God is Sovereign in the Tragedy of Exile (Daniel 1:1-21)

"But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine..." (Daniel 1:8)

Questions to ponder: Imagine being alone and scared, exiled from home to a foreign city, a long way from the familiar. How would you cope in a hostile setting? What truths do you cling to? Would you remain faithful to your former identity or be assimilated into your new surroundings?

Another question: Is Daniel about how we should deny ourselves like Daniel (Dan 1:8), or about One greater than Daniel who made the ultimate sacrifice and denied himself for us?

What is Daniel about? It is about enduring faith through trials and adversity. It is to believe God who is sovereign, and to be faithful to Him in the midst of trials and adversities like Daniel and his friends. Otherwise, trials and adversities are a nightmare. In God, they are His grace to us. Sinclair Ferguson says, “All too frequently we tend... to see our trials and temptations... as isolated nightmares. God, however, sees them from a different perspective. They are important and connected punctuation marks in the biography of grace He is writing in our lives. They give formation, direction, and character to our lives. They are all part of the tapestry He is weaving in history. He uses them to build up our strength and to prepare us to surmount greater obstacles, perhaps fiercer temptations.”

Daniel is is both familiar and unfamiliar to most Christians. We teach/encourage Christians to “Dare to be a Daniel,” and live for Christ in a hostile world. This is biblical: they provide models and examples for believers living in an alien world as to how they can both serve the culture, and at the same time live lives distinct from that culture. They encourage believers to remain faithful, no matter what the cost. Yet the reality is that few of us can really claim to come close to the standard set for us by Daniel and his friends: we are all compromised in so many ways, even after being Christians for decades. Therefore, it is important to be reminded of the one greater than Daniel who has perfectly lived the exilic life of service and separation for us, Jesus Christ.

As encouraging as they were, Daniel is not about his bold decision (Dan 1:8), or the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace (Dan 3:16-18), or the daunting apocalyptic passages in the latter chapters that often lead to a variety of end time speculations. Rather, the centerpiece of these visions is the exalted heavenly Son of Man who took upon flesh in the person of Christ. Daniel helps us to see how the gospel of Jesus Christ is at the heart of the book. Also, the theme and the main thing is: The Lord God is the sovereign Lord and He will bring about all His holy will in His own time, no matter how bleak the present circumstances appear to be.

Are you in exile? Like Daniel, it is still true that Christians are exiles on earth. As citizens of heaven, we live as aliens and strangers in a land that is not our own (1 Pet 1:1). At times the world’s enmity/hostility is felt. We feel squeezed/pressured into its mold, to make us conform to its values and standards in school, at work, in the way we dress, the language we use. We are expected to laugh at certain jokes. We gossip about others. If we want to be promoted in business, we are pressured to leave our values and religious beliefs, assimilate to the business community, value the things the surrounding culture values, pursue passionately its glittering prizes, and live in obedience to its idols. We have to choose daily whether to be part of this world in which we live, or to take the difficult path of standing against it (1 Jn 2:15-17; Rom 12:2).

Dan 1:1-21 may be divided into:

1. God's Judgment (Dan 1:1-2).
2. God's Providence (Dan 1:3-16).
3. God's Faithfulness/Grace (Dan 1:17-21).
   

I. God's Judgment (Dan 1:1-2)

To "live in exile" we need God's help and God's faithfulness. Interestingly, in Dan 1:1-2 God expressed his faithfulness in his judgment by exiling Judah to Babylon in late 700 B.C. How? "...the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into (Nebuchadnezzer's) hand" (Dan 1:2).God gave his people into the hand of their enemies. Why?

1. They broke their covenant with God. In Lev 26:3-13, God promised his favor and blessing when they kept God's covenant, but if they violated God's covenant, they would experience his wrath and disfavor (Lev 26:14-39): their crops would be ruined (Lev 26:20), God would multiply their afflictions and afflict them for their sins 7 times over (Lev 26:21,24), scatter them among the nations where they will waste away (Lev 26:33,39). This was exactly what happened when they went into Babylonian exile.
2. It was the specific fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah in 2 Kings 20:18. King Hezekiah of Judah had received envoys and a gift from Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon. In response, Hezekiah showed them all of his treasures (2 Ki 20:13), for which Isaiah prophesied against him specifically and severely (2 Ki 20:14-18). The Babylonians would one day carry off everything in his palace (2 Ki 20:17), and some of his own offspring being taken off would become eunuchs in the palace of the Babylonian king (2 Ki 20:18). Why was God so upset? Because Hezekiah was seeking an alliance with Babylon to be a useful ally against Assyria. Politics replaced trust in the Lord. Do we adopt the world's methods of getting ahead instead of simply trusting in God (Prov 3:5)?
   

