The Context of Daniel 1: God Warns before He Judges

In today's episode, we explore the ways of God.  Moses shared how if you want to know God, don't just look at his actions but seek to understand his ways.  The Bible tells us that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  

We explore how when it comes to sin and rebellion, God is longsuffering, and he gives ample warnings before he judges.   Since he demonstrated patience for his own people, the Israelites, we can be assured that he'll do it for the world of today.  But the thing is, he won't wait forever.      

It's sad but the circumstances surrounding Daniel chapter 1--the Babylonian invasion, the temple being destroyed, the Israelites being taken captive into Babylon--DID NOT have to happen. 

The big question:  How did Judah and Jerusalem get to this place?  

How do Christians living in a humanistic society learn to embrace the righteous judgment of God?   

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to the Bible Mind Podcast, where we seek to have the mind of Christ and to see things from God's perspective.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hi everyone, Theophilus here. Today we're gonna look into Daniel chapter one. But um just know that there's a backstory to Daniel chapter one, and we're gonna go into that because as we look at the Bible, we want to read it in context. But before I start that, I just want you to know that there's a podcast episode before this one that explains my return, what has happened in my life since my last recorded podcast episode, which was back in September of 2022, and also the new format for the show. I plan on recording shorter episodes with a centralized idea and different ways of illustrating that idea from the Bible, of course, but also maybe from outside things because I like to make connections. But I just wanted you to know that there were some changes there because I know that my earlier episodes, they were long because I included a lot and I made lots of connections and I feel like I could be better focused and maintaining the thread of what I want to share. So I just wanted you to know that as well. And a big piece of these future episodes, starting with this one, will be an application piece because we are headed towards the end times if we're not already at the beginning stages of the end times, and we need to know how to live. We need to be encouraged and strengthened in our faith. So if you can catch the previous episode to this one, that would be great, and that would explain in more detail what I'm talking about. And now I'm gonna head into Daniel chapter one. Now, at the beginning of this chapter, the beginning of the book, we see that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has already conquered Jerusalem. He is now bringing people back to Babylon as captives, Daniel being one of them. And so I just wanted to start off with reading a couple of verses in Daniel chapter one, starting with verse one. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Yehoiakim, King of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his God in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his God. Now I just want to focus on a few things up at the top of the passage. Again, things in the Bible happen in context, so we can't just separate Daniel chapter one or the book of Daniel outside of the rest of the Bible. Because this invasion and conquering of Judah and Jerusalem was already prophesied by God many years back by the prophet Jeremiah. So if you read parts of the book of Jeremiah, then you'll find out that there was a reason that this took place. I mean, this is God's people. This is his special treasure, his special possession, and the temple of God is there. And of course, God wants to protect his own, he wants to protect the things that represent who he is, and yet he allowed all of this to come to pass, and there's a reason for that. And that is the main principle of what I wanted to share today. The central idea is that God warns people, warns nations before he judges them. That's what we see throughout the Bible, and that's what happened here with Judah and Jerusalem. And I just want to call them Israelites, okay? This is basically the nation of Israel, but one part of it, the ten tribes of Israel were already invaded, captured, and taken away and dispersed among the different people groups, so they're no longer. And not learning from what had happened to those ten tribes, Judah has now fallen into those same practices of being sinful, worshiping other gods, turning away from God, and now coming under God's judgment. If you think about it, Israel is a microcosm of the whole world because God's ways never change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. When we understand his ways more deeply, then we can know who God is more deeply. And that's something that I just want to emphasize again and again because God doesn't just judge people, nations, cities, it doesn't matter what scope it is indiscriminately. Because he just has a whim one day and he doesn't like the way that person spoke to him or something, now he's gonna judge. No, he doesn't do that. He gives them time to repent, he warns sufficiently because that's his way. He wants to warn people that certain things will take place if you do not change your course. And of course, God loves us unconditionally. Jesus already came to pay the price for sin, so we don't have to pay it ourselves. But