Text: Daniel 4:17

Title: Lessons from the era of captivity

Date: June 25, 2023 / VEC Da-Nang

Introduction

The Israelite entered the promise land Canaan, and spent about
864 years in the era of judges and the era of monarchy. However
they betrayed the God who saved them and worship foreign gods, so
eventually they were invaded by Babylon and became captives in
Babylon. The temple of God was burned and the city of Jerusalem
was destroyed.
Q1. How did the foreign country arround them evaluate this
incident? The Bible interpret that, 'The Israelite who received God's
grace betrayed God and followed other gods, so they were judged
and put to shame. The nations around might misinterpret loke this, '
Jehovah God become impatient so he gave up his people who betray
Him. Or ‘Jehovah could not save his people because he is weaker
than the gods of Assyria or Babylon’. Gentiles who did not know
Jehovah God could possibly misinterpret like this.
Then, the question is Jehovah who is able to protect his people
from Babylon, why did He hand over his people to the Babylonian
army? We can guess many reasons. However, the obvious reason is
this captivity is not the end of salvation work. God foresees Israel
would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple and experience
spiritual revival. Not only that, but also there will be highlights of
work of salvation by Christ Jesus.
In this big picture, we have to look at the era of captivity, Israel is
now being punished in Babylon, but God is still on Israel's side and
working through them. The emperor of Babylon will meets Jehovah
God through the captive Daniel. This is irony of the ear of captivity.
The most dark age the hope of salvation is more bright and the
name of Jehovah is more exalted. Let us go into this amazing
historical site together.
 Main subject

1. Daniel who received the grace of God

Among the captives taken from Judah, there was a boy named
Daniel. He was an intelligent boy from a Jewish noble family. King
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captured southern Judah and took
captives of talented workers and used them where necessary for his
kingdom. His amazing plan is to select boys of high origin and
wisdom among the captives and teach them the Chaldean knowledge
and language for three years to make them political advisors. What
a wide mind idea! Daniel and his friends were selected as students of
this special school.
Daniel lost his country and was taken captive to Babylon, but he
did not lose his hope and faith in this dark age. His excellence
began to reveal at school, and during the training process, he
proposed a vegetarian diet and received permission to avoid polluting
himself with meat and alcohol offered to foreign gods. God gave
Daniel not only excellent intelligence, but also the ability to interpret
dreams and visions. Excellency and the Holy Spirit are gifts from
God.
Application) No matter what age or status we live in, if we receive
the Holy Spirit, we can become people of God who can influence that
age. I would like to suggest you to ask such excellence and the Holy
Spirit to God? Daniel's God is now your heavenly father.

2. God’s work for two emperor

In the book of Daniel, two major kings testimony and two miracles
are recorded. You may familiar with two miracles of Daniel's three
friends coming out of the fiery furnace and Daniel coming out of
the lion's den. Both are miracles that appeared when God's people
trusted God rather than the emperor's command. Through this
miracle, foreign kings praise Daniel's God. But today I won't go into
detail about this miracle.
Rather, I will focus on the incident the two emperors testimony.
The first emperor is King Nebuchadnezzar. He is the second king of
the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who conquered southern Judah and
drove the power of Egypt out of Asia. To him, God began to
intervene from the beginning. God first showed the great statue and
explained the progress of the history of the human world. (Babylon,
Persia, Greek and Rome) He was golden part king. However, he was
arrogant and set up a large gold statue so that everyone would
worship before it. (Daniel’s three frinds reject to worship the statue)
His second dream was also about him. He sees a tree in his dream,
which grows and becomes a tall tree that can be seen from the ends
of the earth and reaches to the heavens. The tree was beautiful and
plentiful in its fruit, and it became a habitat for beasts and birds,
and all living things found food there. But an angel came down from
heaven and cut down the tree, leaving only the stump behind and
fenced off and left behind for 7 years. Daniel interprets the dream
as something that will happen to the king and warns him, but he
again reveals his arrogance.
A year after having that dream, walking on the roof of the palace,
the day he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the
royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my
majesty?” (v. 30) He is chased by people, eats grass like an ox, gets
wet with dew, and becomes eagle's hair and bird fingernails for 7
years. He got a serious illness. The name of the disease is insania
zoan thropica, a mental disorder in which patients desire to be like
a beast, and even the appearance becomes like a beast to some
extent. So Nebuchadnezzar lived like animals and ate their food, and
wet under the dew.
Who gave him this disease? For what purpose was this disease
given to him?
It was from God that Babylon prospered and emerged as the
strongest kingdom at that time. Through his first dream, God wanted
him to learn this lesson. But Nebuchadnezzar was proud (Daniel
4:30). That's why God made him such miserably dwell with the wild
animals and eat grass like an ox (Dan 4:32). And after 7 years, God
restored his mind. Then, Nebuchadnezzar came to know that his
authority came from God, and God is the one who gave the kingship
to anyone at any time and abolished it whenever God wanted. (verse
17) And the king did not stop with the confession, but wrote a letter
to his people to know and fear the Jehovah God.
Daniel 4:1-3 “King Nebuchadnezzar, To the peoples, nations and men
of every language, who live in all the world: May you prosper
greatly! It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and
wonders that the Most High God has performed for me. How great
are his signs his, how mighty his wonders his! His kingdom is an
eternal kingdom; his dominion his endures from generation to
generation.”
I guess this letter effects a lot to foreign countries. Hundreds of
missionaries even can not effect the people like this. At the time,
Babylon was the largest empire in the Middle East and had a large
population. Can you imagine how much the people in his kingdom
shocked by his testimony?
God refined his people through captivity in same time, he taught
the emperor who he is. The king of Babylon did missionary work to
the Gentiles that no king of Israel had done before. Isn't it amazing?