II. God's Providence (Dan 1:3-16)

God's judgment does not mean God's abandonment. This important point is repeatedly shown through out the Bible. Though God judged his people very severely through exile, he would never abandon them. One day God would open the way for their return (Ezra 1:1-7).

God is always in control. This tells us that though life often seems to be out of control, God is never out of control. Though men say and do things that adversely/unfairly affects/wounds us, every detail of life lies under the control of our sovereign God. No sparrow dies without God's permission (Matt 10:29). Even the most trivial of events are within his sovereign rule. At the other extreme, the most wicked act of all time, the crucifixion of Christ, was also decided and predestined by God before hand (Acts 4:28). No sin of ours/others ever catches God by surprise or thwarts his sovereign will (Gen 50:20). For Christians, every single circumstance is the Lord's means of furthering his sanctifying goals. God NEVER abandons or forgets us, but will preserve us through even the most fiery of trials by his grace (1 Pet 1:5-9).

The world's strategy of spiritual reprogramming. Thus, in the will of God, Daniel and his 3 friends found themselves exiled in Babylon, and chosen by the king for special consideration, reeducation, favor and privilege (Dan 1:3-7). The 4 of them were perhaps teenagers at the time. What happened to them?

1. Their names were changed from Yahwistic names to Babylonian names which invoked their gods, Marduk, Bel and Bebo, rather than Israel's Lord (Dan 1:6), for:
• Daniel means "God is my judge."
• Hananiah means "the Lord is gracious."
• Mishael means "Who is what God is?"
• Azariah means "The Lord is a helper."
2. They were instructed in the language and literature of the Babylonians, so that its myths and legends would take the place of the Scriptures as the source of their wisdom and worldview (Dan 1:4).
3. They were to be royally supplied from the king's table, with a daily allowance of food and wine, which would lead them to become accustomed to a life of dependence on their new master (Dan 1:5a). After 3 years, with their previous identity fully obliterated, they would enter the service of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 1:5b).
   

Satan's reprogramming. Worldly reprogramming consists of threat and promise (the recalcitrant banished), enforcement and encouragement (the majority assimilated), since more flies are caught with honey than with vinegar. The fundamental goal was to obliterate all memory of Israel's God from their lips and minds and instill in them a sense of dependence on Babylon for the good things in life. Likewise, Satan violently persecutes Christians in some parts of the world, while seducing the rest to forget about God and seek blessings from somewhere else. He controls the educational process, changes the worldview of our children, instills in them a dependence on material comforts and pleasures of the world/flesh, to draw us away from God.

How did the 4 young men deal with this? They had to maintain their dual identities as citizens of 2 kingdoms. Likely, they did not outwardly resist the Babylonian system, or refuse to work for them. They recognized God's hand in their situation. They understood through Jeremiah that they should actively labor for the common good of the community and for the blessing of Babylon (Jer 29:4-7). They did their best to work within the system, and were good citizens of Babylon as well as of heaven. We learn here that our calling is not to form Christian ghettoes that are isolated from the world around us.

Though the 4 young men served the Babylonian community, they accepted the will of God for their lives, and inwardly resisted the assimilation process of the Babylonian empire.

1. They resisted the pagan Babylonian program. They answered to their Babylonian names. Yet they maintained their Jewish names/identities as well. They preserved biblical knowledge and perspectives in the midst of a thoroughly pagan educational system. Daniel did not become Belteshazzar, though he answered to that name, nor did Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah become Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They preserved their Hebrew names amongst themselves as a marker of who they really were (Dan 1:11,19;2:17). They lived with dual names as a reminder of their dual identities, and of their God. Likewise, as citizens of heaven, we should celebrate our heavenly citizenship, gather with our fellow exiles, remind one another of our "true home" (2 Pet 3:13), and fix our eyes on the heavenly realities that truly define who we are. We do not gather to be taught how to be better spouses, parents, children, employees, etc. Rather, if our heavenly identity is strong, it will transform our marriages, parenting, work relationships (Eph 5:22-6:9). Whether we home school our kids or send them to secular schools, we pray for them not to outwardly conform to Christian morality but to live in true countercultural Christian identity as citizens of heaven on earth. They need to know and understand the contemporary "language and literature of the Babylonians" and be armed with discernment into its follies and flaws.
2. They stayed dependent on God: They resolved not to eat the food from the kings' table nor to drink his wine (Dan 1:8-16). There was nothing intrinsically evil about the Babylonian food and drink (Dan 10:3). But they instead choose to eat only things that grow naturally--grains and vegetables--and to drink only naturally occurring water (Dan 1:12). This suggests that their decision was to be constantly reminded of their dependence upon their Creator God for their food, not dependence on King Nebuchadnezzar, which was the sin of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:17).
   

