I'm gonna ask a sure thought of passages, uh, that the Lord's put on my heart this morning, and you would all turn to Ezekiel, Ezekiel twenty eight. I'm gonna read two passages. But in Ezekiel chapter twenty eight, uh, we'll read there in starting verse twelve, the second part of verse twelve. and this is, uh, referring to, um, to the adversary, actually, the Satan, and, uh, this thought that God's given me is, is two very contrasting, um, ways, two, two contrasting, uh, um, ways of, of, uh, going forth. You see there in, uh, the second, second half of, of, uh, Ezekiel uh twenty eight verse twelve says, you have the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect beauty. You are in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering, the ruby, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the lapis lazuli, I think that's how you pronounce that, the turquoise, and the emerald, and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets was in you. On the day that you were created, they were prepared. Verse fourteen. you were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were holy on the mountain of God. You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created. And then let's jump down to verse seventeen. it says, your heart was lifted up because of your beauty, and you were corrupted, your wisdom, and and you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. And then let's turn to Isaiah chapter fifty three, And you see there, Isaiah fifty three, very beginning there in verse one, it says, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. Verse three. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening of our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sh- sheep that is silent before shearers, so he did not open his mouth. Verse eight. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due. His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. Verse ten, but the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. As result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities. Verse twelve: uh Therefore, I will allot with him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong, because he poured himself out to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgress- for the transgressors. And, and this passage here, by contrast, is, is, um, you, you, some of the phrases in here, you compare them with Ezekiel twenty eight. And Ezekiel talked about, uh, the topaz, the beryl, the onyx, and great beauty. Here you read, no state in form or majesty, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him, a man of sorrows. He was oppressed. Yet it's the Lord Jesus that is the one that is exalted. And you see God's ways are so different from man's ways, from the natural way, from the way of, of uh, um, independence, from the way of uh strength, from the way of, uh, I can do it by my, my own, um, power, to the Lord's humility, uh, to servitude, to obedience to God. And this is the one that the Lord exalted and raised up, and he is the one that's gonna reign. So I'll just leave you with that thought there, and let's close in a word of prayer so our brother Gordon can begin. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, how it teaches us so much about your ways. Indeed, your word says that, that my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts within your thoughts and my ways in your ways. So, Lord, we we now look to you as we, uh, sit under the the ministry of Gordon and pray that you would instruct us and teach us more in your ways. We bless you and thank you for these things in the Lord Jesus name. Amen. Nobody who might look in here on us this morning and observe our little group gathered would probably say, my, that's a large group. And yet, it's a lot bigger than it was two weeks ago when I introduced our study in Daniel. So I'm gonna go, since it was two weeks ago and and many, many of us were missing, I'm gonna go very briefly over some of the introductory things that I shared, so a little bit of it will be repetitive for those of you who were here, but, um, uh, bear with me, uh, for a few minutes. I'll share a few of the same, uh, references and things. We, uh, not necessarily in the same order. I- I want to start by suggesting that we're in a very similar situation in our current age as believers, uh, to that of Judah in its Babylonian captivity. The dispersion of the, of the Israelites, uh, sent them out, uh, as the, you know, as God's people scattered throughout the nations, and we really have about that same situation. So there is a lot more, uh, r- rationality, uh, behind studying Daniel, uh, next than just the simple fact that it's chronologically right after the kings of the divided monarchy. But, you know, it's both of those things. So, uh, in a way, it's kind of interesting to observe that conditions, the situation of God's people, is very similar at the end of the times of the Gentiles to what it was at the very beginning, which is, uh, where- where we're at. Um, Herbert Locke here, I shared a quote last time, gives a little, uh, uh, uh, the good reasons why we could study Daniel in- in our current age. He says, profitable homiletical material can be used showing Daniel's self-control, undaunted courage, constant integrity, unceasing prayerfulness, native humility, and spiritual vision. Uh, I'm sure that probably all of us, if we, if we were believers when we were children, uh, studied Daniel in Sunday school and, you know, probably approached the study of Daniel from this perspective. There are good lessons, you know, spiritual lessons about obedience and morality and all these kinds of things, uh, suggested by, uh, Herbert Locke here as good reasons to study