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
Sunday, 30 October 2016
Sunday, 23 October 2016
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:
- 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.
- As we have noticed, it included a clear historical interpretation.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Sunday, 9 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?
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
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
Sunday, 2 October 2016
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.
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.
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
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.
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| 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.
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| Picture © G Lilly |
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
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