there are those that despite all that God has given in the way of providing for salvation, they still deny and reject God, they still disobey God. That will become more prominent in the end times. So this is also an end times concept topic that people need to understand because there'll be a lot of judgment in the end times. I mean, just read Matthew 24, read the book of Revelation, judgment is coming. It's not because God is mean and he just can't accept people and he doesn't want to be inclusive. And I use these types of phrases, words, because these are the types of things that are being said in today's world. This is the language of the culture. God is not okay, let me say it this way: God loves everybody, he desires all to repent, but he will judge those that have not come under the umbrella of his saving grace because they have not accepted the lordship of Jesus Christ, they have not put their trust in Jesus Christ. For that reason, the wrath of God still remains on them. Okay, so there's just the general wrath of God, and Jesus paid the price, the complete price for that wrath on the cross. So we do not need to pay that. And I'm so grateful and thankful that we don't. But those that have not put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, they are still under the wrath of God, just in general. But then there's the increase of sin in the world, there's the cursing of God, going in the absolute opposite direction of what he desires for humanity, and that can only happen for so long before God brings judgment. That is the principle that we are focused on right now that God is a great judge, he is a just judge, so he will do what is right, but he also warns people before he judges them. He also warned Judah and Jerusalem before he judged them. And I want to go to that passage in Jeremiah 25 where God warns them through the prophet Jeremiah. So if you'll turn there with me, verse 1. This is especially significant because when we go to Daniel chapter 1, it starts off at the third year of Jehoiakim, here in Jeremiah 25. The word came to Jeremiah about the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Verse 2, so Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to all those living in Jerusalem, for twenty three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Ammon, king of Judah, until this very day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. And though the Lord has sent all his servants, the prophets, to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. Let's take note of what's really happening here. The thing is the book of Daniel didn't really have to happen. It's hard to believe that because the book of Daniel gives us so much. God showed Daniel so many wonderful things about his purposes, and we wouldn't have that if we didn't have the book of Daniel. But the circumstances of the book of Daniel didn't have to happen. The reason that they happen is because even though God had sent prophets to warn them, especially the prophet Jeremiah, they did not listen. Now, these warnings can come at various scopes. It could be personal, citywide, regional, national, and ultimately in the book of Revelation we see a global ramification. But let's kind of go back, we're gonna dial it down to the personal, okay? Because again, I shared that these podcasts are gonna be more relevant. Now, God may be dealing with you on different issues, he may be knocking on the door of your heart, he might be asking you to work on certain things. Okay, I'm not naive because in our modern day world, people have issues with sin, including Christians. And we've seen that all over the media where different Christian leaders have fallen. People have issues with sin, they have issues with hidden sin. God is long-suffering, he waits for a long time for people to repent, and really it's his kindness that leads us to repent. And so in God's patience, he is trying to be kind, but I'm sure he's also warned, and he's also shared certain things with those people because that is his nature. And maybe it's the same for you. Like maybe there is some sort of issue in your own life where there's sin, um, a besetting sin, uh a weakness that you have that you keep falling into. I understand that because I'm human and I have certain weaknesses, and every blue moon I might fall into it. And then I get right back up again and I start over. So these are the things that we deal with as human beings because we have a sin nature. Even though we're in the process of being sanctified, and God has already paid the price for all of our sins, past, present, and future, we still have a sin nature. And God might be knocking on the door of your heart, he might be trying to speak to you, and you well, let's just put it this way: depending on how you respond to that, his grace is sufficient. So he will give you grace if you're willing to say, Yes, Lord, this is true. I need your help, wanting to make changes in my life, and here are the different steps I'm gonna take, and I'm gonna repent. Here I am, I'm repenting, and I'm gonna do a 180. Okay, that's one thing versus ignoring, um, deflecting, minimizing the seriousness of maybe some of the things that you're dealing with. And you know, when we just keep on doing that over and over again, and I was more close to this one situation with a leader falling, and I just know that there were many times that he could have repented, but he didn't. He rejected those words, and even now, after a great fall, he still doesn't want to receive those words. So we can never minimize the seriousness of sin and how it could harden and deceive our hearts. So, personal warnings, we need to respond to them. Now, are we in judgment right now in America? Well, the markers of judgment in this past story that we're talking about are very, very clear, right? A king from another nation has invaded, conquered the people, now starting to take the people away captive. This is not what we're experiencing in America, but I think there are indicators of judgment already happening in America. And let's review some of those before we go on. One, our walls are broken down. I mean, we don't have like a physical wall, but there have been many people coming into our country that don't belong here. Um, they didn't come across legally, they have not been processed legally, so they are illegal. You know, there are ramifications to that, and I'm gonna be honest about that, you're right, because they're kind of a bred into our economy at different times. They're not really paying into the social security system. Many of them work under the table, and also there are bad actors, drug dealers, human traffickers, um, terrorist cells forming in America. All of these things are happening, so it's not an obvious thing, but we are being invaded. Our walls are broken down. Okay, so that's one indicator of judgment. We also have inflation that continues to grow. Now, in the book of Revelation, chapter six, five through six, one of the seals, the third one, talks about heavy inflation. And I'm gonna read part of it. When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come, I looked, and there before me was a black horse. Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures saying, Two pounds of wheat for a day's wage, or a day's wages, and six pounds of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine. We know that in the book of Revelation, these are the end time judgments, the seals start them off, and this outrageous inflation is a form of God's judgment. We are experiencing a certain amount of inflation, it is getting a little bit more difficult for people to pay their bills, pay for groceries, these type of things. And so we need to realize that that could be a form of God's judgment. Other indicators, many of our leaders are weak and compromised. I mean, so many of our politicians have been exposed in their sin, exposed as corrupt. It's basically the norm now, not the exception, which is very sad. Sin is celebrated, pushed, and promoted. You know, good is called evil, and evil is called good. We know that we're living in those times. Yeah, I do think there's a certain amount of judgment already in America, but we have yet to see the fullness of that judgment. And when that comes, I don't know what uh form it's gonna take, but uh it's not going to be pleasant. You know, God does judge and he waits for a long time, just as we saw in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was preaching to the people, he was warning the people already for 23 years by that time. Second Peter 2, 4 through 6, this verse contains other situations where God did not hold back on his judgment, even though these people that he judged were very important to him, very special to him, people that he cared about, people that he wanted to reach out to, people that he wanted for them to repent. For if God did not spare angels when they sin, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness and seven others, if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly, and then it goes on. But let's look at these three examples because they're gonna illustrate my point here, okay? Now, these angels they rebelled against God, even though they saw his glory, but God did not spare them, okay? When they rebelled against God, God judged them. God is trying to make a point here. We cannot take his kindness and his goodness and his love for granted. God is still a righteous judge. Even though he loved these angels, he didn't want them to rebel, they did. They sinned, and he did not reserve his judgment, he did not hold back. Then there is Noah. It says that he's a preacher of righteousness. What does that mean? Okay, well, for a hundred or so years, he continued to try to reach out to people, he told them about the flood that was coming, he warned people of the judgment of God. And if you go to Genesis 6, you'll read about all that sin. I mean, it says that the thoughts in people's hearts were wicked continually. And God was so disturbed by this, he was so in anguish about this that he regretted even making man. It was that bad during Noah's day. And we're headed towards that direction in our society, in the Western world and other places in the world, you know, because people don't care anymore. They don't have any moral compass, they don't have any moral grounding or bearing any longer. And people are just doing all kinds of things. And God did not spare the ancient world, but he sent a flood to destroy them, and only eight people were saved. That's really sad, okay? Because after the rain started falling, flood waters started rising, people were like, Noah was right. God, even though he's angry, even though he um has reached his limit, his pattern is still warning people because he is a God of love, because perhaps somebody might repent. Perhaps somebody might come to their senses. And then there's Sodom and Gomorrah. And most people know what was up with Sodom and