the book. But it still leaves you wondering why the book of Daniel has been the subject of attack from adversaries of various kinds, really throughout our entire age, right from the beginning. And, uh, for that I have a brief quote from Ryrie's introduction to the study of Daniel. The first attack on the tradit- on the traditional sixth century BC date for the composition of the book came from Porphyry, AD two thirty to three oh three, a vigorous opponent of Christianity who maintained that the book was written by an unknown Jew who lived at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, one seventy five to one sixty BC. So he postdates the book. This view was widely promoted by scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for the following reasons. I'm just going to give you the first one for flavor. It is alleged that Daniel could not have made these predictions, since they were accurately fulfilled and could therefore have been written only after the events occurred. You know, so, uh, it seems that the book of Daniel has been under attack, and I, I would suggest it's not because, uh, it has good sort of m- morality lessons in it. It's not for that reason at all, but m- more, uh, revealing might be a John MacArthur quote. Prominent above every other theme in the book is God's sovereign control over the affairs of all rulers and nations and their final replacement with a, and I would substitute the word the, true king. The, the, the problem with the book of Daniel and Esther and some others, uh, and why they're, uh, constantly attacked and postdated, is that they don't stop at giving us good morality tales, but they actually insist that God is going to take, always has, uh, is currently now, and will in the future, uh, take sovereign control over the affairs of men, and that ultimately everyone is going to be, uh, held to account and judged by God. People don't like that thought. You know, they don't, they don't want to think about that. And so, uh, these, these books, especially Daniel, really gets attacked and, and always has been. So, really, the book of Daniel contains much more than the good lessons that we can learn from studying his faithfulness and all those things, uh, his courage and, uh, integrity and all those things that were suggested, because the book really, uh, throws out that God intends, uh, to to hold every r- ruler and nation to account, every human being to account, and that there is going to be a judgment. God is going to and always has asserted himself in the affairs of men on planet Earth. There's some interesting facts, um... Actually, before I do that, uh, we found this, this which kind of goes along with, uh, God asserting himself. This, I'll take this in the right, uh, uh, frame here, a little printout that we, uh, discovered on someone's website. It- it's a, it's, it's, well, for being funny. In the year twenty thirteen, that's this year, the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in America, and said, once again, the earth has become wicked and overpopulated, and I see the end of all flesh before me. Build another ark and save two of every living thing along with a few good. He gave Noah the blueprint, saying, you have six months to build the ark before I will start the unending rain for forty days and forty nights. Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his yard, but no ark. Noah, he roared, I'm about to start the rain. Where is the ark? Forgive me, Lord, begged Noah, but things have changed. I needed a building permit. I've been arguing with the board, with the boat inspector about the need for a sprinkler, sprinkler system. My homeowners association claimed that I violated the, uh, neighborhood bylaws by building the ark in my backyard and exceeding the height limitation. We had to go to the local planning committee for a decision. Then the city council and the electric company demanded a, a load of money for the future costs of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions to clear the passage for the ark's move to the sea. I told them that the sea would be coming to us, but they would hear none of it. Getting the wood was another problem. There's a ban on cutting local trees in order to save the greater spotted barn owl. I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls, but no go. When I started gathering the animals, PETA took me to court. They insisted that I was confining wild animals against their will. They argued that the accommodations were too restrictive, and it was cruel and inhumane to put so many animals in a confined space. Then the Environmental Protection A- Agency ruled that I couldn't build the ark until they'd conducted an environmental impact study on your proposed flood. I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the, uh, Human Rights Commission on how many minorities I'm supposed to hire for my building crew. The Immigration Department is checking the visa status of most of the people who want to work. The labor unions say I cannot use my sons. They insist I have to hire only union workers with art building experience. To make matters worse, the IRS has seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to leave the country illegally and with endangered animals. So forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least ten years for me to finish this art. Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and the rainbow stretched across the sky. Noah looked up in wonder and asked, you mean you're not going to destroy the world? No, said the Lord, the government think me do it. Okay, well, that's kind of goofy, but, uh, in in some ways, uh, I thought I'd read it just for fun, but because it relates to the fact that God uses human agency, with or without their knowledge, to accomplish his purposes. His sovereignty, uh, just overshadows man's so-called free will, and, uh, this is the, the really primary message in Daniel. Some interesting facts about the, uh, about the, uh, book Daniel. Well, Daniel himself was fifteen years old when he was, uh, taken, uh, to Babylon into captivity, I guess you could say almost basically kidnapped and hauled away. Uh, that was the first of three waves of captives that were going to eventually be carried off to Babylon, and Daniel served the full seventy years, apparently, the full seventy years of the, of the captivity until the people were brought back by God's decree, uh, through Cyrus. Uh, so Daniel was, at the end, eighty five years old. When we hear, read the story about Daniel and the lion's den, Daniel was an old man, not a young man at that point. So, uh, here's another interesting fact. The, the name of Gabriel the angel is mentioned only twice in the Bible. The name of Michael the archangel mentioned only three times in the Bible. Both of them are mentioned in this book. That's interesting. Uh, here's another interesting thing, and maybe we'll make sense of it eventually, but the first six chapters of the book written by Daniel are written in the third person, he, him, his, that sort of thing. Then, uh, the, the, the last six chapters, I believe starting from about verse 2 of chapter 7, it switches, and the last six verses are written in the first person, I, me, my, that kind of thing. So, uh, wh- why is that? We'll see if we can figure it out. Then, uh, also in First Samuel eight, remember when we began our study of the kings of the divided monarchy, the, the, the sons, the men of Israel came and asked, uh, Samuel, you know, we w- we want a king. We want to be like the other nations. And so, uh, the whole process ends in this captivity in Babylon, and I spent a little more time on it last time, but why Babylon? Uh, and I think the answer is because it was the original fountainhead of, uh, idolatry, uh, the starting place on earth for idolatry under Nimrod and so forth. And, uh, we mentioned some books last time, I'll repeat that, uh, Alexander Hislop's book, Two Babylons, and Edward Woodrow, who basically covers the same kind of material, but in a little bit more easy to apprehend, uh, uh, form, uh, Babylon Mystery Religion. So those are two book titles that, uh, might help to answer the question, why would, was it Babylon and not Egypt or Assyria or some other country where they were carried off captive? Uh, and then just to kind of wrap this up, uh, we observe that, uh, the book of Daniel contains mighty miracles, and, uh, sometimes I, I, I know I myself have thought, uh, in some ways I wish I could have lived in the Old Testament when all these wonderful mighty miracles were happening, but actually, when you think about it, mighty miracles were as rare in Old Testament times as they are today. They really didn't occur all the time. They occurred at very distinct points in time, uh, and they happened like suddenly, and then they were kind of gone. Uh, the creation, the flood, the patriarchs, and Moses, of course, of the period of Elijah and Elisha, this period, the book of Daniel, Jesus and the apostles, and then Revelation, you know, the end time. So, uh, these, these, uh, events punctuate history. They don't endure throughout history, and not in the Old Testament any more than now. So we're going to look at the first chapter of Daniel this morning and follow Ryrie's divisions of this first chapter, basically uh three sections, verses one through seven, when Daniel and his friends are chosen for this captivity and carried off in that first wave to Babylon. Verses eight through sixteen, Daniel asks permission to remain, uh, uh, dedicated to his God, and then, uh, receives it. And the third section, seventeen through twenty one, Daniel's rise to favor in Babylon. Um, so let's start at the, at the beginning in this, uh, section, verses one through seven, Daniel's circumstances is right as title. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Jehoiakim, you recall from our study, was a vassal to Egypt. I call him sarcastically the tax collector in chief, you recall. Uh, he put the people of Judah under crushing taxation to satisfy the obligations that they owed to Egypt, or at least that Egypt demanded. But while he put the people under this crushing tax burden, he himself and his friends lived in luxury, in opulence. They, they, they really, uh, uh, didn't, uh, share any of the burden of the people. This, this King Jehoiakim also refused prophetic warning, in fact, to the point of burning the scroll that Jeremiah had sent to him. And of course, it didn't do him any good because God just told Jeremiah to write another one and add some extra bad stuff for Jehoiakim. But the, uh, the event of his burning of Jeremiah's scroll seems linked, and I said it at the time as we were studying it, seems linked to Babylon's victory over Judah. The, the, it's like the two things go hand in hand. Uh, Babylon, uh, uh, defeated Egypt and, and uh, Judah in uh, the battle at Carchemish, uh, and Babylon's leader at the time was the young Crown Prince Nebuchadnezzar. He probably about thirty at that time. Uh, right about that time, after his victory at Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar, uh, learned that his father was sick or had died, and and so he leaves Jerusalem pretty suddenly with just this small, uh, number of of chosen selected ones to take back with him, uh, to Babylon. And then we know that Jehoiakim, uh, I think it was in the second wave. I- I'm not really clear now, my own memory is fogging up already