As some of you know, I am a recovering youth pastor in a previous life, I used to play guitar and occasionally that would play for a coffee house up in Fort Lauderdale. I was the opening act, believe me. There's a band that played a number of times after I did my, what I called a musical set and the band's called Dean and the Dreamers. Pretty much a straight-ahead rock and roll band they had, Dean on lead guitar and vocal of bass and a drummer. She had gospel rock and roll, usually about five or six or seven songs into their opening. Said, Dean would come to the microphone and he'd say, I have a theological dilemma. Can a Christian sing the blues? They're kind of out of the Pentecostal mold and they felt like after the cross that through the Spirit's joy and we should only be joyful all the time so you'd say can a Christian sing the blues? Well, I did not know then all that I know now or I would have said, yeah, God's people have always ridden and sung His music in sometimes the deepest, darkest times of distress and despair. I mentioned a few weeks ago, I talked about Fanny Crosby, the hymn writer, blind, not quite from birth but as an infant was blinded and so spent the rest of his life without the gift of sight but wrote some of our greatest, most beloved hymns, blessed assurance all the way my Savior leads me and only about 8,000 other hymns written by Fanny Crosby. I mentioned Horatio Spaferti who wrote the well-loved hymn that is well with my soul and peace like a river attendeth my way, he wrote that song on a transatlantic voyage when the ship that he was on crossed the spot where the ship, his wife and daughters had been on and when that ship sank his daughters, his four daughters drowned at that spot, his wife alone survived and that's when Horatio Spaferti wrote that hymn. He was missing the blues, yeah, about David, writing some of the Psalms, Psalm 57, 142, a written while he is hiding out from Saul in the cave of Adulom. He's running for his life, hiding from the king, the madness of King Saul and he writes Psalms or how about Paul and Silas, Acts chapter 16 there, they're in jail and fill up by, they have been beaten for no reason other than preaching the gospel. They've been thrown into jail and they're chained to the wall and at midnight they're singing hymns of praise to the Lord and the other prisoners are listening in. Can a Christian sing the blues, yeah, a Christian can sing the blues, Christians have cried out in the Son of God and some of the most extreme trials and times of testing. What we're going to look at this morning is Daniel, chapter 2, verse 19 to 24, we're not told it's a hymn but it is a Psalm of praise to God in a very difficult time. Let me set the context for you if you've been out for a bit or if you just were not paying attention to some of you who are asleep so let me remind you where we are preaching to Daniel. And chapter 2, Daniel and his three Jewish friends, Hannah and I, and Misha and I, you may know them better, Shadrach, Misha and Abednego. The four of them are in exile in Babylon, their Jewish exiles in Babylon and they're in the service of the pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream that has disturbed him greatly. So he's gone to the so-called wise men of Babylon, the magicians and enchanters and sorcerers and astrologers and Daniel and company said, I've had this dream and I want you all to interpret it for me. They said, okay, King, no problem. What was in the dream? No, no. You've not got any interpret for me. You've got to tell me what was in the dream. And they protested, no one can do that. No king has ever asked a thing of his wise men like that and the king said, well, I'm asking a view. And oh yeah, if you don't do it, I'm going to have you all put to death and I'm going to run a, after you're dead, I'm going to run a steam roller through your living rooms and I'm going to crush your houses and put your families all out on the street. The loose paraphrase from the Hebrew, but that's what's going on here. And so Daniel has asked simply for time to pray to seek the God of heaven and he says, now come back and I'll tell you what he says, King, verse 19, during the night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision, then Daniel prays the God of heaven and said, prays be to the name of God forever and ever, wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness and light dwells with him. I thank him, praise you, O God of my fathers. You have given me wisdom and power. You have made known to me what we asked of you. You have made known to us the dream of the king. The Daniel went to Eryach, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon and said to him, do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king and I will interpret his dream for him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, hear the same God to whom Daniel cried out in the middle of the night in despair. Lord, a lot of us in this room today are hurting. Everybody in this room, everybody listening to this sermon is broken. Some of us know it, some of us don't or some of us don't know it yet. Every single one of us has been broken or will be broken. Lord, like Daniel, we cry out to you in a time of great need. We say, Lord, speak to us. Speak to us now through the words of your servant, Daniel, through the story of Daniel. Speak to us, Lord, and use this word to mold us and shape us more and more in the conformity of the image of your son, Jesus, the living word, which in his name I pray, Amen. Before I get back to the text, we let me just take one excursus if you own preliminary. Back in verse 4, I just didn't deal with this last week, just for time's sake. I'm going to see if I can deal with it fairly quickly this one, but it's important. Back in verse 4, Daniel, chapter 2, and you don't have any of your bulletin, but maybe you're looking at your Bible. Back