I remember reading sometime for years back, you know, atheism is much in the headlines right now. People like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and their writings and so forth, challenging belief in God and declaiming, dismissing those of us who do believe in God. I remember reading once that atheists discussing their lack of belief in God is like two fleas debating the existence of the dog they're standing on. They were standing through the book of Daniel, the reality of God and his work in this world comes bleeding through and every page. Our text this morning is Daniel chapter 2, verses 25 through 30. Let me set the context for you again, year 606, now 605 B.C. Daniel along with his friends, let me give their Jewish names, Hannah and I, Michelle and Nazaria will know them better, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, their Babylonian names. Daniel and his young friends are Jews from Jerusalem who have been deported from Jerusalem and they're not in exile in Babylon and they are in service to the king, King Nebuchadnezzar. They've risen at the top of their class so the cream of the crops so to speak. And Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream and he's gone to his so called wise men, the magicians and chancers, the sorcerers and the astrologers. He said to them, I want you to interpret my dream for them and they say, okay, King, what's your dream? We'll tell you what it means. He says, no, we're not going to play that way. You know, when you get to interpret it for him, you've got to tell me what was in the dream and oh, by the way, if you don't do it, I'm going to have everyone be killed and your house is burned and your family is thrown out in the streets. No pressure, but I need no, not only interpretation, but I need you to tell me what's in the dream. They all say, no, but I can do that. And he says, well, then you're all going to die. So Daniel steps up and he says, give me one day, give me, give me a little time and I'll be back to you. That's what's happened in the text leading up to the text we have. Let me read verse 24 which you don't have in your bullet and it won't be on the screen. It is in your Bibles. Let me read verse 24 just to set the context again and then we'll get to 25. When Daniel went to Ariak, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon said to him, do not execute the wise men of Babylon, take me to the king and I will interpret his dream for him. Verse 25, Ariak took Daniel to the king at once and said, I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means. The king has Daniel, also called Belta Shazzar, are you able to tell me what I saw my dream and interpret it? Daniel replied, no wise man and chanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king. The mystery is asked about but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the vision that visions that pass through your mind as you lay on your bed are these. As you were lying there, your mind turned to things to come and that revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me not because I have greater wisdom than other living men. So the euo king may know the interpretation that you may understand what went through your mind. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you that you are still the same God yesterday, today and forever. The God that Daniel prayed to, same God who revealed yourself to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, 12 patriarchs to Moses, to David, to Elijah and Elijah and Isaiah and all the rest of the prophets, the same God who inspired the New Testament to be written, the God who came to earth and the person of Jesus and Nazareth. I thank you that the grass withers and the flower falls, the word of our God abides forever. I asked this morning if you would take this word, this living abiding and active word and apply it to our hearts and our minds and press it upon our hearts, take it from the pages of your book, write it on our hearts and minds and souls and use it to transform us more and more into the image of Jesus in whose name I pray. Amen. Well, people like Christopher Hitch and Richard Dawkins, I mean, by the way, Christopher Hitchins, if you don't know who he is, he's a noted, starts saying notorious, notorious and noted atheists, a book called God is not great claiming belief in God and religions of the source of all the ills of the world and that tired old litany, which is patently absurd. Anyway, he's dying of esophageal cancer and a lot of people are praying that he'll understand the reality of who God is before he has to stand before him and there's no denying and there's no second chance. Anyway, they may disbelieve, but Daniel knows, Daniel knows there's a God in heaven and he is prayer to God and now the words he speaks to area, they reveal four things about that God. First thing, this prayer, this revelation of Daniel tells us, there is one God and the quote is one God pre-universe. One God pre-universe. Daniel replied in verse 27, no wise man in cancer, the additional diviner can explain to the kingdom of the mystery, he's asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals the mystery, somebody here says, well, dumb, that's kind of why we're here this morning, can't. Now you never struggle with this, I know, you never struggle with this, but maybe you know someone who does. So just for that sake of that person, because we don't ever struggle with the possibility of taking control of our own lives, want to take over and be our own little gods and goddesses who want to control our destinies, try to own courses and then we just ask God to bless our plans, you never do that, but maybe you know somebody that does, instead of seeking him first, studying scriptures, praying, asking for his guidance, we just go right ahead and do what we're going to do and say, please God bless it, you don't do that, but maybe you know somebody