What can we build into our daily routine that provide constant reminders of our dependence on God?

• Give thanks for our food at each meal.
• Keep a daily record of the Lord's gifts to us, from the trivial to the profound.
• Practice fasting--deliberately choose to abstain from some of the legitimate pleasures and satisfactions in the world.
• Omit a meal to devote time to pray.

Daniel and his friends sought to maintain faithfulness to God by working within the Babylonian system, not against it. They sought permission from the chief official for their personalized diet plan (Dan 1:8). When the official feared potential consequences of bucking the system (Dan 1:10), Daniel asked the guard who looked after them and proposed a 10-day test (Dan 1:11-14). At the end of the trial period, Daniel and his friends looked fitter, healthier, better than those who indulged in a high-calorie lifestyle (Dan 1:15).

III. God's Grace (Dan 1:17-21)

God's faithfulness. The focus on this chapter is not simply the faithfulness of these 4 young men to their God, but it is on God's faithfulness to them. God caused them to find mercy (rahamim) in the eyes of their captors (Dan 1:9; 1 Ki 8:50). Also, the outcome of their 10 day dietary test was not what ordinarily would have been expected, but was a mark of God being with them. God also gave all 4 of them exceptional knowledge and understanding of Babylonian literature and learning and gave Daniel the unique ability to discern visions and dreams of all kinds (Dan 1:17-21). God's favor upon them enabled them to answer all of Nebuchadnezzar's questions, so that he found them 10 times better than all of his other advisors (Dan 1:20). God placed them in a unique position where they could be a blessing to their captors and build up the society in which they found themselves, while at the same time enabling them to remain true to God in the midst of extraordinary pressures.

Only God can... If we stress the resolve and decisions of Daniel and his 3 friends, we might miss the remarkable work of God's faithfulness to them, and thus miss the comfort and encouragement, which only God can provide. If God is able to keep these young men faithful to him in their situation, then he is surely able to keep us faithful to him in our much lesser trails and difficulties. No matter how overwhelming our situation may seem, God is able to keep us through it. It is his work from beginning to end, and he will do it.

God's faithfulness sustained Daniel through out his life. This theme of the faithfulness of God emerges again in the brief note that closes this chapter: "And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus" (Dan 1:21). That year was the year in which the decree was issued that enabled the Jews to return home (2 Chron 36:22-23), 70 years after the time Daniel and his friends were taken into exile. God faithfulness proved sufficient from Daniel throughout the entire time of the exile. Babylonian kings came and went, until the Babylonians themselves were replaced as the ruler world power by the Medo-Persians in the person of Cyrus. Yet God sustained his faithful servant throughout the whole time. In the same way, God is able to preserve us throughout the trials and tribulations that we face, no matter how intense they may be or how long they may last. When the world does its worst, God's grace and faithfulness is enough.

Do not try to "Be like Daniel." Most of us are NOT like Daniel and his 3 friends. Those who think they are may come across as self-righteous Pharisees or self-proclaimed elitist Christians. Thus, if the message of Daniel is simply "Be like Daniel and all will be well," then studying Daniel may not be beneficial to us as Christians. The more we get to know Daniel, the more we come to realize that we are NOT Daniels.

The gospel: Jesus is the true and ultimate Daniel. The good news of the gospel, is not simply that God is faithful to those who are faithful to him. It is that a Savior has come to deliver faithless and compromised Christians like us. Our salvation rests not on our ability to be like Daniel and remain undefiled by the world, but rather on the pure and undefiled offering that Jesus has provided in our place. Jesus came voluntarily into this world, with all of its pains and trials. He endured far greater temptations and sufferings than Daniel did, or than we ever will (Heb 4:15). Yet he remained entirely faithful and pure until the very end, without spot or blemish, and grants the perfection of his obedience to all those who trust in him by faith (1 Pet 1:19). What is more, Jesus has already returned from his time of exile and now sits at the Father's right hand in heaven. He has prepared our places there, and his presence there already is the guarantee that 1 day we will be with him there as his people. The cross is the means by which God's faithfulness redeems the unfaithful; the resurrection and ascension are the surety of our inheritance in heaven.

Fix our eyes on Jesus crucified, raised and exalted. He has not only pioneered the route home; he is the route home. Trust in him and ask him to work in you a true faithfulness. Be constantly dependent upon God's sanctifying work, looking to him to keep you faithful, not to your best efforts to "Be a Daniel." Finally, long for the day when his heavenly kingdom will invade this earth and bring the fullness of your inheritance.

References:

"When The World Does Its Worst" (Daniel 1:1-21), Iain M Duguid, Daniel, Reformed Expository Commentary, 2008.
"Take Time To Be Holy" (Daniel 1), Ligon Duncan.