about the time we spent studying the kings, but we know that he had died en route or, or something, but the prophet had said that he would receive a donkey's burial. So if he was en route to Babylon and died, uh, early on the journey, apparently his body was sent back and just cast into the dump outside of Jerusalem, Gehenna. So he did, in fact, uh, receive a donkey's burial. Well, this verse one, uh, this point at which Nebuchadnezzar is granted victory over Jerusalem seems to be the exact beginning point of the times of the Gentiles. So this is historically a very important reference right here. It's the exact starting point, apparently, of the times of the Gentiles. And, uh, you know, we have this curious passage in Jeremiah twenty seven. I'll start reading in verse five. It's, uh, fairly short. Uh, the, the instructions by the prophet to the, to the people of Judah, those who are being carried off to Babylon, are as follows. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and not decrease. Now, of course, the, uh, underlying assumption here is that they were supposed to take wives and husbands from among their own people. You know, later on, that turns out to be a problem when we get to Ezra, but, uh, that that uh, they're they're just to go there and accept the fact that they're placed in captivity. God has turned them over for seventy years to pay back the the sabbatical years that they had not kept for four hundred and ninety years, and so they're just to go there, accept their fate, uh, and wait for their deliverance, that God is promising uh w- uh welfare for them. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will have welfare. Now, isn't that similar to the place the, the, the church or the assembly is in with respect to gentile national, national governments, local governments, and so forth, world, the world over? Christians inhabit many, many nations on this planet, and in some places they're not very well thought of, but in all cases we're, uh, told to pray for those who are in authority and leadership, no matter whether they're, uh, good or bad. So, uh, that, uh, the welfare of the nations in which we dwell is, uh, is a blessing from God. Anyway, it goes on, uh, verse eight. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets who are in your midst, these are false prophets, and your diviners deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream, for they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, declares the Lord. For thus says the Lord, when seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. So this really marks the very beginning of the times of the Gentiles, and we see similar things, uh, in the subsequent kingdom that follows Babylon, Persia. Really, the Lord speaks of Cyrus in similar ways, uh, as his servant and so forth, even though it says right in the same passage that Cyrus didn't acknowledge God or obey him in any way. So it just is a demonstration of God's sovereignty over all rulers and all people and all nations. And, uh, the time of the Gentiles, which begins right here in verse one of Daniel, uh, lasts all the way until the second coming of Christ. And Daniel is going to outline that whole time period. And it's not Daniel, it's the Lord who was speaking through Daniel to give, uh, us all, uh, an understanding of how history will unfold. Didn't tell Daniel how long it would take. What a surprise. You know, but, uh, that's where we are. Verse two, the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, along 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 he brought the vessels into the treasury of his God. Now that's a pretty normal thing for a Gentile king to do. Um, Shinar is a, is an ancient political name, and nobody's really too clear on, uh, when it came to be used, uh, and even what it designated. Uh, apparently included the cities of Babylon, Erech, Akad, and Kalna, uh, but other cities as well. And it isn't so much a geographical description of kingdom as a sort of a political term that nobody's all that clear on. Uh. Verse three. Oh, I wanted to say this, um, actually got this from a John MacArthur note. These, uh, names that are going to follow in verse three as the, as the, as the, uh, Babylonians rename these, uh, Jewish men. Uh, MacArthur has a note like this, uh, his god, the he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god, Bel or Marduk or alternate Merodach. Babylonian religion recognized other gods too. To conquer another nation's gods was to prove the superiority of the victor's god or god. So basically, the Babylonians observed that if they were able to conquer another nation, what it meant was that their gods were superior to that nation's god, and so they would bring that nation's, uh, sort of religious symbols and so forth into the house of their god, uh, to indicate the subservience of the conquered nation's god to their own god, a fairly natural thing, uh, in terms of their, uh, worldview. Uh, then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, and some translations will have the word eunuchs, and they were actually apparently eunuchs, but that was, uh, that was the way that, uh, certain high officials, uh, were, uh, kept, uh, to, uh, foster a sense of confidence and trust in their own motives and so forth. So, uh, the, the word officials and eunuchs are basically synonymous. To bring in some of the sons of Israel, including some of the royal family and of the nobles. Some have speculated that, uh, Daniel's, uh, friends and Daniel himself might, might all have been of the royal line of David, of that family. Um, I don't know whether that holds up or not, but those are just things that come back to mind. But... they were going to select