Daniel 4

This has been a crazy couple of weeks for our family.  The last time I preached was on Easter Sunday, and in my sermon, I talked about one of the many promises of the empty tomb which is the reality that because the tomb is empty, we know that suffering, disease, and death have a shelf life.  I also mentioned that since my mother received back surgery to correct a disk that was pinching one of her nerves about two months ago, that she had been battling a bacterial infection and was recently hospitalized to clean out the infection that had potentially spread to her spinal column.  Two days after our Easter service, I received a call from my aunt shortly after I walked into my office at the church; I could tell that she was very emotional.  I asked her what was wrong, she proceeded to tell me that my mother was unresponsive, and her kidneys were failing.  It appeared that my mother’s life was hanging in the balance. 

To give you a sense for how fast my mother’s health was deteriorating let me give you a brief timeline: On April 5th, her kidneys were shutting down. By April 6th, she was completely unresponsive.  I got on the very first flight I could on April 7th to Fort Myers, FL.  On April 9th, we learned that she had suffered a stroke. Later in the day, my mother was put on dialysis, and upon learning that I was not only my mother’s firstborn son, but also a pastor, I was told by her nurse who is also a Christian: “I believe that you are able to hear what I am about to tell you, so I am going to just say it: Your mother is in very, very critical condition and I am not sure she will pull through this.”  My mother is only 63 years old; to have a bacterial infection in your body is very serious, to have suffered a stroke is a very serious, to experience kidney failure to the point of needing to be put on dialysis is very serious, but to suffer all three at the same time is dire.

Now, I need to be honest with you.  My preparation for this sermon has been reduced to an ongoing meditation over these verses in multiple flights, in multiple airports, between tears, with tears, inside the hospital, outside the hospital in the parking lot, on long walks, and in the local YMCA where I workout every time I visit with my mother and stepfather.  All the while I have not doubted the goodness of a sovereign God who loves me, but have instead clung to that truth while pleading for my mother’s life to be spared.  How does Nebuchadnezzar’s epiphany of the reality of who God is after experiencing seven years of insanity inflicted upon him by a God who loves him (too much to leave him to his idols), speak into our broken world full of suffering and death?  What was the epiphany? Look with me at Daniel 4:34-35,

“At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:34–35)

For the sake of time, I will reserve a fuller treatment of Daniel 4 next week.  What I want to do with the time that we have today is answer how the truth of verses 34-35 is good news for the people of God.  So let me state what it is that these verses are saying then unpack my statement.  According to Daniel 4:34-35, God is eternally, paternally, and benevolently sovereign.

God is Eternally Sovereign (34b)

We are told that King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream.  Some scholars believe that this is the same king described in the first three chapters, others think it is Nabonidus who is believed to have taken the throne from Nebuchadnezzar’s family and identified as Nebuchadnezzar in the same way that Saddam Hussei

Acts 1:1-11

Good morning! I’m so thankful to have you all here with us this morning. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Justin Kennett and I am an elder here at the church. 

I know many of you know this already, but sadly today is my last Sunday at Meadowbrooke because God has called my wife and I back to California where Alyssa has started a wonderful job and God is using me for full-time ministry. 

So if you just met me, sorry. I wish I had the chance to get to know you better. I wish I could’ve gotten time to get to know you better, but for those of you who have spent time investing in me, praying with me, praying for me, encouraging me and teaching me, I just want you to know how truly grateful I am. I couldn’t have picked a better church to have grown in ministry with, and Meadowbrooke will forever play a huge role in my testimony.

When I share the story of what God has done in my life, this church will be one of those foundational chapters that sets the tone for the rest of the story. And for my own benefit, Meadowbrooke will forever be a chapter of my life that I leave bookmarked.

So when Keith asked me to preach today so he could head off to his conference, I couldn’t have picked a more fitting way to say thank you than by standing up here for perhaps the last time to preach God’s Word.

Now with that being said, lets open up with some prayer so we can set our hearts and eyes on God where they belong.

As we look to the text this week, we are going to be opening up our Bibles to the end of the book of Luke, Chapter 24 to be exact. 

