Theme: The impact of troubled times on God’s people
Life changes a lot from childhood to adulthood. No brainer right. One element of that truth as it pertains to the Christian faith involves what is important to consider under one’s calling as a child of God. Essentially, what areas of morality we focus on. For a newborn infant – there is very little to focus on, since their intellect is not yet developed. For a toddler, learning to listen to mom and dad and to be kind to others is the most pressing need. For a child in middle school, perhaps the biggest area of focus is how to handle responsibility, respect toward teachers, and self-control when peers are unkind. For the high schooler, a wide array of concerns come to mind, such as not giving into vulgar language, being respectful in appearance, exercising self-control in sexual desires, and continuing to be respectful of mom and dad despite a new sense of burgeoning independence.
For those in early adulthood, it is important to accept responsibility and to work hard at establishing a life. Marriage enters the scene here, which means more blessings but also more obligations under God’s law – designed at protecting those blessings. Establishing a new family identity also becomes a primary focus. Middle adulthood involves achieving fulfillment in one’s calling and finding new ways to serve children and younger generations. Stress is no stranger as the pressing needs of society, family, and marriage abound and grow. Responsibility should really be fruitful at this point in life as you are in charge of protection and provision for many others. And in the elderly years, new challenges arise as one’s body slows down, and possibly breaks down, and the reality of the end of life here on this earth is the mind.
Each stage of life has its own challenges, but we tend to look back and reminisce at how simple things were. But it wasn’t that way in the present. You all walked into the sanctuary this morning without thinking twice, but that was impossible when you were an infant. You surely struggled to respect mom and dad when you were 6 or 7 years old, or 13 or 14 years old, but perhaps in your 30s it isn’t as big of a challenge. There once was a day when you never thought about marriage, but before long you reflect on 30-40-50 or more years under its blessings. Challenges come and go, and they grow and change as we get older. But God designed our ability to meet challenges like a set of stairs that ascends. This skills you learned early in your life, which now seem easy and so stress-free, are the very foundation that you stand upon that allows you to make such a claim. And in 10 years, or less, you’ll look back on what you are going through right now and reflect on the simplicity of it all – even as you remember the present challenges.
It’s natural in life for us to over-emphasize the impact of what’s happening right now. How quickly we feel like everything is lost or worthless – that one set back equals a tragedy of insurmountable proportions – only for God to gently lead us through it and on to the next step. But as easy as it comes to us to make mountains out of molehills, it’s equally easy to forget that we stand upon what we’ve endured in the past. Good or bad – it’s part of our story and it has a hand in shaping who we are.
The Word of God works similarly for your faith. We are told these stories of people who lived thousands of years ago. Sometimes they were confronted with challenges that seem simple compared to the complexity of life in our age. Sometimes, they come across as ignorant and simple-minded in their ways – far less educated and advanced than us, and on the surface that is true at times (yet education and intellect hardly are markers of good morals). Today, we study a chapter devoted to a specific period in history that does not concern our lives – at least as it portrays events that have come and gone. But the key is recognizing the steps that God takes in His Word, and how our faith today stands, in part, upon the faith of believers who came before us – from much different times and circumstances. And through that feature of Scripture, we see that there is always something for us to learn and benefit from in each section of God’s Word. Here in Daniel chapter 8, the message from God concerns the theme of hos God delivers and protects His people – both in the Old Testament and in these final days before the judgment of the world.
This vision in chapter 8 is a more detailed look at one piece of the vision from chapter 7. The two-horned goat was the Mede-Persian empire. The one-horned goat was the Greek empire. God gives Daniel a more detailed vision of the activity of these kingdoms, particularly with respect to their impact on the people of Israel. This message, like that of chapter 7, is a something to prepare God’s people for the timeline of history leading up to the birth of Christ. But what separates chapter 8 from chapter 7 is that God includes here a message about endurance under trial.
The lasting theme of this vision is that tough days were ahead for Israel. These foreign powers would not be kind to them, or supportive of their faith in the coming Messiah. Daniel described this part of the vision in verse 10: It (the goat which represented the Greek empire) exalted itself against the army of heaven. It made some of that army and some of the stars fall to earth, and it trampled them. It exalted itself against the Prince of the Army. It deprived him of the continual sacrifice, and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down.
In his explanation of the vision, the angel Gabriel explains this scene: “His (the Greek ram) power will be very great, but not from his own power. He will destroy mighty men and the people of the saints.” Gabriel was telling Daniel that a great persecution would be placed upon God’s people at the hands of the Greek empire following the death of Alexander the Great. This persecution would involve depriving them of being able to worship the true God – the vision even gave the graphic description of “throwing truth to the ground.”
