Daniel Intro

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/22/2023 12:19 PM

 

We continue to look at John MacArthur’s sermon on the introduction to the book of Daniel.

 

And then the apostle Paul. The apostle Paul believed in Daniel. In 1 Corinthians 6:2, he refers to Daniel. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, he refers to Daniel. In 2 Timothy 4:17, he refers to Daniel. The author of Hebrews in Hebrews 11:33 refers to Daniel. And even Simon Peter, bless his heart, in 1 Peter 1:10 refers to Daniel. And so – and by those, I mean not necessarily using the name of Daniel but either using his name or quoting from his book.

And do you think John the apostle believed in the book of Daniel? All you have to do is read Revelation to find out how much he got from Daniel. He must have written Revelation with a remembrance of Daniel. And by the way, I might add this, that Ezekiel refers to Daniel no less than three times. They believed in him. So should we. And you see the stupidity of saying it’s a forgery written by some Jewish person way later than really claimed, forging it under the name of Daniel is ridiculous because why would anybody forge something under the name of Daniel when the only thing ever written by that guy is the book of Daniel? And if he didn’t write that, he’s nobody.

Somebody says, “Well they wanted to pass it off as if it was Daniel.” Well if Daniel isn’t the guy in the book, there is no Daniel. I don’t know if you understand that. I do. I mean, you can understand them forging a book supposedly written by Moses, or Isaiah or somebody who wrote another one. But if this is all – by the way, all we know about Daniel is this book. There are two other Daniels named in the Bible. They’re both different. And this is a rather a common name. The only thing we know about this man is in the book and the reference of Ezekiel. And if he didn’t write this, then what’s the use of forging something under his name? It wouldn’t make any sense.

Now, that was the introduction to my introduction. Now I’m going to have a little fun, so hang with me. I want to give you just a few thoughts as we look at this opening two verses. All right? “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.” Now stop there.

Now that’s the introduction to the book. Now you just see names and places and so forth and let’s see if we could talk about them for a minute. The places, first of all, all right? Two places are mentioned, Judah and Babylon. You have Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Now, what you have in these two places, beloved, is an infinite contrast. Where did all false human religion begin? Babylon. Where, according to Revelation 17, will all false human religion consummate? Babylon, the final form of evil. And where, may I ask, is the seat of God’s throne? Judah.

So at the very beginning we see these two very antithetical, very opposite things. One is Satan’s place and one is God’s place. One is the Promised Land from where the blessing flows, the other is the cursed land from where flows all of evil spawned out of the terrible evil of Babylon society originating in the Tower of Babel.

One is the place of true worship, the other the place where idolatry was born. One is the house of God’s people, the other is the house of pagans. And so they are infinitely contrasted. How ironic it is that when God needed to punish His people Israel to purge them from their sin, He chose the most despicable and despised place on all the face of the earth, the place where evil idolatry originated, Babel, to be the place where they became captive.

Now, let’s look at Judah for just a moment. Judah was the Southern Kingdom after Solomon. It was comprised, as I said, of two tribes: Judah and Benjamin. You remember that among the people of Israel there were twelve tribes, twelve tribes. The twelve tribes when they were given the Promised Land, they came into the land of Canaan after living in Egypt. They were told to take the land and divide it among the twelve tribes so that each tribe had territory. And after Solomon – Solomon succeeded in ripping the land in half, as it were, dividing the kingdom – it split. Ten tribes took the north and two, Judah and Benjamin, the south.

And these two tribes continued faithful to God, didn’t they, for a while? Faithful to Jerusalem, at least, faithful to the family of David. And so the Southern Kingdom existed until its captivity. By the way, Judah, the Southern Kingdom, had nineteen kings over a period of nearly 350 years. So after Solomon came the splitting of the kingdom, Jeroboam and Rehoboam. And for 350 years Judah existed with 19 kings. And the Bible says eight were good and eleven were wicked.

The Northern Kingdom, by the way, of ten tribes never had one good king, not one. They were all evil. And that’s why the Northern Kingdom went into captivity before the Southern Kingdom, and the Northern Kingdom never returned, never returned. So Judah has reference to the Southern Kingdom, the southern division of Israel.

Now look at Babylon. What is Babylon? It’s also called the land of Shinar you notice down in verse 2, the land of Shinar. That is simply the ancient name of Babylonia. That’s just the way it’s designated. For example, in Genesis 10 and Genesis 11, it’s called the land of Shinar. That’s its old name. We know it as Babylon, or Babylonia. And I think he uses the old name in verse 2 to point up its ancient heritage of wickedness. Now, I want you to stay with me, a little geography, okay?

Babylonian territory, or Babylonia proper – I want you to see this now – covered the lower part of Mesopotamia. Now, I’ll give you a little idea. If you go east from Israel you get into all that Arab territory, right? And you remember the Tigris, the Euphrates River and so forth, that whole territory going east: Iran, Iraq, and all of those countries that are there, Arabic countries today. There was pretty much a dividing line down the middle going east and west. And the southern part was known as Babylon and the northern part was known as Assyria. Okay?

When the Babylonian Empire came, it swept to the north and gobbled up everything. But originally, it had to do with lower parts of Mesopotamia. But by the time we arrive in Daniel’s day, it has swept north, wiped out everything, come all the way west to the north of Israel, all the way down the coast and taken over all that territory and really rules the known world. Now, in the area of the whole Babylonian Empire was this special area of Babylonia and in the middle of Babylonia was Babylon.

Babylon was a capital city located on the Euphrates River approximately 50 miles south of modern Baghdad. And by the way, within the city of Babylon, there were 50 – at least they know of from archaeology – 50 different temples to 50 different gods. But the number one god was a god named Marduk and Marduk was the principle God. And it’s most likely that when Nebuchadnezzar, in verse 2, took all the vessels of gold out of the house of the Lord and took them to his treasure house of his god that he took them to the god Marduk. So that’s Judah and Babylon.

11/22/2023 12:20 PM