And as we are flipping through Luke, I want to reflect on last week because although it sounds obvious, Easter is the greatest holiday we get to celebrate and it’s my personal favorite holiday. It is so much more than Easter egg hunts and chocolate. It’s when we get to reflect and celebrate the greatest gift mankind has ever received: grace. Grace that is nothing short of amazing. It’s the reason John Newton wrote the famous hymn amazing grace. Pastor Keith has talked about him several times before, but if you don’t know John Newton’s story, I highly encourage you to go and learn more about him. 

But his words are worth reading and reflecting on this morning:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see

Just the sound of the word “grace” is sweet to my ears. And to be completely honest, if there is only one thing that anyone takes away from the message this morning, I truly hope it is the word “grace,” because grace is what saved a wretch like me.

‘I once was lost, but now I am found.’ And maybe you are feeling lost, but I want to highlight the fact that Jesus is who does the finding. You do not need to be good enough, He finds us while we are lost.

He didn’t say “lost but then I found my way”, no, you see John Newton understood that the Bible tells us grace alone saves us.

We see this directly from the Bible in Ephesians 2:8-9.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a results of works, so that no one may boast.”

So I say again

‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.’

If you have never seen, or heard, or felt grace, today is the day to accept the free gift of grace.

You see, this season is all about remembering that:

God loved us so much that He sent His one and only Son to earth to die for our sins so that if we place our faith in Jesus, we can be forgiven and spend eternity with Him. 

Jesus lived the life we could never live and died the death we deserved in order that we may have the opportunity to be reconciled with our Father in Heaven.

No matter what you have done, and no matter what you will do, good or bad, you only need to believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection to receive th

Daniel 7:13-14

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is said to have been founded by Abu Musab al Zarqawi in 2004, although it did not go by that name until 2013.  At its height, ISIS was able to take control and hold about a third of Syria and nearly half of Iraq.  The goal of ISIS was to establish Sharīʿah, which is the law of Islam for Muslims.  Because Islam believes Jesus was only a prophet and Mohammad their greatest prophet, the worship of Jesus as the Son of God is viewed as blasphemous.  So as ISIS spread through Iraq, they spray-painted the Arabic letter ن, or “N,” on the homes and businesses of Christians and issued an ultimatum, to convert to Islam, pay a fine, or face death by the sword.  The letter ن stands for Nasara or Nazarenes, which is a derogatory Arabic word for Christians.

Many Christians who were identified with the letter ن were shot, beheaded, or even crucified by ISIS.  These Christians were promised life if they would only convert to Islam; for some, it was crazy to choose death by refusing to reject Jesus as the Son of God by converting to Islam. 

The apostle Paul said of the resurrection of Jesus: “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith in in vain….  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins…. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:12-14, 17, 19).

I want to use our time today to reflect on three crazy things associated with the resurrection of Jesus in the form of three questions: What is the craziest thing Jesus did?  What is the craziest thing Jesus said? What is craziest thing you can do?

What is the Craziest Thing Jesus Did?

Jesus died on a Friday. What you need to know is that according to the Jewish calendar, the last day of the workweek is Friday.  Saturday is the Sabbath (day of rest), and the first day of the week is Sunday. Jesus died on a cross the last day of the workweek, was in the tomb on the Sabbath, and on the first day of the week… he defeated death by walking out of the grave. 

While on the cross dying, we are told that He cried out “It is Finished” then took one final breath, and died.  To make sure He was dead, one of the Roman soldiers thrust a spear into His side and into His heart to make sure he was not faking it or unconscious.  Jesus was dead.  His body was wrapped and then buried in a tomb where a great stone was rolled in front of the entrance to seal the tomb shut.  The religious leaders were paranoid that Jesus’ disciples might steal the body and concoct an elaborate scheme that He rose from the grave just like He said He would over and over again during His life. 

On the first day of the week (Sunday), Mary Magdalene and two of her friends visited the tomb and found it not only open, but empty.  Jesus rose from the grave.  Because people do not just rise from the dead, some theories have been offered to explain why the tomb was empty of which none make any sense.  Jesus’ body could not have been stolen because there were guards standing watch to make sure it wouldn’t happen, Jesus was not unconscious and then later revived by the dampness of the tomb, Jesus didn’t have a twin brother, and too many people witnessed the resurrection for Him to have been a vision.  Besides, do you think that every single one of the disciples would have been willing to die violent deaths or suffer greatly if Jesus’ resurrection was made up? 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ affirms everything he did and claimed to be.  This is why the apostle Paul wrote, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If in Christ we have

Mark 14:32-52

When we behold Golgotha the day Jesus died, we see evil at its worst.   Jesus, an innocent man, was sentenced to death in the most humiliating and horrific way.  All throughout Jesus’ life, people were trying to kill him.  When he was a toddler, Herod had all the children two years old and younger murdered in Bethlehem to keep Him from growing up.  When one reads the four Gospels in the Bible, we learn of many attempts made by the religious leaders to take his life. 