a specific, they were looking for specific things. They, they had, uh, they're n- they're not trying to take a large segment of the population here. They're picking out really the cream of the crop, the, the, uh, most promising young men from, you know, noble families in the hierarchy of the conquered nation to bring to Babylon and prepare them for future service. So verse four says, youths in whom was no defect, who were good looking, showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom, endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge, and who had ability for serving in the king's court, and he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. So these were young men, uh, we believe that Daniel was probably about fifteen years old at this time. They were selected for their promise, for their potential, for what they had already accomplished. These were m- were young men, but they were highly educated and really the cream of the crop, and they're being sent forward. And if you look at the characteristics that the Babylonians were searching for in these young men, they're picking out men who will be held in esteem by the Jews, so that when subsequent waves of captives are brought, these young men, who are already, you know, respectable and honored by the Jews, will be in positions of high authority and able to sort of smooth over the transition, uh, kind of provide an orientation for these, uh, incoming captives. So they're being brought in advance nine years, ten years, eleven, I can't remember now, uh, between the first wave and the second wave, but they're, they're in place for a considerably long period of time in Babylon, having been educated, so now they know, uh, all this that they knew naturally because of their education in Israel, in Jerusalem, but also now they've been highly educated in the literature and language of the b- of the, uh, Chaldeans in Babylon, and they're ready to fulfill this vital role when the next waves of captives, uh, uh, begin to arrive. They're really, uh, there to to assist the Babylonians in ruling over their Jewish captives, uh, make it, make it work. And so, uh, there's a sense to what they're doing here. The king appointed, verse five, the king appointed for them a daily ration from the king's choice food and from the wine which he drank, and appointed that they should be educated three years, at the end of which they were to enter the king's personal service. So on top of the education that they already had, and you may recall, as we've looked at the way Jewish people, uh, especially faithful Jews, educated their young people, their formal education began at age three. So when they were fifteen years old, these guys were highly educated. This is basically like a PhD in Chaldean, you know, uh, that this extra three years of education plus, uh, six, seven years of on-the-job training in high office, serving in the king's very presence in the king's court. These guys were in a very, uh, special position, uh, by the time the, the second wave and the third wave of, of Jewish captives arrived. But he's a, a lot, uh, a- appointed for them a daily ration from the King's choice food and wine, which he drank. And we wondered, after looking into this, if wine is really accurate. Apparently the, the Chaldeans, uh, much preferred beer, and they had many varieties, the specialty, uh, varieties of beer, uh, mostly brewed from barley. So, uh, this, this reference to wine here is repeated a couple of times, and I wonder, um, we didn't take the time to see if that's translated in its best form. But, uh, they're appointed this special Babylonian diet. Now, I, I, I never looked into this before, and so I had no idea what this meant, you know, were they eating mice or something? What, what's going on here that, that, uh, later on we're gonna see there's a bit of a problem, but we just thought we'd looked into it, and, you know, who knew? I've got this printout here. Um, apparently, uh, the Babylonian diet is, uh, maybe on the verge of being the next diet craze in America or something. There's a ton of stuff on the internet about the Babylonian diet. We found out that in Babylon, lots of people died at an early age for three reasons. For young men, it was war. They were in a constant state of war. There was constantly war, so war gobbled up an awful lot of the young men of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians. Uh, the women, a lot of deaths in childbirth. But the third most frequent cause of early death amongst the Chaldeans, especially in Babylon, was scorpions. I didn't know anyone could die from a scorpion, but I guess they're different kinds. And I started thinking about that. Uh, I, I remember seeing the renderings, artistic drawings or whatever of ancient Babylon, you know, the gardens and all this wonderful stuff, but apparently they they actually dug the river so that it made many switchbacks through the city, so that everybody basically had waterfront property, you know, and maybe that somehow caused an explosion of scorpions or whatever, but listen, the Babylonians lived by and large into their eighties and nineties. They didn't die young. We always think people in ancient times died, you know, when they were in their thirties, and now we've, you know, reached this great longevity. Nah, they they they did about as we do. They lived into their eighties and nineties. and I want to tell you a little bit about the Babylonian diet. They ate cereals, bulbs, roots, uh, crustaceans, turtles, shellfish, locusts. They had over three hundred varietal breads that they liked. They were big on bread, and beer was really the national drink in Babylon. Um... They had, uh, lots of recipes. Apparently, some