Scripture: Daniel 1:1-21
We all know and love the song that goes something like this:
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mama
Take me home, country roads
“Take me home, country roads.”
Question: Where exactly is home for the singer? We always thought it was West Virginia. The first line of the song is “Almost heaven, West Virginia.” When you drive through the state of West Virginia, you’ll occasionally see that slogan: “Almost heaven.” But then some people from the state of Virginia—who wish John Denver had been singing such a beautiful song about their state—became jealous. And they began noticing that, actually, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River, both of which are referred to in the song, were not in West Virginia at all… They are in Virginia.
Therefore, these revisionists argue, when John Denver sang “West Virginia,” he didn’t mean the state… He really meant “west Virginia” as in “western Virginia.”
Are they right? I seriously doubt it, and it’s beside the point anyway…
What’s clear is, the singer is now far from home. He’s feeling homesick. Where he is now is not at all like home. So he longs for these country roads to take him there—even if, in his case, he’s confused about whether his home is in West Virginia or western Virginia.
Well, the prophet Daniel is likewise far from home. He’s feeling homesick. Where he is now is not at all like home. And he longs for country roads to take him there… back to his home in Judah, and Jerusalem.
See verse 1: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.” Jerhoiakim was the first of the final three unfaithful kings of Judah, who served before this very Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, finally destroyed Judah for good… about 20 years after the events of Daniel 1. But Daniel, along with Ezekiel, whom we discussed last week, was part of that first wave of Israelites taken into exile in Babylon. There would be many more to come.
There’s a great psalm about Israelites going into exile in Babylon and longing to go home—it’s a masterpiece of ancient literature, Psalm 137. In it, the psalmist laments that—although he’s a musician—he’s setting aside his musical instruments… forever. After all, he asks, in Psalm 137:4, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
Great question! Especially considering that we Christians, no matter where we live or how much we love our native country, are also exiles… foreigners… For example, the apostle Peter, writing in 1 Peter 1:1, says that he’s writing to “To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia…”1 Peter is comparing us Christians to people like Daniel; because he believes we can learn a lot from Daniel’s experience and the experience of other exiles in Babylon. Because Peter understands that like these Jewish exiles living in Babylon, this world, for us Christians, is not our home… And it won’t be until God remakes the world on the other side of the Second Coming and future resurrection.
So… “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Daniel’s life shows us at least one faithful way of answering that question!
And I’m going to show us that answer by making three points… Point Number One: Exiles like us remember God’s sovereign control over our lives and world. Point Number Two: Exiles like us demonstrate and show evidence of holiness… personal holiness. And Point Number Three: Exiles like us serve as an example to non-believers…
But the first and most important principle to remember, for exiles like us, is this: No matter how bad things look, God is still in control of everything.
We see this, for example, in verse 2. It says, “And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into [Nebuchadnezzar’s] hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.” The author is describing something shocking here. These “vessels of the house of God” refer to those sacred utensils, and pots, and pans that priests at the Temple in Jerusalem used when they were performing some of the most sacred acts of worship in the life of ancient Israel—offering sacrifices to the one true God.
And, yes, these things were made of gold and silver, so they had monetary value, but what Nebuchadnezzar was doing here also had deep symbolic significance: He is storing these sacred objects in the temple of one of Babylon’s gods or idols—as a way of mocking Yahweh, the God of Israel! As a way of saying, “Babylon’s gods are more powerful than Israel’s God, and the fact that I’ve captured some of Israel’s holiest objects is proof!”
But get this: As shocking as it is that these sacred vessels of Israel were put into an idol temple, even that, the author of Daniel wants us to know, even that blasphemous event was under the sovereign control of almighty God.
And of course, Daniel knew this very well. Because he listened to the many prophets who came before him, including Isaiah and Jeremiah, who foretold that these terrible events would unfold in the way that they unfolded—that God would use Babylon to punish and discipline Israel for their great unfaithfulness to God…
But what even Daniel couldn’t see as clearly as we see—on this side of Good Friday and Easter Sunday—is this: that ultimately, even the exile of God’s people would help the cause of Christ in the world… Israel’s exile would prepare the soil for sowing the seeds of God’s kingdom in this world!