Eventually, the Pharisees and Sadducees who wanted to silence Jesus were able to bribe Judas, a disciple of Jesus, to betray him for 30 pieces of silver.  Judas gathered a band of soldiers and some officers to take Jesus by force.  Upon finding Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas pointed out Jesus to the soldiers with a kiss.  Jesus was then arrested and tried illegally—three trials by night before the religious leaders, and three civic trials before Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas.

Of all the questions Jesus was asked during his trials before the religious leaders, it was the question asked by the High Priest, Caiaphas, and Jesus’ answer to that question that marked the point of no return for Jesus to avoid death by crucifixion.  Caiaphas demanded of Jesus: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  Jesus answered: “You have said so.  But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:63-64).  Jesus’ answer was a direct reference him being the Messiah as promised in Daniel 7; for Caiaphas, this was the best excuse to have Jesus crucified as an enemy of Rome.  I am going to talk about Daniel 7 on Resurrection Sunday, but with the time that we have on this Good Friday, I want to consider why Jesus had to die before he could come back “on the clouds of heaven.”

Jesus was Abandoned So that We Would Never Be Forsaken

Think about the circumstances that followed Jesus’ betrayal?  First, Judas had spent years with Jesus.  He was entrusted with the finances of the disciples, he committed at least three years of his life with Jesus.  Most of what Jesus did, Judas also did, and just like that… for thirty pieces of silver he betrayed his friend with a kiss. 

If that were not enough, when Jesus was arrested every single one of his friends ran away.  To Peter’s credit, he did try to defend Jesus by cutting the ear of one of the temple guards, but later he denied even knowing Jesus not once, not twice, but three times.  To illustrate the fear that overshadowed the love that the disciples had for Jesus, we are told that a young man who had been following the disciples into the garden fled, and when his clothing was grabbed, he fled naked. 

On the eve of His execution, Jesus was abandoned and left alone with no one.  But that is not all, for there was one more person who abandoned Him to leave him completely and desperately alone.  We learn who that person is with one of Jesus’ final statements while dying on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (15:34). 

While on the cross, the religious leaders made fun of Jesus by saying things like: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.  Let the Christ the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe” (vv. 31-32).  Others sarcastically commented: “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross” (vv. 29-30)!  If that were not enough, even those crucified for crimes they did commit “reviled” him.  The NIV translates this verse this way: “Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.”[1] And as all of this was going on, Jesus’ executioners gambled over his bloody clothing as He was hanging shamefully naked.  

Besides John, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary’s sister, and Mary Magdalene (John 19:25), Jesus’ closest friends where nowhere to be found.  While he endu

Daniel 3

The irony of the third chapter in Daniel is that even though Nebuchadnezzar had a prophetic dream that Daniel was clearly able to interpret without the king ever making know the dream (see Daniel 2), is that instead of worshiping the God who revealed the coming kingdoms, he built a statue to be worshiped instead.  It was clear that the point of the prophetic dream that God gave to king Nebuchadnezzar was that there was only one God who, “changes times and seasons…” and who, “removes kings and sets up kings…” (Dan. 2:20).  It is only the God of Daniel who sets up kings.

If you remember, the image in the king’s dream represented four kingdoms: The head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar and his empire Babylon.  The chest of silver represented the Mede and Persian kingdoms, the waist and thighs of bronze represented the Greek Empire, and the legs of iron represented the Empire of Rome.   The first sentence we read in the very next chapter is this: “King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits.”  The gold image Nebuchadnezzar set up was 90 feet high and six feet wide.  We are not told if the gold statue was one of the gods the king worshiped or a statute of himself to be worshiped.  Blair Kamin, a leading architectural critic in Chicago, described the role of architecture in a way that helps us make sense of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue: “Every building is a new piece of evolving metropolis… an unflinching record of who we are and what we do.  It connects us in time and space to those who went before us even as it represents our legacy… to those who come after.”[1]

The point of the king’s statue is that although God said one thing, the king will do his thing. Nebuchadnezzar set up an image to make a statement on earth and to any god that might be paying attention: Only the king of Babylon sets up kingdoms and only Babylon will last forever. 