in verse 4, we read this, then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, O King lived forever, tell your servants the dream we will interpret it. In Aramaic, now brief Bible lesson for those of you who maybe don't know this. The Bible that you have, that you're looking at in English, some of you may be against Spanish, the Bible that you have was written down originally, primarily in two languages. The Older Testament was written in Hebrew, the Newer Testament was written in Greek. There are a couple of exceptions, parts of the book of Ezra and this section of the book of Daniel were written in the Aramaic language. Why am I bonding with this? Well, you don't need to understand that throughout the Older Testament, for the most part, Hebrew was the language of the temple. It was the language of the educated and the scholarly who spoke this language in the temple of the language of worship, but the language they spoke to one another primarily was Aramaic. But God accommodated Himself as a key thing. God accommodated Himself to speak to them in a language that they could understand and they could disseminate to others. God did not speak to the Old Testament writers in heavenly because they wouldn't have understood it. He didn't speak to the New Testament writers in heavenly because they wouldn't have understood it. He spoke to them in Hebrew and some in Aramaic and some in Greek and in this section here in Daniel chapter 2, verse 4, all the way through chapter 7, that we'll obviously look at in English, it's written in Aramaic. Why? Well, we're not told exactly, but I think it's because the writer, Daniel didn't actually write the books about Daniel. Daniel wasn't a moment of actually wrote it down. Whoever wrote down the book of Daniel for us felt like this section from Daniel 2, 4, the chapter 7 was so important, he wanted to get it out there in the language that everybody in his circle of ancient Ereas could understand, so he put an Aramaic. Why am I bound to give you this seminary geek lesson on languages? Well, first of all, you ought to thank God for the people who translated your Bible. You should see what Hebrew looks like, good Hebrew is hard to read, the scrolls that we have to translate off of is impossible, and they did it. So first of all, thank God for your Bible that you've got a language you can read. Secondly, the doctrine of accommodation is important to us, folks, because we are asked to accommodate people around us who don't understand. If we speak to them in Christianese, we talk to them in words that they don't understand, and this is incomprehensible to them as Hebrew and Aramaic are the most of us. God accommodated himself to us in languages we could understand. He calls on us to accommodate to people around us who don't speak our language either. Are we willing to embrace some unconventional, maybe even some uncomfortable means in order to make Christ known to a culture that doesn't speak that language? The doctrine of accommodation is extremely important, we need to embrace it here as well. Now, verse 19, God comes through during the night the mystery has revealed the Daniel in a vision. He reveals to Daniel the content and the meaning of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and Daniel responds with a song of praise to God and it lays itself out basically in three stanzas, all great hymns have to have at least three stanzas. Here's the first stanzan that is that Daniel trusts in God's sovereignty in spite of his circumstances. The latter part of verse 19, then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said, Praise be to the name of God forever and ever, wisdom and power of his. He changes times and seasons, he sets up kings and deposes them in a time of great trial. Daniel focuses on the attributes of God, not his situation, he focuses on God, he says, God, you're wise and you're powerful. You gotta remember, Daniel's not sitting on the beach in Maui, he's not sitting on some mountaintop retreat in Colorado, contemplating metaphysical reality, Daniel's an exile, he's a captive in a pagan culture, he's got a price on his head. He's looking at execution in a very short period of time, if God doesn't come through for him. The English writer, thinker, Lexicographer Samuel Johnson was due to be hung the next day and he wrote this down, the prospect of being hanged immediately, wonderfully concentrates the mind. You focus on what's important when you think there's a, when there is a death sentence hanging over you and the price hanging over your head. It's easy for the person who just won the lot or to say, I just knew God would come through for me. I just knew he was gonna take care of me. It's not so easy when you're back that's against the wall. You're the one who's looking at foreclosure. You're the one that got the bad news from the doctor about yourself or your loved one. That's not so easy to say. I just knew God would come through for me. But Daniel says, I trust the God of heaven in spite of my circumstances. My old friend Pat Arnold is in heaven now. My old friend Pat Arnold told me about the missionaries that he knew serving in the African continent. Back during a time when the fastest way to get a message to a place like Africa and back was a telegraph. And this couple had brought their college age something back to the United States to go to college then they returned to Africa to the mission field. And only a couple weeks after they had left their son here in America for college, he was killed in an automobile accident. And so the home mission office wired a telegraph to the couple. We're very sorry to inform you of sad news. Your son has been killed in an automobile accident. And this couple wired back a two-word response. No accident. No accident. Because they knew there's a God in heaven who sovereignly oversees the events in our lives even when we can't