For instance… Here’s one way that the exile of faithful Jews in Babylon would play an important role in the spreading of the gospel. And this insight comes by way of Pastor April, by the way: Daniel served kings of Babylon and Persia for 70 years—the rest of his life was spent in exile. Country roads never took him home again! He never returned to Judah. Yet because of his education, his training, his supernaturally gifted wisdom and knowledge, his supernaturally gifted ability to interpret dreams… his position as a great teacher in Babylon… he had great influence over the most powerful, the best educated, the most elite members of Babylonian and, later, Persian society.
And from Daniel—and others, but certainly from Daniel, first and foremost—the pagans living in Babylon and Persia would have learned about the one true God… the God of Israel… and they would have learned about this God’s love for the world, and his desire to save even pagan people from their sins… and how that plan would be put into effect through a Messiah. They would have heard, from Numbers, chapter 24:17, for instance, that the birth of this Messiah would be accompanied by a star… a star that some astrologers—stargazing in the same region of the world where Daniel lived—would be looking for about 600 years later.
The magi were at least one small part of God’s plan for these Jewish exiles in Babylon. Indeed, you know how, in the Book of Acts, Paul and Barnabas—or, later, Paul and Silas—whenever they came into a new Gentile town in the Roman Empire, would always start their evangelism efforts in the local synagogue? The synagogue would be their home base before they started a church.
Why were synagogues in those Gentile towns in the first place?
Only because of the events described in verses 1 and 2 of today’s scripture! Because Jews had to leave… Many were forcibly resettled in Babylon. Many others escaped to other places. The result is that many Gentile regions had at least small Jewish populations that built synagogues—and Gentiles themselves would often learn about the God that these faithful Jews worshiped.
So 600 years later, when Paul and his missionaries were spreading the gospel among Gentiles, they weren’t necessarily starting from Ground Zero. Because of the presence of these Jewish communities outside of Israel, many Gentiles that Paul encountered were already worshiping the God of Israel… and were already awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Think, for instance, of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8… Or Cornelius in Acts chapter 10… Or Lydia in Acts chapter 16… all of whom were receptive to the gospel, in part because of God’s plan to allow the otherwise terrible, blasphemous events described in the first two verses of Daniel chapter 1.
So Daniel knew that as bad as things appeared, God was working his plan in and through Daniel’s life, the lives of his three friends, and the lives of other faithful Jews living in exile in Babylon.
And the New Testament says—and shows—in so many places, that God is always doing the same for us Christians.
And that’s Point Number One… God really is in control, even in the midst of seemingly hopeless circumstances.
Point Number Two… Exiles demonstrate and show evidence of personal holiness…
At a conference I attended last month, a Wesleyan scholar complained that we modern Christians often divorce holiness from “salvation.” Salvation, according to many Christians, means having all of our sins forgiven so we can go to heaven when we die or the Second Coming happens. So what happens in between isn’t all that important. Going to heaven when we die is the main point of Christianity… The main point is that event, which happened often in the distant past: Like… I walked down the aisle and prayed a sinner’s prayer; I stood up in front of a church and got confirmed, I made a profession of faith, I got baptized. “So I’m good!”
But no… That’s a terrible false teaching, this scholar said. In addition to glorifying God, the main point—as John and Charles Wesley rightly understood… the main point of the Christian life includes holiness— God wants to make us holy. Indeed, we glorify God through holiness. Holiness is not some optional extra feature of being a Christian—“It’s good for some people… Pope Francis, Billy Graham, Mother Teresa… They’re holy… But I can take it or leave it.”
But no… Holiness a requirement. God commands it. The author of Hebrews says to strive for this holiness, “without which no one will see the Lord.” 2
To be sure, there’s a sense in which, the moment we receive Christ, we receive the gift of his righteousness. The theological word for this is imputation. There’s a sense in which all believers are made holy from the moment they receive Christ. That’s why, for instance, the criminal on the cross next to Jesus—in the last moments of his life—is able to be with Christ in Paradise “today.” Even though he lived a wicked life and only at the last moment was saved. Did he have any personal “holiness” to show for himself? Any righteous deeds? Any good works, without which, James says, our faith is dead?