The Spirit of Babylon Demands Our Allegiance (vv. 1-7)

The goal of the spirit of Babylon is the allegiance of all the nations.  We see this as early as in Genesis 11 with the building of the tower of Babel, when the people assembled when they should have been filling the earth with Yahweh worshipers, and said: “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4).  We have seen this happen throughout history.  It was attempted under Rome, it was attempted under Napoleon, it was attempted under Nazi Germany, under the Empire of Japan, under ISIS, and it will continue to be attempted by other nations and tyrants.  It also happens subtlety and individually by deceiving people into buying into the creed of the Spirit of Babylon.  How does this happen?  The Bible tells us how it happens: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).

So Nebuchadnezzar built his 90 foot gold statue and gathered all of his leaders for the purpose of enforcing his policy that all the people, nations, and languages bow to it. The same thing that happened in Daniel 3 is happening today, just different dress.  Anyone who does not buy into the agenda or believe the creeds of the Spirit of Babylon is immediately considered an outsider and met with hatred.  This is why Jesus said to all who follow him instead of Babylon: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18–19).

The Spirit of Babylon Expects our Worship (vv. 8-12)

Bowing to the giant gold statue was not enough for Nebuchadnezzar, for what the king expected was for all people to worship it; this is why the word “worsh

Daniel 2:21-35

There is a story about a man named Alexander, whose dream was to see the revered King of his homeland.  On rare occasions the King would parade through different villages.  Early in this man’s childhood, he remembered such an event that he had missed… he was determined to not allow such an opportunity to slip by again.

Years passed and the fondness that Alexander had as a young boy for his king only grew with age.  On a certain day Alexander’s neighbor came to his house both exhausted and excited.  Alexander wanted to ask what was wrong, but before he could ask, his neighbor exclaimed: “the king is coming, the king is coming… you can see him and his procession if you hurry!”  Well Alexander wasted no time and they both ran as fast as their legs would take them a mile down the road of which the revered king was traveling.

As the procession came closer, Alexander could feel his heart pound with anticipation of finally seeing the king.  As the procession began to pass, Alexander was overwhelmed by the horses that pulled the king’s carriage.  He couldn’t help but notice their impressive size.  He was amazed at their color and how brilliant the reflection of the sun was on their impressive coats.  Alexander couldn’t help noticing how the king’s horses were decorated, the sliver and gold leaf adorning every horse, the radiant colors of the cloth that covered their backs… all of it was so overwhelming.  Alexander took it all in.

As he stood reflecting on the impressive beauty of the horses, Alexander’s neighbor excitedly asked, “Did you see him, did you see the king?”  It took Alexander a moment, but then he realized that as he was admiring the beauty of the horses, the king had passed without Alexander noticing.

The danger in reading Daniel, especially prophetic passages like Daniel 2:31-49 is that we can miss the King because we were too busy looking at the horses.  American Christianity has historically been enamored with Bible prophecy and how the world is going to end (the theological term for this is eschatology).  It is possible to be so enamored with the details for prophesy that you miss the point for why God provided it in the first place.  I want to spend most of our time looking at the King today, but in doing so; I have to point out the horses.

The Rise of Kingdoms

There are all kinds of books written by so called “experts” in Bible prophesy that focus so much on the horses that the King becomes a supporting actor instead of the leading role in God’s theater.  The horses in Daniel 2:31-49 are the four different human empires that Nebuchadnezzar dreamt about.  When God revealed the dream to Daniel, his response was one of praise:

“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king’s matter.” (Daniel 2:20–23)

In other words, the unchanging and all-powerful God changes times and seasons, and removes kings and sets up kings.  What did the king see in his dream that bothered him so much?  Daniel told the king the details of his dream: 

You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.” (Daniel 2:31–34)

There are two main interpretations of the ki

Romans 15:14

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Daniel 2

Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard, believes that the reason why Americans are smiling less and worrying more and why happiness is down and sadness is up is not because people do not have enough money, but because people are more uncertain about the future than ever before based on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.[1] Because of this, depression in America is on the rise. Gilbert said of his findings: “An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait…. Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty.” 

Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that left him both uncertain and unhappy.  According to Daniel, the king’s spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him (v. 1).  Because he was troubled, he commanded that the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and the Chaldeans (a.k.a. astrologers) help him make sense of his crazy dream.  In the ancient Near East, dreams were considered one of the ways the gods communicated with humans; dreams “were thought to be shadows of the future cast in front of itself, tipping its hand to show what lay ahead.”[2]  The magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and the Chaldeans were understood to be the experts in interpreting dreams and reading into the future; they were the equivalent of the palm readers, astrologers, mediums, psychic, and tarot card readers of our day. 

Nebuchadnezzar feared what was in his future, so he called the psychics of his day to address his uncertain future just like people are doing today due to the impact COVID-19 has had on jobs and businesses.  Yelp recently published an Economic Impact Report that noted that it’s “Supernatural Readings” business category was up 140 percent as more and more Americans turn to tarot card readers, mediums, and psychics to find out what is in their future.  One astrologer who has been in the business for over twenty years said recently: “There has never been a time like this.  I think everybody wants to know if their life is going to go on, and if there’s anything in the future they have to look forward to.”

When I reflect upon Daniel and the current events of our day, I am reminded of something the Reverend S. M. Lockridge said in his sermon on the Lordship of Christ about 40 years ago:

“We are forever blowing bubbles looking for ships that never come in, chasing pots of gold at the end the receding rainbows.  Now when a child blows bubbles, he’s not concerned about values; he’s thrilled as long as the bubble lasts, and when it bursts, he simply blows another.  How do you expect your ships to come in when you’ve sent no ships out, and you never will find that proverbial pot of gold because you try to ignore him who has the rainbow wrapped around his shoulder?

A.W. Tozer once wrote: “The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what in his deep heart conceives God to be like.”[3]  The size of your God will determine the size of your problems and whether he is able to handle them. 

Some time ago I quoted something that John Piper wrote in his book, Spectacular Sins.  In light of Daniel 2 and the current events of our day, consider what Piper wrote:

The coddled Western world will sooner or later give way to great affliction.  And when it does, whose vision of God will hold…?  Where is the Christian mind and soul being prepared for the horrors to come?  Christians in the West are weakened by wimpy worldviews.  And wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians.  God is weightless in our lives.  He is not terrifyingly magnificent.  His sovereignty is secondary (at best) to his sensitivity.[4]

Piper suggests that the remedy to strengthen Christians is the very thing that seems to be missing.  What is missing according to Piper?  Listen to his answer:

What is missing is the Bible.  I mean the whole

Daniel 1:8-21

Let me state two very important truths that will help you understand the book of Daniel a little better, and make a little more sense of what is happening around you.  The Bible claims from the very beginning in its first chapter that you are a human being who is made in the image of God.  The Bible also states from the very beginning in Genesis 3 that there is an enemy who absolutely abhors you because you bear the image of the God of all creation. 

Because you bear the image of the God of the Bible, you are not a member of the animal kingdom; you are above the animal kingdom.  This is true for all human beings even if they do not act like it.  The Bible states in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  Not only do you rank above the animal kingdom, but we as human beings have been given the mission and responsibility to manage what God created on earth.  In the beginning, God gave Adam and Eve a mission that required only two things: 1) Fill the earth with more human beings who worship him, and 2) care and manage everything that God created. 

We are introduced to our enemy in the third chapter of Genesis who was in the form of a serpent.  The first thing he successfully did when he encountered Adam and Eve was to get them to question two things: 1) The serpent got Adam and Eve to question the legitimacy of the Word of God, and 2) the serpent got Adam and Eve to question the goodness of God in relationship to human beings and the rest of creation. 

What we learn of the serpent is that his alias is also Satan.  What Adam and Eve did not know was that Satan hates good and loves evil and has command over the thousands of demons who operate under him.  He despises God and His creation with deep hatred.  The Bible points to him as the originator of evil, suffering, and sin.  Satan was not created evil, for his original name is Lucifer which means “Morning Star” and was created to serve as the highest-ranking angel in heaven.  He chose to be evil, and the Bible states that, “He was guilty of sinning from the beginning” (1 John 3:8).