that does. Here's a litmus test, when you read something in the scripture, when we read something in the Bible, or we hear something in a sermon that's faithful to the scriptures, and it says we're supposed to do something that makes us extremely uncomfortable. How do we respond? Well, I can't do that because, well let's might also do that, maybe the preacher or the elders or the decons can do that, maybe I could do it but later, I'm not that kind of Christian, I don't do that kind of stuff with the Bible says, I'm not that kind of Christian, or maybe we do version of Isaiah's response with the Lord, hear my, San Joe, Lord hear my, San Maria, or hear my, San somebody else, will you? How do we respond? We see something in the scripture, hear something from the Word of God that clearly tells us to do something that we don't really want to do, makes us uncomfortable, so do we scroll them out from underneath there or do we say, Lord not my will, but yours be done, and we never struggle with that, but other people do. I read, and again, a pastor on a small town, this is true, he had been in the town and had three or four churches told, he had been in the town about six months and he was, he broke us in a little mom and pop restaurant one morning, and he was introduced to a man in that, who was also eating the restaurant and the man says, I'm glad to meet you, I'm the member of your church, and a pastor says, huh, that's odd, I've been here about six months and I don't recall ever seeing you in church, and the man said, and I quote, hey, I said I was a member, not a fanatic, I wish I could tell you how many times I've had that experience with people who think they're members here, I've been here over eight years, I've never seen them, but they think they're members here, they're not, but they think they are, hey, they're members, they're just not fanatics, right, if we pick and choose which of God's commands we're going to obey, who's really in charge of our lives, if we decide which parts of the Bible, which parts of God's commands we're going to obey, and which ones we're going to just slip off to like, who's really in charge here, who is God in our lives, when we do that pick and choose, we make ourselves God, and God becomes sort of a cosmic advisor or a cosmic errand boy to do what we want him to do, the quota is one God per universe, and he is not me, the quota is one God per universe, and he is not me, the belief in one God, the theological term for his monotheism, one God, the belief in one God is what separates the so-called Western religions from the East, the Western religions, I'm speaking in very broad terms here, are chronological Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What we have in common is that we believe there's one God, what separates Christianity from the others, among other things, is that we believe that one God exists in three persons, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, but when Daniel said there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, he is declaring 600 years before Christ, that it is monotheism, there is one God, that the gods and goddesses of the East need not apply, we need to understand the exclusivity of this, see we Westerners, especially Americans, well I don't know if that's true, maybe European or just as guilty, but we like to indulge in this sort of a soft, fuzzy, syrupy, sentimental eclesticism that says there's a God for the Jews, there's a God for Christians, and there's a God for Muslims, and there are gods, and there's a God for Hindus, which is factually an accurate, or there's a God for Buddhism, which is factually false, everybody's got their own gods, all roads lead to having all roads meet at the top of the mountain, can we all just get along and sing kumbayaan? I've got an appeal to that, can we all just get along, can we go exist? The Bible will not have it ladies and gentlemen, the Bible will not have that kind of a soft, fuzzy sentimentality, from Genesis to Revelation with increasing clarity, we are told that Yahweh alone is God, and He will not share His glory with anyone else I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery out of the land of bondage, you will have no other gods before me, I will share my glory with none other, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. The Bible will have none of this soft eclectic sentimentality, Moses, and the prophets agree, and Jesus Himself affirms, there's one God, Jesus is His only son, Jesus is the only way back to God the Father, that's a very exclusive claim, it's a very exclusive claim, and then if that's true, and obviously we're here this morning to profess our belief that it is, if that's true, then it rules out all the gods and goddesses of the Hindus, it rules out the non-theism of Buddhism, I tell you these things not just because I like to be exclusivistic or exclusionary, I don't enjoy saying this is right and everything else is wrong on my own, I tell you these things because I have to place a higher premium on truth than I do on being popular politically correct, I tell you these things in the same sense that a doctor would tell a patient with a terminal disease, there are hundreds and hundreds of medications out there that people tout, that'll cure your illness, there's only one that works, I have it, here's your prescription, now what are you going to do? There are hundreds and even thousands of other claims to God, and I'm here to tell you that one works, one and only one, and I'm betting my life in my eternity on it, here's your prescription, not because I say so but because the Scriptures clearly say so, now what will we do with it? Daniel says the quote is one God pre-interverse, he's not me, I choose this day whom you will serve, choose this day whom you will serve, Daniel's prayer shows us there is a God in heaven, only one, he also shows, he's not on vacation, you ever see that