of them are, are preserved in cu- cuneiform engravings and documents, some of their recipes. They loved garlic and leeks and onions. Most of their dishes included those kinds of flavorings. They flavored things with mustard, cumin, coriander, mint, and cypress berries. Uh, they grilled, they roasted, they they had perfected domed ovens. Anybody have one of these fancy, uh, ceramic pizza, uh, cooking trays from, what is that, uh, Pampered Chef, you know? Well, they had perfected ceramic, like, cooking trays and so forth. So, uh, uh, they, they were pretty sophisticated. For meat, they ate freshly caught fish, free range grass-fed beef, mmm, but pork, of course, cage-free chicken. This is funny, occasionally an ostrich. Uh, they, they, of course, for dairy, they had milk from both cows and goats, and so they had cheese and butter and yogurt, all of which were consumed only occasionally and mostly fresh, obviously, because of the lack of refrigeration, although the cheese and the, the yogurt and the butter, uh, was kept in basement cold rooms. It basically had what the, you know, early American equivalent of the root cellar. They had dug out cold rooms where they would keep things, uh, to give it a little longer shelf life. They ate lots of eggs, seeds, nuts, and whole grains. Uh, the foundation of their diet, whether rich or poor, was barley. Uh, it's, it says this, uh, which they preferred over other grains, though they did make bread from wheat. They had good reason to do so, and I haven't fact checked this, but here's the claim. Barley provides more complete protein for its weight than does beef, chicken, or fish. That seems, I'm skeptical there, but that's what it says. Uh, it also provides all the known mineral and trace el- mineral elements, as well as a balanced range of vitamins and hundreds of enzymes for digestion. Barley was the primary food ration for the Babylonian army, as it gave them the energy to march all day and the strength to fight and win, all on two meals a day. The Babylonians even made their beer out of barley, making beer a health food. They, for sweeteners that they used in desserts and yogurt and pomegranate juice, uh, came mostly from date syrup and occasionally from honey. Um, let's see, one more thing. They had available to them a wide variety of fruits and vegetables during the long growing season. A percentage of their fruits they dried so they could be saved for the off season. Pomegranates and pomegranate juice appears to have been one of their biggest favorites. And then he goes into the health benefits, their antioxidant qualities, and et cetera, a- anti-cancer, so forth about pomegranates and pomegranates. It sounds like it's something from Austin's store, you know? Uh, the Babylonian diet, uh, is the, essentially the equivalent of a modern organic health food diet. So, uh, if, if, well, let me, let me just, where did I quit reading? Did I read five through seven? Yeah. Okay. Six? Thank you, dear. Now among them from the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them, and to Daniel he assigned the name Belteshazzar, Bel being the name of one of the Babylonian deities, and uh, to Hannah, Shadrach, and to Mishael, Meshach, and to Azariah, Abednego. And each of those is basically, uh, making the Jews subservient to the Babylonian deities. So these name changes are very much like taking the items from the Jewish temple into the house of the Babylonian god. All right, then, uh, the next section, uh, Daniel seeks permission to remain dedicated to the Lord. But, so verse eight, but Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank. So he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself. So Daniel is being submissive to his keeper, to to the rulers, to the Babylonians. But yet, but after we took, uh, kind of too much time to look at the Babylonian diet, he certainly, if he has the freedom to reject the whole diet for some other alternative, if he doesn't want to defile himself, what's the problem? If you're just thinking about Jewish dietary law, he doesn't have to eat crustaceans and shellfish and pork. There's enough food on the king's menu that he could certainly make choices that would be in keeping with the Mo- Mosaic dietary law. So that doesn't seem to be the problem here. But instead, apparently, uh, especially the meat was, uh, virtually all ceremonially sacrificed to pagan deities, to Babylonian deities. And so, apparently, it was for that reason that Daniel chose, uh, to seek permission not to dishonor himself before his own God. So, he asked. Now, God, verse nine, granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials. I think that's really very i- interesting. Isn't this as- aspenan? Uh, a- as mentioned earlier, God's favor to Daniel comes through his Babylonian superior, not direct. So that God softens the heart of his captor toward him. I- I think that's just kind of fascinating. And the commander of the officials said to Daniel, I am afraid of my lord the king who has appointed your food and your drink, for why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the youths who are your own age, then you would make me forfeit my head to the king. So he's not, he's not kidding, he's worried about, you know, the outcome of this, uh, decision. He, he likes Daniel, and he wants to give, he wants to give him permission, but he's terrified that this will not go well if he's going to reject this healthy, wholesome, organic health food diet and just eat vegetables. But Daniel said to the overseer, whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed in your presence, and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king's choice food, and deal with your servants according