The second king who met the Lord was King Dario the Medes. The
Babylonian Empire was divided into Medes and Persia after King
Belshazzar. Belshazzar arrogantly drank with the queens from the
cup offered to God in the temple of Jerusalem, and was forsaken by
God. And King Darius inherited his throne. (Text on the wall by the
hand) Dario is the first emperor of Medes. He heard the story of
God from the death of Belshazzar. And he saw with his own eyes
that Daniel came out of the lions' den alive, and he knew for sure
that Jehovah was God. Dan 6:26-27, “For he is the living God and he
endures forever; his kingdom his will not be destroyed, his dominion
his will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and
wonders in the heavens and on the earth.” Although he did not
experience God as much as Nebuchadnezzar, it is an incident in
which the name of Jehovah was exalted once more through Dario. It
is an amazing event worthy of being recorded in the Gentile
missions. King Ahab of Israel did not repent even when Elijah sent
down fire from heaven and burned the altar, but King Darius came
to believe in Jehovah through Daniel and wrote a decree (letter) to
make his people. We can see that God's will to convey God to the
Gentiles through the people of Israel is happening more in the era of
captivity than in the era of the monarchy. (Fulfillment of Isaiah 55:5)
Lesson) What lessons does the captivity teach us? It is that in the
place where we think everything is over, amazing things that we
never thought of can happen. Note that God's will may be done
more in our failures than in our successes. So we must have the
eyes of faith to see the light in the darkness and God's mercy in the
midst of judgment.

3. The Coming of the Kingdom of Christ

The amazing God’s providence is people of Israel heard more
bright good news in the dark age of the captivity. In that dark
reality, God gave them the message of greater hope. The Message of
Christ.
1) First, it is the cut-out stone vision shown to Daniel.
Daniel 2:34-35, “While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but
not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and
clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the
silver and the gold were broken to pieces.... But the rock that struck
the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.”
It showed that Christ would come in the Iron(Roman) era and
destroy the kingdoms of the world and establish the eternal kingdom.
2) The appearance of the Messiah and the kingdom of God
Isaiah worked in this dark age. God foretold the coming of Christ
through the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Sovereign
LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good
news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the
prisoners.” Jesus entered the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4, read
this verse, and declared that it had been fulfilled for Him. (Luke
4:21)
Isaiah also wrote how Christ would die for our sins. “But he was
pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the
punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds
we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) The moment of completion of the
salvation of the cross was announced through the prophet Isaiah in
this dark age. And the picture of the completed kingdom of God is
recorded in chapter 11. “The infant will play near the hole of the
cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They
will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth
will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the
sea.” (Isaiah 11:8-9)

Conclusion

The period of captivity was obviously a time of suffering for the

Israelite. It was the time when they sat by the rivers of Babylon and
wept while thinking of Zion. They were enslaved and had to attend
the invaders and sing for their joy. During their captivity, they learn
how great their sins were and how happy to worship God in the
temple.
At the same time, they experienced God’s mercy. Even in the midst
of wrath, they learn that God is the only the one to rely on. God
was preparing the cross of Christ for them even while beating them
with the stick.
The period of captivity in Babylon was not a retreat in the history
of salvation. Rather, it was a period of preparation for greater
progress. Thus Jeremiah sang like this: “Because of the LORD's great
love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are
new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The
LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."” (Lamentations
3:22-24)