bumper sticker especially when you're stuck in traffic down here, some of us are not on vacation, I saw one now on Key Biscayne one day that I liked, it said, welcome to our beaches, now go home, we have this love hate thing with tourists don't we? We love them being here, we love them pumping the money in our economy, we hate being in traffic behind them, especially when it's a drive like this to this journey, God is not on vacation, he heard Daniel's prayer and he answered him, listen he answered him that night immediately just like he always does your prayers, right? God always answers your prayers immediately that night on the spot, right? You say yes to that, you'll lie about other things too, God doesn't always answer like that, as I was saying to our young people, he keeps his own schedule, he answers our prayers, sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes wait, but he does answer, he just doesn't answer on our timetable, he is rarely early but he's never late, he's rarely early but he's never late, stand till the road of books some years ago called, God has never failed me but he's sure scared me to death a few times, he's rarely early but he's never late, Abraham learned that up there I'm out Mariah with his son Isaac, that knife poised right over his son's chest, Abraham learned God is not early but he's never late, Moses learned that right there at the shore of the Red Sea with the people of Israel gathered around him, the Egyptian army fendering up behind him, the Red Sea before him, Moses learned that God is rarely early but he's never late, Elijah learned it up there on the Mount Carmel facing 450 prophets of bail, Elijah learned that and Daniel learned it the night before he and all the other so-called wise men of Babylon had an appointment with the hangman the next morning, God is rarely early, he loves to do the 11th hour and 59th minute thing, tries me crazy, he loves to do that, he's never late, verses 28 and 30 we read about God being very much alive and responsive to Daniel's prayers not on occasion as we go through the book of Daniel, we're going to see how God will meet Daniel and the others in really dramatic fashion, why didn't he meet us like that, why doesn't God always come through for us in such a life and death drama, dramatic way, well let me ask you, when was the last time we stuck our neck out at the risk of life and limb and said here I stand God help me I can do no other and if this doesn't work out right it will cost me my life when was the last time we took such a stance, sacrificially, courageously and later all on the lines of God if you don't come through from here I'm dead but God does this for the great men and women of the faith because he asked so much of them he comes through for them in these dramatic ways because they put themselves willingly in this situation where they say God if you don't come through for us we're goners, we're goners, by the way John Calvin in his commentary he thought that Daniel and Hannah and I Misha on Ezra, they should have been spared the King's Edict, he thought all the other wise men of Babylon should have been put to death for being false prophets you didn't mess around with John Calvin but Daniel's prayer and his revelation his words to the King tell us there's a God in heaven he's not on vacation he is working in the world even if we don't see it even when we don't see it we're not aware that he is working in the world he's changing lives he's restoring hope he's healing the sick he's lifting up the distressed and the downcast he's impelling men women and young people to reach out to the least of these with compassion and mercy I've asked you this before but I think it bears you're peeing what other message in the world so motivates and so captivates people to do these sacrificial so-called thankless past how many mercy hospitals are there they've been raised up by Islam by Buddhism by Hinduism by atheism how many ships of hope are there out there they've been pennilbed by these other ideologies I do give credit to our Jewish forebears and friends they do raise up the Mount Sinai and the cedars of levitons and the Beth Israel's they do their part but aside from our Jewish forebears who are reading from the same scriptures we are what we call the older testament they call their Bible their Torah other than that what else in the world so motivates and impels men women and young people to give them self so sacrificial how many other agencies are there like Samaritan's purse world vision food for the poor have it that for humanity that have been motivated and impelled by the gospel impulse to render to the least of these to minister the sick and the dying you know the red cross and I've talked about this before you know the red cross was founded in the 1800s by a Swiss Christian by the name of Henry Danant Henry Danant used to meet every Thursday in the city of Geneva John Calvin's Geneva he was a committed Calvinist I will have you know and Henry Danant used to me every Thursday in the city of Geneva with a handful of other young men and they met there to study the scriptures and a minister to the poor and that's where the largest international relief agency in history was born and that's why it's called the red cross it's a Christian enterprise I know there's now a green cross and other things that have grown out of it that's fine but you need to know that's where it came from God is not on vacation the belief the belief that God created the universe created the world well in the whole thing up like a clock and then put it in emotion and then went away on vacation that belief is called deism I know some deuses they believe that God made everything set in emotion and just went away and he'll be back sometime we hear often today that the founding fathers were largely deists I want you to know that's a patent lie that the constitutional convention there are 55 signers of the