Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction to Series

I. Introduction to Series

When I made this video for the series I wanted to capture the darkness and terror of this time that Daniel the prophet lived through.

When we hear about the Babylonian exile, the capture and ransacking of Jerusalem and all that happened to Daniel and his friends we tend to do what we do with all ancient warfare.

B. The Background of Daniel

Ancient Warfare

1.

When I made this video for the series I wanted to capture the darkness and terror of this time that Daniel the prophet lived through.

When we hear about the Babylonian exile, the capture and ransacking of Jerusalem and all that happened to Daniel and his friends we tend to either:

Glamorize It, fictionalize It, sanitize It.

ii.

Fictionalize It

iii.

Sanitize It

That is not how Daniel and his friends encountered the Babylonian Empire and its military hoards.

The siege of Jerusalem was not glamorous, nor was it sexy.

When the Babylonian forces started a policy of state-sanctioned kidnapping, what we call exile.

The Jews in Jerusalem were not thinking to themselves, “Hey we could turn a profit on this whole war thing and print up shirts with slogans like, “Gone Fishing in Babylon.”

They were not looking for the next “tweetable” moment or instagram post.

Have you ever met a parent that has felt the pain of a child dying in their arms.

There is nothing glamorous about that.

Have you ever met a parent whose child was kidnapped and taken from them.

There nothing glamorous about that.

The streets of Judah, Jerusalem were filled with it.

Daniel would have been a teenage of 13-15 when he was kidnapped, forcibly taken from his family, friends and home.

The loss of their homes, families, and temple was not fictional.

The Babylonian exile was not a myth to Daniel, to the Jews living in Jerusalem any more than ISIL is a myth to Christians living in Iraq, Syria and Northern Africa.

The Scroll of Daniel is not a bunch of cute bed-time stories, veggie-tales for kids.

This scroll is true history and real history.

The death and mayhem and violence could not be sanitized in their eyes.

Perhaps the words of Jeremiah’s weeping could remind us of this catastrophic event, and

If you don’t take seriously the backdrop of Daniel’s life.

If you don’t try for a moment to feel the pain, suffering and darkness that Daniel saw and experience you will miss the heart of the stories of Daniel, you will miss what makes the prophecies of Daniel so powerful:

Proposition of Series: We can face any monstrous empire the future may give birth to because God’s sovereignty is an even-if-sovereignty.

Even if Daniel’s city, home and family is lost to the Babylonians God is still sovereign.

Even if Daniel’s hopes and plans for the future are permanently altered by Babylonians, Medes or Persians God is still sovereign.

Even if the future gives birth to a empires of gold, silver, iron, bronze or clay God is still sovereign.

Even if a little-horn rises up to destroy God’s people and challenge God Himself.

God is still sovereign.

The hero of Daniel is not Daniel; rather, the coming Son of Man, the Messiah who is given sovereignty over the earth is Daniel’s hero.: –

The hero of Daniel is not Daniel; rather, the coming Son of Man, the Messiah who is given sovereignty over the earth is Daniel’s hero.

Daniel is not just a vertically oriented book it is a horizontally oriented book.

It is a book about an Israelite, Daniel, living through an apocalypse so that in the future other faithful Israelites and the non-Jews who will join with them can also live and thrive during the apocalypse.

Daniel is a book about an Israelite living through an apocalypse so that in the future all who share Daniel’s allegiance to the sovereign Son of Man will also have allegiance to the sovereign Son of Man.

Throughout this series we will stay tethered into these three things:

Daniel is true history.

Daniel’s hope was in the sovereign Son of Man during an apocalypse.

Daniel message is a call to remain allegiant to the sovereign Son of Man.

Today, we are going to see from Daniel that: Sometimes the only way to stay true to “who” we hope in and “what” we hope for is to go rogue.

1.

The Right Time to Go Rogue

2. The Reason For Going Rogue

3. The Risk of Going Rogue

4. The Reward of Going Rogue

Ha-Foke-Ba

The Right Time to Go Rogue ()

The Right Time to Go Rogue ()

The historical veracity of Daniel has always had its challengers.

One of the first, a man named Prophyry (Prore-fur-ree), in the 250s C.E., argued with Jerome - a biblical scholar and linguist - that there was no way the book of Daniel was real history.

Rather, he said it was just a bunch of allegories and old-wives tales.

He said the prophecies and predictions were too accurate to have come from the pen of a Jew living in 586 BCE.

So he proposed that the writer of Daniel must have been living well-beyond the events recorded and was just making this whole prophecy thing up.

For at least a 1800 years the Jewish community and body of Messiah rebutted the charge of Prophyry and so-called “scholars” today saying: Daniel’s use of Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian and Greek only fits that period of time, his knowledge of events is too intimate to have been written by a later writer, his prophecies were taken out to Alexander the Great according to Josephus, Qumran had multiple copies of the scroll of Daniel.

But for me, the one clincher is that Yeshua said, “when you see the abomation of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel...” Yeshua did not say the book of Daniel or scroll of Daniel, no, he said there was a person, a real person who lived when he said he lived and his office was “prophet” and his name was am always going to side with that guy Yeshua.

What was the Historical time Daniel went Rogue?

He tells us in

Insert the Timeline of Daniel here.

It is not just historical time.

What was the Biblical time?

i.

The Time of God’s Judgment (, ).

ii.

The Time of Israel’s Exile ().

iii.

The Time of an Apocalypse for Daniel.

Why mention these two ways of understanding time?

A modern historian would say that Judah fell because it was overpowered by the most powerful nation on earth.

A Babylonian priest would have said that the powerful gods of Babylon simply overpowered the God of Israel.”4

But notice what the biblical author says in : “God gave...”

“A modern historian would say that Judah fell because it was overpowered by the most powerful nation on earth.

A Babylonian priest would have said that the powerful gods of Babylon simply overpowered the God of Israel.”4

But notice what the biblical author says in verse 2: “The Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.”

Daniel Records True History.

He is no more making up this story than me making up the story of 9/11 and the hi-jacking crashing of American planes by terrorist fighters.

We know the names of all the places are accurate, the timing is accurate.

This is not a bedtime story, this is true history.

Daniel Records True Value Statements about History.

This is the land of Shinar were the second apocalypse took place on the people of earth at Babel.

Daniel lets us know that this land is a godless, god-forsaken land though it claims to be filled with gods.

He also tells us that God did these things not a pagan deity, not a powerful army against a least powerful army, not by a coincidence of history.

The God of Abraham’s seed kept covenant and sent his people into exile according to covenant but He also went with them.

Daniel Records True Value Statements about History.

The Reason for Going Rogue ().

B. The Reason for Going Rogue ().

The account of Daniel and his friends makes it clear that when allegiance to “who” we hope in and “what” we hope for is challenged our only option is to go rogue.

Let me define going rogue: To remain allegiant to God’s even-if-sovereignty.

Quite apart from trying to start a rebellion, allegiants push against subtractions stories, cross-pressures and fragilization, any place where people who lead “normal” lives do not share their faith (and perhaps believe something very different).

Let me define going rogue: To remain allegiant to God’s even-if-sovereignty.

Quite apart from trying to start a rebellion, allegiants push against subtractions stories, cross-pressures and fragilization, any place where people who lead “normal” lives do not share their faith (and perhaps believe something very different).

1. Subtraction Stories ()

Explain Subtraction Stories - Accounts that explain “the real world” as merely the subtraction of your faith in God, as if the "real world” is what’s left over after we subtract out our faith.

2. Cross-Pressures ()