No he did not… But his faith in Christ was genuine. And if this criminal were able to be taken down off the cross, and recover from his injuries, and not die of infection—big if’s—and if he were able to live out the rest of his natural life, he would have had personal holiness, righteous acts, good deeds, to show for himself. Otherwise, as the New Testament says in James 2:26 and other places, he would prove that his faith was counterfeit.
The New Testament says repeatedly—including even the apostle Paul, who often emphasizes justification by faith alone… The New Testament emphasizes that Christians will face Christ in final judgment, alongside non-Christians… Jesus himself says this, for instance, in Matthew 16:27, “For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.”
Or Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
Or John in Revelation 20:12: “Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
You get the point…
I’m not sharing this to make any of us uncomfortable, but I know there is some really sloppy, misguided teaching all around us that says that basically we’re going to appear before Jesus in Final Judgment and say, “Lord, you know I’m good… because remember what happened back when I was 14 years old—fifty years ago… Remember that preacher said that because I prayed this prayer or said these words or got baptized or walked down an aisle or raised my hand—‘with every head bowed and every eye closed’—or whatever… He said that because I did that, I’m saved. Remember?”
By all means, we are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone—and it’s not something we muster on our own. But if the Holy Spirit isn’t also working within us to change us… which means, yes, making us holy… which will be demonstrated by our good works… which will necessarily involve effort on our part… then we will not be saved!
This is why the apostle Paul says, at the end of 2 Corinthians, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves…” 3 This examination, this test, is this: Does our life show evidence of personal holiness.
The reason the Methodist movement started in the first place isn’t because any of John Wesley’s ideas were new or innovative… He wasn’t offering anything original that Christian teachers hadn’t been saying for 1700 years… But he was looking around at his fellow Christians in 18th-century England, comparing their lives to what scripture taught, and saying, “Where is the holiness? Literally, in England, nearly everyone at that time was baptized into the Church of England. There were some Catholics and Puritans, but still… Nearly everyone would say that they were Christians… And yet Wesley would look around and wonder where the evidence was? Why are so many Christians showing so little evidence of holiness?”
Is Toccoa, Georgia, so different?
How desperately “exiles like us” need to hear once again this historic biblical and Wesleyan emphasis on holiness! And what does holiness look like living in a land that doesn’t know God… or is even hostile to God?
Holiness looks a lot like Daniel. Holiness means, in part, drawing lines, which we are unwilling to cross.
Daniel drew a line. While he was perfectly okay accepting a full-ride scholarship to Babylon’s finest university, and he was perfectly fine learning Babylonian language and being immersed in Babylonian culture, and he was perfectly fine teaching these things to others, and he was perfectly fine even having his named changed to a name that honors a Babylonian deity—it doesn’t change who is inside, after all—he drew a line at food and drink: Verse 8: “But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank.”
As a faithful follower of God, Daniel was unwilling to cross that line!
Of course, later on in chapter 6, we read about a more famous episode in Daniel’s life in which he once again drew a line… about praying only to God and not to any false god… And because he drew that line he got thrown into the lion’s den.
When I was a kid, one of my best friends, Wes Drake, and his older brother, Tim… they were members of an “independent Baptist” church—a church for whom regular Southern Baptists like me weren’t quite “Baptist” enough. They literally didn’t own a television set. And they couldn’t go to movies, either. They had no screens in their lives, whatsoever. So the highlight of their lives was spending hours in front of theTV at my house watching The Dukes of Hazzard—that was our favorite. But they were so deprived of television that any old dumb show would fit the bill!
But the Drake family drew a line: No TV!
And as someone who watched far too much TV when I was a kid, I can see the benefits of not watching any. But that’s not a line that I would choose to draw.
