Ben Lacey
October 13, 2024
TRBC
605 Judah was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar.
How? Because the gave them into his hand.
God gave them into the hand of Babylon. vs.2
1. Resting God’s providence
God will sustain them even though He gave them up.
* Resting God’s providence - Undefined while exiled. We are where we are because he has ordained so.
We will not always understand why He has ordained our circumstances we must trust him.
Rest in God’s providence.
2. Recognize the world’s strategy.
The wisdom of the world is not God’s wisdom. The king allowed the best of all things and high ranking positions. Best education, best food and the best of all things. Nebuchadnezzar tried to convince them that their God failed. Embrace this new of living. It’s exactly what the serpent in the garden promised. The world offers us everything and whatever our heart desires if we accept its ways. It’s not liberty but it’s a lie. This world is always seeking subtlety to disciple us and away from God.
What more power? Follow the world’s ways.
We were made to have joy and satisfaction. Yet the only way is through Christ alone.
“We begin to think like who we are with.”
Don’t be naive about the world’s strategy for what it is.
3. Let’s be resolved to be distinct while displaced.
How Daniel show his resolve?
Did he protest? Was he outraged?
No! He simply asked a question. It was of quiet resolve. He trusted God.
Blessed are the meek.
Daniel feared God more than Nebuchadnezzar.
So God gave them favor before the eunuch and Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, vulnerable and weak trusted God. God was with them.
The Church overcomes Hell by becoming more like its God not by the world and its ways.
Daniel stands before Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar thought his ways: food and education, the system, would make them faithful to him. Yet, they became more faithful to God.
The verse 21 “flex”
Daniel 1:21
“And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.”
God rules the world eternally. He alone gets us through the world.