constitution 52 of them were members in good standing of evangelical churches if you come into our class on Wednesday now you know these things they're overwhelmingly committed evangelical Christians with a couple or three who are in the category of the deists you know that all those 55 signers of the constitution 29 of them had either Bible college or even seminary degrees there's one pastor he was a Presbyterian I'll have you know John Weatherspoon signer of the Declaration of Independence there's one pastor and a number of theologians it's Christianity that impelled that gospel enterprise God is not on vacation he's working in the world in a million places to a billion people the issue for us is do we want to sit on the signlines or do we want to grab a mint and get in the game let me tell you we could sure use a few more willing workers here in this church the ones we have are terrific and they labor almost tirelessly but we could use your help if you remember this church and you're not involved in an ongoing ministry we need you as part of your membership covenant we need you to help see me afterwards see one of the other elders we can point you to place where you can serve you know Tom Peters is Tom Peters is a management expert he's a writer he came to national prominence when he and Waterman wrote in search of excellence back 1982 I believe it was Tom Peters is a he's written thriving on chaos a number of other uh management leadership books her Tom Peters speak one time he said this I know what I want my epitaph to read he was a player not that I got it right or made a ton of money but that I did not sit on the sidelines that's it I don't think Tom Peters is a Christian now I have a reason to believe that he is that's it ladies and gentlemen now we'll tell you that's one of the reasons I am a pastor it's not for the money it's not for the fame it's not for the perks but I don't want to be on the sidelines I want to be in the midst of the battle there's a God in heaven the quote is one God pre-universe he's not on vacation and he cares about exiles and outcasts he cares about exiles and outcasts verse 25 eriot took Daniel to the king at once and said I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means why was an important area I said that why don't you just say king I found somebody who can do it but he had to make sure the king knew he was a man from among the exiles Daniel inspired his excellence in academics and the other prominent position they held and never again that was the court he's still quote an exile here hurts somebody do that dismiss somebody was sort of a backhanded common but she's pretty good for a woman for a skirt now you don't say those things but you've heard him he's pretty good for a black for an Hispanic for a white they're pretty good band for a Christian band here here's my dismiss somebody with that sort of a backhanded compliment that's what's going on here spider of Daniel's obvious prowess he along with his Jewish friends there's still exiles there's still to the Babylonians outcasts but this exile this outcasts he's the one that knows nebuchadnezzar's dream he's the one can interpret it for him God cares about exiles and outcasts who did Jesus go to and when primarily respectable folks Jesus went to the lepers and the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the people that nobody else wanted to be around and he reached out to them he said it's not the the health it needed doctrine it's the sick God cares God cares about people of prominence as well with the gospel travels best amongst the exiles and the outcasts 27 years ago read a book called City of Joy by Dominic Loppier it's about it was about Calcutta India in a particular some called Anand Nagar which I guess in India is the city of Joy's ironic because it's the most wretched slum in the most wretched city in the world and one of the subplots in the city in in this book is the mother trees and sisters of charity and they're worked there in the city and now they reach out to the lepers and the name and the outcasts people nobody else in the Hindu cast will touch they minister to them there's a particularly poignant scene in the book where there's a temple to the goddess Kali she's one of the high goddesses of the Hindu religion she's also a very cruel and harsh and capricious goddess and you never know what kind of a mood she's going to be in but the sick and the dying of Calcutta will crawl on their hands and their knees and they'll drag their bodies to the steps of the temple of the goddess Kali and hope that she'll have mercy there and there's left there to die some mother trees and the sisters of charity began to go there and pick these people literally pick them up off the steps and take them back to the compound of the sister of charity and minister grace and mercy them as they died well it's kind of ticked off the good Hindus of the city of Calcutta because she was making them look bad so they went to the local sheriff and said you need to you to make her stop doing that in fact you need to run the foreign women out of town so the sheriff said okay let me just go investigate a little bit so we went to investigate when he went to the compound there the sisters of charity he went in he found mother trees and ministering to a man who was beyond disgusting in terms of his physical condition I won't describe to you the way the book describes him but it would turn your stomachs and mother trees it was ministering to that man with a smile on her face as though he was some kind of royalty or some kind of a brawman in the city of Calcutta she knew why he was there when he came in sorry ministering to this man she said would you like for me to show you around see what we did he said no that won't be necessary and he went outside where a mob had gathered he's the mob was there to watch the sheriff throw the film the nuns out and sheriff went out and quietly the mob he says you asked me to dispel the foreign woman and her fellow sisters and I will do that the day you get your wives and your daughters to come in here and do what they're doing mother trees has gone but the sister charity they're still there in Calcutta impelled by the love of Christ to reach out to the least of these the gospel is about reaching out to the sick and the lame and the leper and the outcast the gospel impels us to reach out and touch people no one else in the world had anything to do with because God cares about the exile in the outcast fact if you understand the scripture right we ourselves well we dress up nicely we look pretty good on sunny mornings we're exiles and outcasts ourselves the writer of the book of Hebrews chapter 13 writes this verses 12 and 13 and 14 and so Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore for here we do not have an enduring city we're looking for the city it is to come
we're exiles here ladies and gentlemen we are strangers and aliens every bit as much as Daniel and Hannah and I and Michiel and Azaria we're not home now our exile our captives pretty soft it's pretty benign here in the United States but exiles we are nonetheless if you've ever looked around it's something you see going on the world right here on culture and right here Miami if you've ever looked around said yourself the cruelty the injustice the unfairness the violence if you've ever looked around that you said that is not right it should not be like that ask yourself where do you get that idea it's the only world we've ever known there's always been cruel and violent and just it's always been unfair where do we get the idea that that's not the way it's supposed to be well I submit to you that can only come from one place that's from the God who still loves and will not abandon his following planet in each of our souls there is within us I mean it's in our DNA at dim vestigial memory of a place when the world is right that goes of Eden and each and every one of our hearts our minds and our souls we've been an exile ever since J.R.R. Tolkien who knows the thing or two about fairy tales and myths right or the Lord of the Rings Tolkien says that the court all great fairy tale all great myths had the same common ground we were lost and now we're found it's the gospel story Daniel tells us there's a God in heaven and quote is one God pre-universe he's not on vacation he cares about the eggs on the outcast and he has to be honored and glorified you see how Daniel doesn't hate the credit he doesn't even leave the impression that he knows about nebuchadnezzar dream because he's so smarter so spiritual he gives all the glory to God long before there was a Westminster shorter catechism to tell us that the chief fin the man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever long before that document was written Daniel knew that his role in this world was to glorify God to give him any honor in the glory I think maybe I told you that some gosh maybe 30 years ago a friend or maybe more than that friend of mine our Methodist pastor Jeff what's Texas to Dallas to visit him and my name is Dr. E. Stanley Jones if you've ever been part of a Methodist church you know who E. Stanley Jones is a Jones missionary great man of God and ministered in India for most of the years he came home to Texas in his later days his later days my friend Jeff went to see Dr. E. Stanley Jones and to tell him how much he'd meant to his life and to thank him for his work and he just gushed about what a great man of God Dr. E. Stanley Jones is and Dr. Jones let him talk and we got done gushing he said to him this he said young man if there's anything good about me it's Jesus Christ all the rest is E. Stanley Jones amen to that amen to that he understood and we need to understand this is about God and his glory Daniel got it Daniel knew it Daniel understood his role was to glorify God and do enjoy him forever even in his exile even in his captivity 600 years after Daniel John the Baptist summed it up so succinct and you know this John chapter 3 and verse 30 pointed to Jesus he said he must increase I must decrease he must increase I must decrease I began this morning talking about those who would debate the existence of God those who would spend their time wrangling over and being cynical about whether or not there's a God there is a God ladies and gentlemen Daniel's testimony is that there's a God the quote is one God pre-universe he's not on vacation he cares about exiles now casts and he has to be honored and glorified my question for us this morning is as we live and move and have our being here in the city of Miami what is the motivating factor of our lives is it to survive is it to make money is it to become rich and famous those are not necessarily bad things in and out of themselves but we must understand we must understand as Christians our role our motivating factor is to glorify God and enjoy him forever deal moody was known to have said that God sends no one away empty except those who already full of themselves there's God he's not me thank God let's pray together heavenly Father I do thank you that you are the God in heaven your real mysteries you meet us in our times of need you care about the outcast and the exile the widow and the orphan you care about the husband and the wife the mother the father the son the daughter the brother the sister you care about those who are struggling and fainting those who needed every ounce of strength and determination they had just to get out of bed this morning and those who couldn't your father I thank you for your love for us may manifest Jesus in Nazareth I pray his name I'm man we're glad you're here this morning we asked your seat now the Lord's benediction go now in the love of God the Father grace and mercy of God the Son the fellowship and companionship of God the Holy Spirit and live the life I'm in