Gomorrah, because God sent two angels into the town. Lot was already living there, you know. Um, he sent them there to check out what was going on, if the reports that he had heard about Sodom and Gomorrah were really all that bad. Well, guess what? They were bad and probably worse than what um he heard. Because when the two angels came into town, I mean, the men were like so I mean, I can't even describe it, but they were like, we want these two men. They went to Lot's house, they started banging on the door, send out the men so we can quote unquote know them sexually. I mean, this is how bad it had gotten in Sodom and Gomorrah. We live in a culture right now that accepts homosexuality as just an alternate lifestyle. And love is love, and all of these different slogans that people say. And people who are going to church and they are gay affirming, they might bring out these passages and say, Oh, well, uh, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah, their sin was a lack of hospitality. Well, I'll say that too. Yeah, I mean, they weren't being hospitable. Instead of making a meal for them, they wanted to rape them. That was like the plain truth of the matter. And God did not spare judging them. Okay, he barely got Lot and his family out. You see the consequences of that sin in their lives because Lot's wife, she turned back towards the city, and it's not just a gosh, you know, I haven't seen a rager this big in a long time, you know, the city's all burning and everything. No, there's something about her that longed for that city or that wanted to go back there. And God recognized that. In a sense, that's why she turned into a pillar of salt. Then the two daughters, they lived in a city where men wanted men instead of women, and they thought, well, there aren't any men around us so that we could procreate, we can have a family with, we can marry. So they had sex with their father because they thought that was the only way that they were gonna have any children. I mean, this is all messed up, okay? This is messed up, and I hate to bring that out on like the first teaching that I share with you guys about, you know, my return and all this stuff, but this is what was going on in the Bible. And the great thing about the Bible is it doesn't whitewash these events and these characters because God really wants you to see the depravity of human nature and sin and what he had to do in response to it. God does not want to hurt people, God does not want people to go to hell, he does not want them to live in sin because sin destroys. Sin doesn't only hurt yourself, destroy yourself, but it destroys others. It can destroy your city, it can destroy your nation if enough collected people engage in those sins and they call um evil good. This is what we're dealing with even in today's world. And I just want to emphasize what God has said here. He gives the people in Jeremiah's time in chapter twenty five directive. Verses six and seven, he says, Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them. Do not arouse my anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you. Verse 7. But you did not listen to me, declares the Lord, and you have aroused my anger with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves. This whole idea of judgment, it's kind of that dual category, like God is harming them in a sense because he's bringing judgment, but they harmed themselves because they brought it on to themselves, because they did not listen to what God had told them. They did not obey, instead, they disobeyed and rebelled. He goes on to say, in verse 8, Therefore the Lord Almighty says this, because you have not listened to my words, verse 9, I will summon all the peoples of the north, and my servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, declares the Lord, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn and an everlasting ruin. And it goes on. So we see right there it's a prophetic declaration of what will happen. And by the time of the book of Daniel, it has happened to whatever measure. I mean, there was kind of different phases or waves, but the book of Daniel does not exist in a vacuum. It happened because there were many decades of people not listening to God, not turning from their sin, not repenting. Well, our country of America, um, we do have preachers of righteousness. Yes, there have been a lot of moral failures in different pastors and teachers and prominent Christian leaders. That's true. But there have been preachers of righteousness preaching the gospel, preaching repentance, highlighting the different things that are happening in our nation that we need to turn. As far as judgment, this is real. Everybody listening to me right now, this is real. Okay. The world wants to say that God does not exist, or if he did, he's a loving God and he would not send anybody to hell. He would not judge people because a loving God would not do that. The Bible does not support that statement. He is a loving God, but he is also a God of justice and he will judge. He judged the angels, he did not spare them. He judged his own people, his own nation, where the temple of God stood, where people worshiped him, and it represented who he was, but he still judged them. He did not spare them. He says that when Jesus comes back, he's going to judge the world. I think that's my central point right now. I just wanted to share how God will come and bring judgment, but it's his nature to warn people prior to that judgment