Christians have always seen the fulfillment of this vision in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes. When the Greek empire was divided into 4 portions, one of those areas covered the land of Israel. Antiochus was a Greek general who came to power in this quadrant of the empire in 175 BC. He bestowed upon himself the title of “Epiphanes” meaning “God manifest” in the Greek. The reign of Antiochus, which lasted 11 years, was one of sheer terror for the Jewish people.
Antiochus profaned the Temple in Jerusalem by erecting idols to Zeus in it. He stripped the Jews of their religious rights, disallowing, for the first time in their history – the daily sacrifice that was offered to Yahweh in the temple. Sources outside the Bible even say that Antiochus brought a pig into the temple (which was a ceremonially unclean animal to the Jews) and sacrificed it in a pagan ritual upon the altar. His atrocities were not limited to religious persecution either, by the time his 11 years were up, it was estimated that Antiochus had killed over 100,000 people.
This Antiochus fits with the vision of the little horn coming out of the four within the Greek empire. He exalted himself against the true God. He deprived God’s people of the daily sacrifice, the worship through which they communicated and received the message of repentance and forgiveness of sins. He trampled the believers – spiritually and literally. And he certainly threw truth to the ground.
These tragic events at the hands of this Greek tyrant are a lasting reminder of the cost of faithfulness to the God. Christians throughout time have walked similar paths. God’s warning to Daniel in this vision was to prepare for tough days ahead. Many wonder how a loving God could allow such a thing to take place to those who love Him. When unfair and unjust things happen to Christians at the hands of those in the world – even secular leaders – it reinforces two important truth.
1. It is not God’s desire that we suffer. God may allow hardship, but He is not the author of such tragedy. This truth does not mean that secular enemies of Christians have power over God. Truly, they can only do what they do when God allows them to. They do not hold Him hostage. They are not in control. But the logical question to this first truth is why? If God has not lost control. If He is not overcome by evil – why would He allow it? That question leads to the second truth that we learn.
2. God uses persecution for our good. He does not desire it. He does not design it. But God overcomes even the most wicked and vile of moments because He uses it to bless us. The key is that this kind of blessing is only by faith. Persecution will not benefit you materially or physically – but it can bless you spiritually. A couple of weeks ago we read a summary of Hebrews 11 – the heroes of faith chapter – of a telling of believers from past who were persecuted for their faith. The chapter summarizes the blessing of this at the end: “They longed for a better land – a heavenly one. For that reason, God is not ashamed to be called their God, because he prepared a city for them (Hebrews 11:16).”
These persecutions – as difficult and unfair as there were – served as blessings for God’s people because they strengthened their faith in Christ, a faith that looks to the better home in heaven. God loves His children enough that He allows them to fall into hardships – even from Satan himself – in order to make them stronger in faith, and more fully confirmed in the truth. And it’s a faith and truth with the greatest outcome possible – eternal life in heaven. This is God’s desire for you, and if He must lead you through the “valley of the shadow of death” in order to keep it more firm in your heart – He will.
The willingness of God to allow suffering into our lives is not a product of His lack of care – rather it is one of the greatest examples of it. And so, we build upon this lesson given to Daniel and the Old Testament believers. Antiochus has come and gone. The vision of chapter 8 is complete. But we use it for our faith just the same. We may be a few steps higher on the staircase, but we can be grateful that our heritage in Jesus is based on truth and faithfulness, even under the most extreme trials. Our lives are not separated from the experiences of former Christians. Rather, we are connected through our faith in Jesus. Therefore, in the same context of Hebrews, God extended the message to our present lives saying, “Endure suffering as discipline. God is dealing with you as sons. Is there a son whose father does not discipline them? No discipline seems pleasant when it is happening, but painful, yet later it yields a peaceful harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:7,11).
Let us not forget that the title of disciple finds its home in the word discipline. This is the purpose of chapter’s eight’s vision. We will endure hardship when following Jesus. The world rages against us. Satan comes at you with all his might. And in the midst of such realities – God’s love abounds for you. His is not the shallow love of the self or the world – which simply wants fleeting pleasures and temporary blessings. God’s love is deeper and more intricate than that. He will love you through what you need, not just in what you want. And that’s why no matter how intense the struggle against your faith becomes – even to death – nothing can overcome the love of Jesus for you. It is tried and tested in battles of the soul. We see it in believers of the past and we have confidence God will protect and lead us in the same today. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment