After the death of David the throne went to Solomon, the son of Bathsheba. That was not without controversy and division as one of David’s wives, Haggith, wanted her son Adonijah to be next in the line of succession. Nathan the prophet intervened and Solomon was made king. After David’s death Solomon reigns over the greatest days of Israel. Following the death of Solomon there began the long decline that would last for the entire history of the nation of Israel. There was controversy and division about who would be the one to follow him as ruler of the United Kingdom of Israel.  Rehoboam, his son, was declared his successor but the kingdom was so divided at that point and Rehoboam was so foolish in his first few days of being king that ten of the twelve tribes seceded from the kingdom under Jeroboam. That division lasted until hundreds of years later the ten tribes were conquered by Assyria and went into exile. Hundreds of years after that the remaining nation of Judah was conquered twice by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon and the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed. Both times men and women were taken off to Babylonia as slaves or servants. The book of Daniel is part of the second and final conquest of Jerusalem when four bright young men were taken to Babylon to serve in the court of the king.

The book is something of an enigma to scholars. Is it written by a single author or a compilation of stories and visions collected over hundreds of years? Why is it written in two different languages – Aramaic and Hebrew? Why is the first half stories written by an author about Daniel and the second half written as a personal account of his visions? Is it written to a single audience or to multiple audiences? Is it partly a series of stories about Daniel and his three friends in the court of the king and partly a series of visions delivered only to Daniel? Is it two separate books made into one with the earliest being the stories of Daniel and his friends in the court of the King (chapters 1-6) and then the remaining chapters (7-12) composed during the oppressive reign of a successor to Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphenes, centuries later?

From what I have read it is fairly well accepted by conservative scholars and commentators that the book is two accounts that have been combined into one. We often flatten or compress Biblical time. It may be scores or even hundreds of years between books or even chapters but the way we read it from one to the next makes it appear that everything happens around the same time. Think of it this way. If you take a novel written in the 17th century and combine it with a novel from the 21st century you will notice the differences immediately. That is how scholars look at the book of Daniel. There are major differences in the writing between the two parts that make it clear they were composed at different times. The first half contains the stories of the court of Nebuchadnezzar and the second half are apocalyptic verses written during the time of Jewish repression and the Jewish rebellion under Antiochus Epiphanes hundreds of years later. Antiochus is the king who persecuted the Jewish people and desecrated the Temple by setting up an idol for the worship of the Greek god Zeus.  We’ll look more at the reign of Antiochus when we are in the second half of the book.

One thing is clear throughout the book. There is a definite theology of history. It is not simply a series of stories about a Jewish hero or a tale about a particular ancient king. The book is about the ways of God in this world that are sometimes plain to those who follow him and a mystery to others; sometimes plain to pagans as well and, finally, sometimes a mystery to everyone. There is no pinning God down to a particular way of acting in this world. Sometimes he is hidden and at other times he chooses to be revealed. Sometimes unbelievers are his instruments and other times they are vessels of destruction. Sometimes the world is open to his people and holds them in high esteem and then just as easily they are hunted down as prey. Sometimes his people hold places of influence and power in kingdoms of the world and at other times they are thrown into the furnace or a pit with lions. There is no easy formula by which we can predict what will happen to those who follow him.

History is not a free agent and there is no right or wrong side of history. History is in the hands of God and not an independent force that is shaped randomly or by other forces. History is not the result of the conflict of classes as Marx wrote. It is not the result of dominant actors and circumstances as Thomas Carlyle wrote, “The history of the world is nothing but the biography of great men.” There is never a sense of an individual “making history.” They are a part of history and history is simply a part of God’s purpose for his creation.  We won’t get into the specifics of free will and predestination here but it is clear in the book of Daniel as it is in the whole Old Testament that “Man proposes and God disposes.”  Sometimes they are in agreement and sometimes they are not. We are not puppets but we are, in a sense, players in the larger drama for which God is the author. We don’t preface every plan or commitment with “God willing” but we sometimes too lightly say, “It was a God thing” when something goes our way that we cannot explain. But all of life is a “God thing”, isn’t it?