coming. Okay, he wants to give every conceivable chance to those who are listening. Please turn. Please repent. Please stop the worshiping of false gods. Stop your chronic sin that you won't even try to deal with. You won't even try to fight. You won't even try to give up. But you just live that way because you think, well, God's grace covers it. God is only gonna wait for so long. He is extremely long-suffering, he is extremely gracious, but his lack of action does not mean that he's not gonna bring judgment. And so we as friends of God, we need to believe that. The action steps for today, I feel, are one, if God has been knocking on the door of your heart about a certain issue in your life, please open the door. Respond to him, invite him in, have a discussion with him about that issue. Talk in depth, talk at length, talk about your feelings, talk about why you think you need this because your flesh is weak or whatever, and you know, God, I've tried so hard. And all of these things, have a conversation with him. But when he comes knocking on the door, don't just put a do not disturb sign out and lock the door. He keeps on knocking, he keeps on knocking, he keeps on knocking. The scary part about it, someday he's gonna stop knocking and you're gonna go, where is he? He's gonna be like, I've tried, I've tried so many times. I've reached out to you so many times about this. It may not be hell, I hope not. I hope like you still have your salvation, you still like realize what needs to be done, you wake up and you do something differently. I hope so. But it could be the destruction of your family, it could be the destruction of your body, it could be the destruction of God's purposes in your life. So, number one is if God is knocking on the door of your heart, please respond. Number two, recognize that a certain amount of judgment has probably already come to America. We need to personally repent, we need to personally contend for our nation's righteousness. If my people who are called by my name, they pray, I will come and heal their land. That's what the word says. So we can do that. And I would also add one other personal application is just come to the point where you are not in your mindset, you are not buying into the humanism of this world. Because humanism is basically saying that human beings are naturally good and they will find a solution to their problems, and we can build this utopia together. That's kind of the one world religion, that's the one world government that's upcoming, you know. If we work together, then we won't have any wars, you know, we won't be fighting each other. We can build a utopia. No, you can't. You can't without Jesus because human nature is sinful at its core. Okay? Read the book of Revelation. When you see the book of Revelation, you see all the different times that God has tried to share the gospel with different people on the earth through messengers, even an angel flying in the sky, sharing the eternal gospel. People, not everybody, because there will be those who repent, but there are many people who will shake their fist at God and they will be so angry with them. They know it's God who's preaching the gospel to them. God was preaching through Jeremiah a warning to the people to repent. So we need to have it in our minds that God will bring judgment, that God is righteous to bring it. All your ways are true and right. You know, that's what they're gonna say in the book of Revelation. After it's all said and done, you know, his people, all your ways are true and righteous. And that's where we need to come to in our hearts. Because if we ingest that, hey, judging is wrong and God would never do that because he's a loving God. And when the judgment comes, we're gonna be offended at God, even though that's what the Bible has clearly said. You see, example after example, Old Testament, New Testament, after he has spent so much time trying to warn people, trying to make clear, hey, this is this is coming if something doesn't change here. We need to commit in our minds that we honor God as the righteous judge. Let's pray, and this will be the end of today's message, and I hope you take the applications to heart. God, I just thank you so much that you have shared clearly in your word what you're going to do in whatever circumstances. You have made it very clear. In case we didn't catch it the first time, I mean there are repeated situations where you acted in the same way because you are declaring your ways in your word. In order to know you, we need to understand your ways. We need to not speak false things about who you are. Yes, you are a hundred percent loving. You demonstrated that when you sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, but you are a righteous judge. And Jesus had to die on the cross for our sins because you are a righteous judge. We are eternally grateful for everything that you've done for us. Help us to recognize that people don't have to have that same faith. They don't have to be under the wrath of God, they don't have to endure the judgments of God upcoming if they can see the truth now and if they can repent. So we thank you, God, for making everything clear up front. You know, there are no surprises here. We just thank you for your goodness, your truth, your mercy, and is merciful to tell us the truth ahead of time so that we can know everything that you expect of us. Help us to turn into a right direction, to commit our lives to you. In Jesus' name. Amen.