to what you see. So he listened, he listened to them in this matter and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days, their appearance seemed better, and they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the king's choice food. So there you have it, uh, the doctor Atkins, uh, low carbohydrate diet should have made people thinner than those who ate vegetables only, especially if there were things with high carbohydrates like potatoes and so forth. So, uh, uh, or is that what's going on, or is this a divine, uh, intervention? Is this a miracle? I think it is. It's really a miracle. They're, they're on a, a very poor diet with just water and vegetables. I mean, well, I don't know, the vegetarians will argue their case that their diet was better, but uh, they, they, their appearance was better, and they were plumper here, uh, than their uh, counterpart. So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and wine, and they were, and, uh, that they were to drink and kept giving them vegetables. Well, we better, uh, uh, wrap this up here. They- their permission is granted. So they- they have permission now not to eat, especially the, the, the meats, I would think, that would have been routinely offered to pagan deities, and in this way, uh, keep themselves pure before the Lord. And then we come to the last section, which is Daniel's rise to favor, uh, in Babylon, and, and this is very fascinating. As for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom. Daniel even understood all kinds of visions and dreams. Now, these young men were naturally intelligent and well educated. But what we see here is over the top. God is giving them the divine facility, a supernatural ability to master the language, probably Akkadian and Chaldean and whatever, the of these ancient languages and the history and the culture of this totally foreign society. Uh, they are given divine facility to learn, and so their three years spent, uh, is is amazingly productive in terms of, uh, all that they, uh, understand, their knowledge and intelligence and wisdom and so forth. So, uh, who wouldn't envy them that, huh? Uh, a divine facility to learn. Wow, that's exciting. It reminds me of the craftsmen in Exodus thirty one. Remember when the a- articles were gonna be constructed in the wilderness for the tabernacle, God divinely enabled, uh, the craftsmen, a couple of them especially, to, uh, pull together all of the crafts and trades, uh, that would be necessary to complete this mammoth task. The, I mean, the tabernacle was portable, but the stuff they had to do to build the tabernacle according to God's plans was amazing, and and so God especially gifted craftsmen to be able to, uh, pull together all those skills to accomplish the mission, and the same thing seems to be true here, a divine enabling. So, uh, these young men, uh, prospered in their studies. Then at the end, where where am I? Uh, then at the end of the days which the king had specified for presenting them, the commander of the officials presented them before Nebuchadnezzar. So these young men are going to be serving in very high political posts at the table in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. They're in the presence of the very king of Babylon. The king talked with them, and out of them all, not one was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they entered the king's personal service, personal advisors to the king, and they're going to assist in- with the, uh, future waves of, uh, captives that are going to be coming from Judah. As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm. So all of his ordinary consultants, those he would normally turn to for insight and, and understanding, uh, these, I think the ten times is one of those expressions, doesn't mean that they were, you know, that they did an IQ test or something, that these guys were ten times smarter that way. It's more of a, uh, connotative meaning, I guess, uh, just that they were way above, uh, their counterparts from, uh, these, uh, pagan backgrounds, the conjurers and magicians and so forth. And Daniel continued until the first year of Cyrus the King. Well, the, uh, continued with, with, with Babylon until the first year of Cyrus the King, when the, I guess the Persians overtook Babylon, so his service continues in two empires. Uh, so his he- he's gonna be in the king's personal service throughout those years of, of Babylonian reign and rule. It's really fascinating in this section, uh, um, Harry Ironside has a, a little reference here I'd like to read. It is written of these four young men that God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. In this, he reminds us very much of Joseph, who also entered into the secrets of the Lord and who was first characterized by fidelity to God. So that God's smile, God's approbation meant more, was more to him than the smile of the, or the friendship and approval of any human being. And just as it was with Daniel, who came into favor and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs, so Joseph exhibited the godliness of his life and the transparency of his nature came into favor with the keeper of the prison, and to crown it all, we find God opening his understanding, giving him wisdom and interpretation of dreams and visions, as here with Daniel. And and as I was thinking about the similarities between Daniel and Joseph, you can't help but acknowledge, uh, Esther. You know, in the next empire, Esther is, is going to be elevated to the queen. I mean, think about that, queen of Persia. And here Daniel is, you know, right in the king's presence throughout the Babylonian empire. Even Jeconiah, one of the kings we studied near the end of the, of the