The players in Daniel never felt they were puppets without options. They never saw themselves as heroes either. The recognition that God is sovereign gave them great confidence along with genuine humility. That confidence made what appears to us to be superhuman courage but it likely appeared to them as simply common sense. “Well, of course, God will take care of us.” It was not pride or ego or foolishness that caused them to have that certainty but a faith that had come to them both as a gift and a result of faithful following in many smaller ways. I doubt the furnace and the den of lions were their first tests of faith. I think humility may be the single best sign of a person who has been entrusted with faith, influence, power or wealth and has learned that it is a gift and not theirs to do with as they please.

There is a difference between confidence and recklessness. In the blog this week I wrote about the deception of the hormone dopamine.

“Brian Christian in “The Alignment Problem” writes that one of our hormones for creating a sense of happiness – dopamine – plays games with us. While serotonin stabilizes our moods and feelings of well-being, dopamine sends a message to the brain that things are going to be great but it’s not always true. If there is a drug for hope – this is it. Dopamine creates the expectation of things being better but sometimes the hormone is writing checks that our brain can’t cash. Eventually, the predicted change doesn’t come and the equal and opposite negative prediction error is sure to follow. “It seemed like everything was going to be so great…” We can chemically fool our brain’s prediction mechanism – but not forever. However, genuine happiness comes from things actually going well and not simply the anticipation of things soon being even better than expected.”

Daniel and his friends were not suffering from dopamine addiction or unrealistic confidence. They were acting out of hard won obedience.

There is a difference as well between faith and arrogance. Look again at the story of Gideon. Early on he is afraid and constantly in need of proof that God is with him. While he goes on to conquer that particular fear he falls prey to something much worse. He made an ephod out of gold and all of Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it and it became a snare to Gideon and his family. Look at the life of Samson as well. A great gift of strength and false confidence in his strength proved to be the death of him.

“In one sense, God is always both “cause” and “effect” in biblical history since he “acts” in history so that Israel and the nations might know that he is the Lord. Beyond this, the destinies of Israel and all other people groups are entwined because God chose one nation to bless all nations.”

Daniel’s “theology of history” is summarized in Nebuchadnezzar’s confession that God lives forever, his dominion is eternal, he rules the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth, and nothing can prevent him from accomplishing his purposes in the world.  A theology of history was essential for the Israelites exiled in Babylonia because they suffered from “an intense condition of theological shock.”

”The four pillars of divine promise that undergirded Israel’s confidence in Yahweh have been identified as: the irrevocability of God’s covenant with Israel, Yahweh’s ownership of the land of Canaan, Yahweh’s eternal covenant with David, and Yahweh’s residence in Jerusalem. How were the captive Hebrews to understand the reality that Jerusalem had been sacked, Yahweh’s temple razed, the Davidic dynasty terminated, and a substantial population of Israelites deported to Babylonia?”

“God’s people needed an exile theology addressing the problem of how to live as a minority group in an alien majority culture, sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly; how were they to “fit in without being swallowed up?” 

That might be our need today as well. How are we to live in a culture that is increasingly identifying as spiritual but not religious? Nebuchadnezzar was not persecuting the Jews, was he? He valued their skills and wisdom. He wanted their support.  He simply wanted their first allegiance. After that, they were free to practice their own religion. How do we maintain a witness in a culture that demands our allegiance to false idols and false kings? How do we stay faithful but not foolish? How do we respond with the same kind of wisdom and tact that Daniel did when threatened with death? How will we react when wisdom and tact are not enough to avoid the conflict between our faith and the idols of those who are in authority?

Russell Moore wrote in Christianity Today this week:

How often I have sat in the surreal situation of a television debate where the person I was debating gave a sad shrug and agreed with me off camera but went right back to saying the opposite as soon as the lights and cameras came back on. I can think of people I’ve known in Christian ministry who told me, behind closed doors, how disgusted they were with a politician they deemed to be immoral but then, in public, praised the same politician as a man of integrity. The same thing is true all through the government. 