But here’s the thing… as Paul himself points out in Romans 14… If I believed that the Lord commanded me, “Don’t watch television,” and I did it anyway…? Paul says that would itself be a sin. The principle is laid out in Romans 14:23: “everything that does not come from faith is sin.” 4
We may disagree, Paul says, with brothers and sisters in Christ who draw lines—related to secondary issues—that we ourselves wouldn’t draw—as long as we do so with love, compassion, and sympathy. As long as we don’t judge them and feel superior.
While the Drakes drew lines that I wouldn’t draw, they also were a family that clearly loved Jesus and often witnessed powerfully to their faith in Christ.
Regardless… their lives were distinctly different as a result of following Jesus. And I admired that, even then… The life of my family growing up was not distinctly different. We simply wanted to blend in and be like everyone else.
The Drakes refused, and they were brave enough to draw lines.
And here’s my point… What was true of them—that their lives were distinctly different in many ways from their surrounding culture, from non-Christian neighbors, or even nominally Christian neighbors like us—that should be true of us, as well…
Our lives—even the lives of ordinary Methodists like us—should be distinctly different from the lives of people who don’t know Jesus!
How could it be any other way? If we’re Christians, that means we’re learning, over time, to turn aside from the wide gate and the easy way that leads to destruction and choose instead the narrow gate and difficult way that leads to life. 5That means we will necessarily make choices and “draw lines” that will sometimes be misunderstood and unappreciated, or possibly even mocked and scorned by others… Jesus says, “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world… If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” 6
And this will be true even in a land like ours that is blessed with First Amendment protections. One time, years ago, I think it was a Fourth of July Weekend sermon, I encouraged my people to go and put into practice their First Amendment freedoms by telling someone about Jesus and inviting someone to church!
We’re relatively free to do that in the United States, thank God… but we’re often afraid to do so… Not out of fear of being arrested or even martyred, as in many countries… but out of fear of looking weird to other people… out of fear of being ostracized by other people… out of fear of not being well thought of or well-liked… out of fear not fitting in…
But as Jesus says, we’re not supposed to merely fit in. Yes, Paul says, “as much as it depends on you, live at peace with one another.” Romans 12:18. But pursuing holiness, as Christians must, will never be a recipe for simply fitting in.
Point Number Three: Our example…
Let’s look at verse 10. This “chief of eunuchs,” this royal official serving in King Nebuchadnezzar’s court, seems like a good guy… seems like he’d be happy to go along with Daniel’s plan for Daniel and his three friends to eat only vegetables and drink only water. He likes Daniel. But he’s rightly concerned: “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age? So you would endanger my head with the king.”
He will potentially lose his head if Daniel and his friends show up in front of the king looking gaunt and emaciated… like they’re on a hunger strike or something!
So Daniel proposes a ten-day test. Verses 13 and 14: “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.”
According to what you see… There’s no risk on the part of the chief of eunuchs. It doesn’t require any faith on his part. “What do you see with your own eyes? What do you observe? What does the evidence of our lives point to?” That’s what Daniel is asking this royal official to do: use your eyes. And then verse 15 gives the result of this ten-day test: “They were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food.”
Don’t worry: “Fatter in flesh” back then was a sign of health and strength!
The chief of eunuchs saw with his own eyes that Daniel and his friends were better off. He saw evidence, in other words,of the difference God was making and had made in their lives. In this royal official’s own experience, he saw that their lives were demonstrably better because of what God was doing for these four men.
Several years ago, I saw best-selling Christian books like The Daniel Plan and The Daniel Fast and The Daniel Cookbook… and they were all supposedly taking principles of health, diet, and fitness from the book of Daniel and applying it to our lives.
And that may be fine. I don’t know…
But I would suggest instead of the “Daniel Fast” we have The Daniel Experiment.
And the experiment goes something like this: Suppose a non-believer—the equivalent of the “chief of eunuchs” in today’s scripture… suppose a non-believer was assigned the task of examining our lives for ten days. And at the end of those ten days, that person would compare our lives—including our habits, our behavior, our words, our attitudes, our dispositions, our character, our sense of joy and happiness and contentment, our ability to love others… suppose he could compare these things within us to those of other people—people who haven’t yet been born again through faith in Christ.
Would we pass the test?
Would they see the positive difference that God was making in our lives?