loyalty is to the Lord.   This wasn’t just about keeping the law.  It was an act of love.  On Friday night I heard a wonderful testimony from a young woman who was brought up in a strict Bangladeshi Muslim family in the UK. At one point in her life she was trying to be a good Muslim, and wearing a Hijab.  She recalled on a hot day, remarking to her friend (also wearing a Hijab) “Don't you find it hot in the Hijab?”  and her friend replying “Nargis, it is not as hot as hell-fire!”  That's law without promise,without love, without relationship,without grace, without Spirit.  That's not the way Daniel lived. But for Daniel it wasn’t about law it was about life and love and loyalty.    And today, there is a new covenant and a new law: the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death.  

Picture © G Lilly

3. Disciplined spirituality.  And every day, although he couldn't see it,he would pray facing the temple in Jerusalem.   Discipline in finding time to be with God,will help us know what he is saying and to survive the challenges.
4. Dependence on the Spirit.  Some clever people question how true the stories in Daniel are.  Partly because there are supposedly gaps in Daniels understanding of the history he lived through.  But the more that is discovered about archaeology,the more the historical bits of Daniel are confirmed.  And there are these miracle stories: four young men eating simply and looking healthier; all the dreams and interpretations; the burning fiery furnace; the writing on the wall, the lions den.  But if you take the miracles out of Daniel you're left with a shell, something threadbare.  Pam yesterday found that her walking socks were worn out; there were no holes,but the wool was gone and all that was left was the thin nylon webbing. It was precisely the work of God's holy Spirit in Daniel's life that made him able to survive and thrive.   Christianity is not about keeping the law of God.  It is about living under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and thus being free from the law of sin and death.  Daniel did what he did not just as a law-keeping godly man,but as a man of faith and a man full of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion...
So why in the end did Darius change the law of the Medes and the Persians?  Simply because he saw, in front of his own eyes, the visible demonstration that the law of the Medes and the Persians didn't have the last word. There was a greater power.   But Daniel knew that already.  And it is as we can demonstrate to the people around us that our God is able to change our lives, that we will see the lives of others changed.
 © Gilmour Lilly October 2016