Satan also is known by other names such as Lucifer, the Adversary (1 Peter 5:8), the Beast (Rev. 14:9-10), the Deceiver (Rev. 12:9), the Devil (1 John 3:8), the Dragon (Rev. 12:9), the Enemy (Matt. 13:39), and the Evil One (John 17:15).  There are other names for Lucifer, but the one that embodies all of his names, is found in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober-minded; be watchful.  Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”  That someone he is seeking to devour is you and anyone else who bears the image of the God he hates. 

What you also need to know is that Satan is not permitted to do anything he wants, for he is given some freedom that God will ultimately use to accomplish his redemptive purposes.  What we also learn from the beginning of the Bible is that Satan will one day be destroyed.  We are told that Jesus will be responsible for crushing him (Gen. 3:15), which includes a day when Jesus will have him bound and imprisoned for 1000 years (Rev. 20:1-3) and then will ultimately throw him into place called the Lake of Fire where we are promised Satan will, “…be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:7-10). 

One of the titles that is given to Satan is found in Ephesians 2:1-2.  We are told that we, who follow Jesus now, once followed him blindly like the rest of the world continues to do today: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—” (Ephesians 2:1–2).  As the prince of the power of the air, Satan is on a leash that God holds—a long leash—but a leash, nonetheless. 

While on God’s leash, Satan is permitted to move and work in the affairs of humans and nations while

Daniel 1:1-7

There is a series of Marvel Comics that I enjoyed reading as a kid and now an animated series is in development by Marvel Studios titled, “What If…”.  The upcoming series, “explores what would happen if major moments from the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe occurred differently.”  A popular Amazon Prime series, The Man in the High Castle, like Marvel’s “What If…” series, explores what it may have been like if the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan won the war and ruled the world.  It is easy to ask the “What If…” questions because what is done is done, and what has happened has happened.  But, what if I told you that a nation is coming as God’s instrument to execute judgement on our nation and that all we enjoy today will be taken from us?  My guess is that you would find that to be very difficult to believe.  

Imagine standing on the beach of the West Coast or the East Coast.  As you stand, you see ships move closer to the coast and it becomes apparent that the mass of ships are hundreds of boats carrying thousands of soldiers from another nation.  Imagine seeing thousands more descend from the sky.  Imagine what it would feel like when your country, that you though was impenetrable, was now being invaded by a foreign nation.  Imagine the feeling you would have if in that moment you realized that there was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.  This was the experience that Daniel, his friends, and the rest of his countrymen had when the Babylonian Empire invaded their country. 

Why Did The Babylonian Exile Happen?

Let me give you the short version of what happened leading up to the invasion of Babylon. 

After God used Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt, God gave them a code of ethics known as the Law.  At Mount Sinai, God entered into a covenant relationship with a people instead of a person (e.g. Adam, Noah, Abraham).  He spoke to Israel through Moses, and said to them, “…if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:4–6).

While Moses was with Israel, God promised that he would bless Israel as a nation if they obeyed his commandments.  However, God also promised they would experience his discipline in the form of curses if they turned from worshiping him (see Deut. 30:15-18).  One of the curses Israel would experience would be exile.  A little more than eight hundred years before Babylon invaded Judah, God warned that one of the curses that his people would experience would be the forceful removal from the land promised to their forefathers: “The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away” (Deuteronomy 28:36–37).

The overwhelming message of the Bible is that there is no sin too great nor heart so far removed from God that is beyond the reach of a God whose grace overwhelms and transforms.  However, we also learn from the Bible that God is holy, he is just, and he takes sin very seriously.  Israel was rescued from Egypt and set apart to represent God as his kingdom of priests before a world that needed to be reconciled to him.  Under King David, Israel experienced great prosperity physically and spiritually, he wrote most of the Psalms that are in the Bible, but David’s sins resulted in the dysfunction of his own household; his most grievous sin was his affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. 

After David died, his son Solomon became king of Israel.  Solomon wrote most of the Proverbs, many scholars believe he also wrote Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes.  Solomon built the Temple which became the center of worship in Jerusalem.  However, Solomon’s life did not