divided monarchy, who was carried off to, uh, Babylonian captivity, remained in a Babylonian prison for thirty seven years, but then was released and elevated to a post in Babylon above all the other captured kings. So that you- you'd have to say Daniel and Jeconiah had to know each other. They had to know each other. They were both in the service of the king, they both had high official positions in the Babylonian Empire, and just think of how Daniel and Jeconiah and Esther and Joseph, uh, were able to disseminate in these Gentile populations an awareness, perhaps, uh, even the win proselytes to the God of Israel. Normally, the conquered nation, the the acknowledgement is, well, then our gods must be stronger than theirs. But what happens in each of these cases is that though the people are conquered, their God, uh, stands out even to kings and rulers and dignitaries in Gentile nations, so that, uh, Judaism becomes a powerfully influential force in the Persian Empire, in the Babylonian Empire. Uh, Nebo Palasir, was, is that the father? Who was that, uh, uh, ruler under Nebuchadnezzar who... Nebuzaradan. Yeah, another, another, uh, Babylonian who apparently accepted that even though we've conquered the, the, the Jews, their God has conquered me, you know, he's God. And so you have many high-ranking people in these Gentile nations preparing the way, uh, and you could say preparing the way for the gospel eventually. But, uh, even when we wonder where did those Magi come from, you know, it's, it's fairly obvious that the influence and understanding of Jewish things went throughout Gentile nations, largely because of the captivity of God's people, which was a punishment to them, but apparently God sovereignly used them. So from this very beginning point in the, in the, in this tremendously long age, the times of the Gentiles, it, it's going to become a major theme in the study of Daniel, right up until the the the coming of the Messiah to establish his throne, the throne of David in Jerusalem, the second coming of Christ. The whole time period is going to be outlined for them and for us in the prophecies of Daniel. And it's amazing. I mean, we're right at the end of the period that they were right at the beginning of, and things look very much the same for us as they did for them. I want to close with just a short reference in Romans nine, just a few verses. I think it's a good, a good place to close because, uh, it indicates that, uh, God's people have a little different makeup now than, than in Old Testament times. They were primarily Jews, though there were Gentile proselytes always. But now, in, in the current age, the assembly age, uh, w- we're made up maybe primarily of Gentiles, but there are Jews included. So it's almost the reverse of what it was in Old Testament times. But we're, we're still under the same sorts of commands to be subject to our rulers, to pray for those who are in positions of authority, the very same kinds of commands that was, were given to the Jews during the Babylonian captivity, and usually our rulers are godless men in the same way that they were during the captivity. So let me close with this brief reading of a few verses, starting with verse two. and think about this in connection with what we've been talking about. What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath pre- prepared for in- in for destruction? So, uh, we know that, uh, uh, very soon after the Babylonian captivity, God brought judgment on Babylon for mistreatment of his people, and he brought it at the hands of the Persians, and in turn, the Persian Empire is judged, and, and so on. E- Egypt is, is, there are prophesied judgments galore about Egypt because of the mistreatment of the Jews. So God is showing himself willing to wait, patient, although eager to bring judgment on sin, on vessels of wrath. And here's the reason in verse twenty three. So let me, let me read again because I talked too much. What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory. The sentence goes on, but the thought I was after is complete there. God is not going to excuse the sins of godless people, even if they accomplish his sovereign purpose. So sinners can be used by God to accomplish his purposes, but then in turn are going to be judged by God for their sins, even when they did the things that God, uh, sovereignly ordained. And he allows this circumstance, which is the situation that the Jews are in in Babylon, the situation which we are in in the nations today, so that he can make known the riches of his glory to us. He has a purpose in this. We can, we, you know, we preach the gospel, and someone says, well, if there was a, a loving God, why would he allow this and that and the other? And this is the answer to that question. To make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy. He's not satisfied to make us like his pets. He's making us like his son. And so it's no wonder it takes a lot of work. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word preserved for us, for these accounts, in spite of the critics who want to undermine our confidence in the word of God, who post-date books like Daniel, uh, because they don't see how anyone could have accurately written about the unfolding events of history before they happened. So the only way they could acknowledge that Daniel could possibly be true is if they were willing to acknowledge that you are God. And of course, to them, that's ridiculous. The wisdom of men will be proven folly. And we thank you for pres- preserving for us an a- an account of the unfolding of human history. From the beginning of the times of the Gentiles until the very end, when you establish your throne in Jerusalem, and we pray.