The problem is that there comes a point where one moves from “choosing battles” to having one’s conscience seared. Peter’s refusal to eat with the Gentiles was, Paul wrote, “not acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14). Almost every time someone acts out of fear of getting kicked out of what C. S. Lewis called the “Inner Ring,” the person reasons that this is just “working within the system” or “living to fight another day.” 

On the way up, we tell ourselves, “I don’t have the platform yet to speak; when I get one, I will.” After we arrive wherever we were heading, we tell ourselves, “I have too much to lose; if I am not at the table, they will lose my voice.” We think this is the voice of prudence inside us, but maybe more often than not, it’s just ambition mixed with fear. 

Not only are the internal rationalizations circular, but so are the external circumstances. Whether in a church, a ministry, a workplace, a city council, or a neighborhood association, we tell ourselves, “I am going to live with this little bit of craziness so that I will be here to stop major craziness.” 

Yet while those crazy things are happening, someone watching all this is wondering, “Am I the only one who sees that this is crazy?” When everyone else acts like the crazy situation is normal, that observer shrugs and concludes, “It must just be me.” 

And then the craziness becomes the new normal. And folks “conserve their influence” for when it’s needed, for whatever is just a step crazier. I’ve been there, and that way leads to nowhere good. 

Sooner or later, one’s influence isn’t conserved but hoarded. Sooner or later, one is operating not out of prudent patience but from a seared conscience.

As we go through the book of Daniel the next several weeks we will see time and again the evidence of these four themes in Daniel’s theology of history.

• God is sovereign over his creation as the God of gods and Lord of kings and he determines the destiny of nations; dispenses knowledge and understanding; possesses all power and wisdom; appoints and deposes kings; reveals deep and hidden things—including the future; exercises eternal dominion; controls the fate of individuals; performs signs and wonders and rescues and saves; and keeps his covenant of love.

• The people of God living under his sovereign rule must trust in his control, accept responsibility for their actions, and look to the future in hope. Prayer is the vehicle for this hopeful outlook and the catalyst for change. Daniel’s example and message assure the Hebrews that despite the fact that the Jerusalem temple—God’s house of prayer—is destroyed, he still hears and answers prayer. That is not the point, however, but rather the posture of faithfulness toward God in the face of trial, whether that posture results in deliverance or martyrdom.

• God’s people living under his sovereign rule must discern that not all suffering is retribution based on the blessings and curses of the covenant relationship with God. Daniel warns God’s people of times of persecution and oppression ahead inflicted by the nations ruling over Israel. They need to know that this suffering is not necessarily punishment for sin but divine discipline for purification. Daniel makes it clear that this “time of distress” is temporary and that the true people of God will persevere and experience deliverance.

• God’s people living under his sovereign rule must recognize that a series of empires must rise and fall and that an interim period of “waiting” must elapse before the kingdom of God breaks into history. This means God’s promises for Israel’s restoration after the exile, as forecast by Jeremiah and Ezekiel have not failed but will be delayed until God’s purposes are accomplished through the historical process of the rise and fall of nations.

Like many of you, I was brought up with all the charts and graphs that proved exactly the meaning of Daniel and Revelation. I was convinced by my Sunday School teachers that President Roosevelt’s administration and the New Deal had been the beginning of the end and the Common Market of Europe or United Nations was the prophesied ten nations that would be organized by the Beast. All of those predictions and assumptions have had to be adjusted as time has passed and like we did in Ezekiel I will say as much about what the visions mean as Daniel does – and I don’t believe he mentions Roosevelt or the European Union or Russia one time.

Instead, let’s read and study Daniel for what it is without getting all caught up in what we think it means for the end times. Those times – as both Jesus and Paul say – are in the hands of God and no one knows when they will come. Let’s not be caught up in fear and anxiety about the mystery but rest in the fact that all of this is in God’s hands and we are players with a purpose in all of it. Our study of Daniel should not be about discovering the hidden meaning of all the symbols and signs of his visions so we can somehow predict the future or point to people and circumstances as signs of the end. It is not God’s Ouija board. Instead, it should be about our understanding of how best to be courageous, faithful and humble, tactful and wise, in the times and circumstances given to us.