begin to understand them. Daniel Tristan got sovereignty despite of his circumstances. So I don't know why horrible things happen to nice people. I don't know why one person made it out of the twin towers and the person next to him was crushed. I don't know why one couple's daughter gets a keen say and another couple's daughter gets cancer. I don't know why one man cannot have children. And Osama bin Laden has depended on the estimate between one and two dozen children by about six or seven different wives. I don't understand that. I can talk about, I can shine some light on it theologically, but I can't resolve it before I don't know why. I don't know why in our church family within the last, within the space of seven, eight, red, four deaths. Then our extended church family and for the El Castro still breathing. And Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmed Inajad and Kim Jong-il, a bunch of other people that I would have put higher on the list to expire. You've got to ask me. I don't understand why they're still breathing and your loved ones have died. But I know this. This is so important. I hope you get this. I know this. Either there is someone behind the curtain who is sovereignly orchestrating the events in our lives and using them to work out his purposes in this life. Either that is true or this is all one great big joke and we are fooling ourselves to be here this morning and pretend otherwise. Either there's a God in heaven who is sovereignly controlling the events that we can't begin to understand and uses them to bring glory to himself and to bring about his purposes on this planet or this is a joke and it's a bad one and only a fool could laugh. And we must choose it's one or the other. Daniel chooses to trust the sovereign to God in spite of his circumstances. That's the first stance of his hymn of praise. The second stance is this. Daniel leans on God's wisdom in opposition to his culture. Back at verse 21 he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness and might dwells with him and he goes on to thank God for his attributes. Sometimes I think we like to think their ancient forebears had it easier in the arena of faith than we do. Like they didn't have to face as much competition in the spiritual arena as we do. Daniel's cultural setting was every bit as difficult. Everybody is challenging as ours. We're competing for the hearts and minds of men. We're competing with other gods. Ours are gods like technology, syncretism, and materialism, and sex. Daniel and his crew were competing with the hearts and minds of men. Four other with other gods were named Bell and Nebo and Marduk. And oh yeah syncretism and materialism and sex. Some things never change. Today we have a sort of a communion store approach to spirituality. It goes like this, if you have what I want and you're open hours that are convenient to me it doesn't cost too much maybe I'll shop at your store, which means your church. It often today takes the form of I'm not into organized religion but I am spiritual. I'm a spiritual person. It's not a religious person. Let me translate that for you. It means I have a belief in God as a God on my own design. He's a lot like me only bigger and more powerful. He or she or it a lot like me just bigger and more powerful. And I have a belief in this God but he or she or it doesn't make any real demands on me. I don't have to be anywhere a certain time. I don't have to go to any meetings. I don't have to feel convicted of any sins. I don't have to sacrifice it in my time or town or treasure. Basically this God must be pretty much do whatever I want not in his or her its direction once in a great while and I still get to feel vaguely religious and spiritual and moral. That sound familiar? I hear that one a lot. I'm not into organized religion but I am spiritual. I like something Rick Warren says about that. You don't like organized religion? You love us. We're disorganized religion.
I'm not really religious. I am spiritual and the Bible tells us the fear of the Lord. This is the beginning of wisdom. The Lord. Not some God I make up. When we talk about you know one of the Westminster's short recaticism that he is infinitely eternal and unchangeable and is being wisdom, holiness, power, justice, goodness and truth. That God that's the God of the Bible. It's not the God I would make up. So here in Babylon while the home grown and home raised editions and enchaners and sorcerers and astrologers while they're looking at circles drawn in the dirt and they're staring at goad in trails and they're consulting their star charts and they're muttering their incantations while they're doing all that fearing for their lives and desperately looking for something that was sort of stave off the madness of the king Daniel. Daniel leans on the wisdom that comes from God alone. Now I've asked you all year to be praying for and looking to build a redemptive relationship of one or two or maybe three non-Christians. I don't know how that's coming with you. I see three steps four two steps back that the guys I'm praying for. You wonder why they don't understand this. You wonder why when you talk to them about spiritual things they look at you like the Charlie Brown cartoons where the adults always sound like walk and walk and walk and walk. They look at you and they like you're speaking cling onto them. You wonder why they don't understand you because they can't understand you. They do not have the spiritual mental apparatus through which they can understand spiritual truth. They're not stoop well some of them are kind of but it's not because they're stupid because God hasn't turned the line on for them. I want to read you of passage in 1 Corinthians chapters 1 and 2 again. I read part of this to you last week. I'm going to read a little more to you this morning and it's long but I want you to listen to it because this explains to us why our non-Christian friends cannot understand spiritual truth. Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth a very pagan city a lot like Miami. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us are being saved is the power of God. For it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. Intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through this wisdom did not know him God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles but that those who God is called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God for the foolishness of God is wise with the man's wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers think of what you were when you were called not many of you were wise by human standards not many were influential not many were of noble birth but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong he chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus who has become for us wisdom from God that is our righteousness holiness redemption therefore as it is written let him who boasts boast in the Lord and let me skip down to chapter 2 verse 13 Paul says this is what we speak not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught us by the spirit expressing spiritual truths and spiritual words the man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God but for their foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned the spiritual man makes judgment about all things that he himself is not subject to any man's judgment for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him but we have the mind of Christ and I told you before a month or two months ago that I am in situations all the time that the letters I have after my name the years I've been seminary and the years I've been a pastor and a husband and a father they do not prepare me for some of the decisions I am confronted with people ask me pastor what do I do and I say okay Lord you told me that we have the mind of Christ so I'm going to trust that I am speaking with the mind of Christ and I'm going to tell this person this couple this family here's what I believe God would have you do because I'm so smart because I spent some years in school believe me I don't count on those things I trust that the word of God tells me that I have the mind of Christ and if you know Christ so do you and in that confidence I move forward and that's what you have to do too you're not always prepared for the decisions you have to make but if you know Christ you have the mind of Christ and in that confidence we move ahead we do what God's called us to do you're non-Christian friends they're not stupid mostly they just can't understand they don't have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the mind of Christ to comprehend what God has given us to know and in order for that to happen in order for us to have those things we've got to be born again you've got to be born again in Christ in order to have the eyes to see in the ears to hear let's say if you're hearing this message and you have never been active faith receive the payment Christ made on the cross for you today's the day to do it you're not guaranteed tomorrow today's the day the simple act of faith say Lord Jesus I heard with this guy has to say I know whatever else I'm doing isn't working so by faith I receive the payment you made on the cross for me I repent of my sins I turn for my sins and I receive you by faith coming to my life maybe any person in Christ and give me the mind of Christ if you've never done that before today is the day you don't know that you'll get another opportunity Daniel trust in the wisdom of God in spite of his circumstances now look when we get in those situations and you've been praying for that non-Christian friend you've been looking for those were definitely about opportunities when you have a man take him let me just tell you briefly a couple three weeks ago when Rusty Wright was here Rusty and Andrew and I were sitting together after a Bible study and a non-Christian friend someone I've been praying for who's a Muslim came by and engaged in conversation and he was of the opinion that really Islam and Christianity really are pretty much harmonized pretty much teach the same things and I didn't say and Rusty and Andrew we didn't jump on him say well you kidding are you stupid have you ever actually read the career you can't have an IQ of two above plant life and say that we didn't say that we said now that's good you recognize there are some there's some common ground we believe in one God got a Abraham Isaac and Jacob good but do you know that the Quran says that Jesus being the son of God was never crucified on the cross he did not make an attaining sacrifice for your sins or mine the Quran teaches that that crucial moment you have to pardon the pun at that crucial moment that Christ caused Jesus caused his likeness to go on some other poor sucker and he was crucified in his place while Jesus simply slinked away or slunk away wherever the past tense is slinked he simply disappeared into the crowd and let the other poor slumped time his place and we said to our friend what kind of man would do that you respect a man who would do that to somebody else he didn't know the Quran said that or he acted like he didn't know anyway and we were able to bring him to a point where he saw there's a difference between what Islam says what the Quran says and what the Bible teaches there's a difference between what they think of Jesus and what we know to be true about him trust in the wisdom of God when you get those redemptive opportunities take him you don't know that you'll get another opportunity Paul says this about Jesus in Colossians 2 this is my purpose that they may be encouraged in heart united in love so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order they may know the mystery of God namely Christ and who are all are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge the issue ladies and gentlemen is Jesus bring your non-Christian friends to the point where they confront the issue of Jesus who is he what has he done you believe he gave an atoning sacrifice on the cross for your sins and if so what is your response yes i believe it nor rejected or i simply don't care but you must respond because one day all no votes or all abstain votes are counted as no votes before holy god damn chooses to trust in some new God in spite of the circumstances he leans on God's wisdom and opposition to his culture and the third stands that God prays Daniel praises God's majesty in the face of his adversaries he praises God for his wisdom and his power and he says you given me wisdom and power and in the book we call Daniel there's so many acts of bravery and heroism encouraged in the part of Daniel and Hannah and I and Misha and Ezraia it's easy to lose sight of the fact that God is the central character but God's the hero of the story we sometimes say I want to be like Daniel I want to be like Shadrat Misha in bed and go that's okay but they wanted to be like God that's the message they want to be like him as we're going to see in chapter three they want to be like the one who stood in the fire in furnace with them we sometimes forget that God's the means character they didn't forget they looked up to him and they praised him for his majesty as faithless I don't know why sometimes we reform people sometimes we seem to have a hard time praising God we seem to have a hard time letting go and seeing his praises with abandonment sometimes I think there are charismatic brothers and sisters have a lot to teach us and let me tell you that sometimes I'm absolutely sure there are African-American brothers and sisters could really school us that comes to praising God have a confession to make on my computer I listen to something called Pandora Radio I recommend it to you you can tailor your own radio some you know there's no one called Django I've just discovered maybe it's been around for a long time that you can really tailor to listen to what you want to so I listen to Chris Tomman and Stephen Kerst Chapman and Jarger Clayton the people I like listen to but here's my confession sometimes after listening to enough of that kind of music I'll click on a video Kirk Franklin just to watch a bunch of people sing for sure and by the way they can also dance but they they look like they really enjoy praising God and being around other people praise God I love your brother and sister but sometimes on Sunday mornings when we're seeing you look like you're in pain forgive me for telling you but some of you look like you maybe need leave your and go the emergency room I like to just be around people who just they just are abandoned in the presence of God they enjoy it I remember in a worship class in seminary some of them for talking but it's confessing that we realize some of some times our services get a little boring and a black brother sitting right next to me said y'all cannot possibly get bored in your services what do you mean by they said y'all don't meet long enough to get bored in the black churches they go all day and they sing a lot and they preach for an hour praise God amen hallue you only think I do and they're abandoned in the presence of God it's just fun for me to watch and be around people who love praising God with abandonment Daniel praises God's majesty in the face of his adversaries there's a vote that takes faith not a degree in theology not smarts not looks not money not athletic ability or social standing it takes faith to see through our circumstances and to see through and against our adversarial culture see the reality of God working in us and through us I began this one of the questions is okay for Christians to sing the blues it is as long as we like Daniel like Hannah and I as where I miss you like David in the Psalms like Paul inside of this in jail like Jesus on the cross who quoted as song Psalm 22 my god my god why has thou forsaken me who in the midst of the worst event in the history of planet earth could cry out in a song but they sang to the one who was the answer to those bliss to the spare to the distress they looked up to him Edmund clown he says this in that story Jesus' rejection becomes our acceptance his person is our forgiveness his nakedness our covering his uliness our beauty the cross therefore calls forth hymns that know the fellowship of his sufferings hymns that come from across or rise from a prison cell at midnight whatever it is you're going through right now then nobody but you knows maybe you and God it's okay to sing the blues just sing them to the one who understands because he's been where you are and he's come through it and he's triumphed he's made a way of salvation for everyone of us let's pray our father and our god we don't often understand our trials and why you allowed or caused the suffering of the pain that we deal with the kind of keep us awake at night awake us up in the middle of the night and we cry out we saw but we want to know where were you when my love wouldn't die where were you when I got cancer where were you when I got the diagnosis where were you when I got that worse but we cry out to you but we also realize you've been here and you know what it's like and you have endured the worst that this planet that our humanity could throw at you and you come through and you persevered and you've shown us that we can't do Lord help us to look at the cross those desperately difficult times and know that you're one of us and you understand you've triumphed and we can't do Jesus name Amen. We'd ask you to receive now the Lord's benediction to go down the love of God the Father to grace and mercy of God the Son fellowship and companionship of God the Holy Spirit and live the life I'm in