Intro: [upbeat music] Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a ministry that's dedicated to speaking the gospel out of every corner of scripture. In Luke twenty-four, Jesus told his disciples that every part of the Bible was about him. So each week, hosts David and Seth work through a passage of scripture to see how it's all about Jesus and his good news. Let's jump in.
David: [upbeat music] Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you for joining us. We got a special episode for you today.
Seth: Yes, we are introducing the book of Daniel starting next week.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: But this week, we have a sermon that I preached a few years ago that o- outlines the whole book of Daniel, and one of the main points of the book of Daniel, which is the fact that only Jesus rules the kingdoms of the world.
David: That sounds like good news.
Seth: It was good news.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And it was fun re-listening to it. I'm like, man, I love preaching this sermon.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So I'm just really glad I get to share it-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... today.
David: Yeah, and I think it's important, too, for us to try to give you as much overview context as we can before jumping in, 'cause we are going, are going really deep into Daniel. We're walking through kinda chapter by chapter, kinda trying to leave as few stones unturned as possible.
Seth: And what's surprising is when you turn over every stone-
David: [laughs]
Seth: ... that's a lot of stones.
David: That's a lot of stones.
Seth: And you end up missing stones.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Which is funny.
David: There's a lot. So we just thought it'd be really helpful-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... uh, to use Seth's overview sermon of the book of Daniel to kind of get you into the book before we do our traditional introduction podcast.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: And then go chapter by chapter through Daniel in the coming weeks. So man, buckle up, get the book of Daniel in front of you.
Seth: We're so excited for the book of Daniel.
David: Yeah. And, um, we're real pumped to walk with, with you guys through all this to see how Jesus rules, how God is in control of all the gods, how his dominion is above everything, and talk about dreams and visions. It's gonna be awesome. So, uh, I am so-
Seth: Also the lion's den.
David: Also the lion's den.
Seth: [laughs]
David: Also the fiery furnace.
Seth: The fiery furnace.
David: I mean, there's some hits.
Seth: There's big hits.
David: There's big hits. Uh, the Daniel diet.
Seth: The Daniel diet.
David: [laughs]
Seth: We're all on it right now.
David: Oh, my good- [laughs]
Seth: We've all gained weight. [laughs]
David: [laughs] So anyway, I'm excited to commend this sermon to you. Enjoy it, uh, and we will see you next week in the introduction podcast to the book of Daniel. Enjoy Seth's sermon.
Seth: [upbeat music] My name is, uh, Seth Stewart, and I am the pastor of student ministries, and I am preaching the entire book of Daniel.
Audience: [cheers]
Seth: That's far more positive than the staff meeting I had when I announced the [laughs] same thing. [laughs] Um, I think Daniel has a very important message, not just for Christians, but for people in our cultural moment. I think people, most of us, sense a profound feeling of displacement. Displacement. If you're old enough to have voted a few presidential elections ago, you might feel, you probably feel, that the world has moved past you. You can't believe how quickly the world seems to have abandoned Christian values in favor for whatever it is that you see around you right now. You remember a day when you could leave your doors unlocked and kids were praying in schools. You hear about, uh, the transgendered bathroom debate, and you say to yourself, “Is my world going crazy?”
Um, hoping to lament, to explain this sense of displacement with your family around Thanksgiving tables. You try to articulate this to them, but you actually feel your kids leaning back, not reciprocating the conversation, and, um, getting quiet. You now look at them in disbelief. Are your kids, your kids really abandoning what you taught them? Isaiah said that there would be a generation who would call evil good and good evil. You just didn't expect you would see it.
And those of, of on the other side of the Thanksgiving table, those of us that are leaning back and getting quiet react that way not because you always disagree with your parents' moral principles, although I'm, I'm sure you know precisely where you disagree, but it's by their attitude, their tone, the fact that they're lamenting. Lamenting a nineteen fifties vision of America that was supposedly more Christian, even as it denied equality to African Americans. It seems strange to you that America was ever called a Christian nation, and you sense that your parents might feel that America is Israel, God's agent for good in the world. But to you, America has always been Babylon.
And living in Babylon for you is profoundly confusing. Gone are the good guys and bad guys you were told to expect, and now no one seems to represent your unique mix of beliefs. So in that struggling, in that tension, we just kind of tempt out, uh, tempt out, [laughs] like bail out. People of my generation are tempted to just check out of the whole conversation. And beyond that, most of us are just lonely, literally displaced from one another.
The New York Times recently announced that at the end of, at the end, at the end of twenty eighteen that America is suffering an epidemic of loneliness. According to a recent Cigna study, it said that nearly half of Americans, half of Americans say they, that they sometimes or always feel alone or left out. And thirteen percent of Americans say that zero people know them well.
Great Britain just appointed, the great British government, uh, the great British government? [laughs] Maybe that's right. The great British government just appointed a, a minister of loneliness to address this problem in their own nation. Republican senator Ben Sasse says that loneliness is killing us, citing the forty thousand people that will take their lives in a given year and the seventy thousand that will die from drug overdoses. Sociologist Jean Twenge, talking about our current generation of teenagers, say that they're in the middle of the largest mental health crisis in history with some of the highest rates of depression ever recorded.
Most of us, Christian or not, live with a sense of displacement. We feel like exiles in our country, exiles among our generation, exiled from our politics. More than that, we just feel exiled from each other. We're lonely. And it's to people like us that the Book of Daniel is written.
Israel has been conquered by Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar, its ruler, is infamous, not just in our Bibles, but in all the history of the ancient Near East. He alone is responsible for what historians call the Babylonian Renaissance. Under his rule, Babylon ballooned and conquered Egypt, Syria, Israel, Jordan, and huge parts of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Nebuchadnezzar's capital city contained a museum of antiquity in the sixth century BC. Crazy. And one of the wonders of the world, the Hanging Gardens, you've probably seen a picture of it, it looks something like this, was built by him.
Babylon was powerful. Nebuchadnezzar was unstoppable. And one of the reasons he was so successful was his colonization strategy. Babylon would conquer a nation and then displace the majority of that population, particularly the royalty and the popula-- the politicians, and ship them to Babylon, their capital city. And once they were there, the Babylonians would then indoctrinate them into Babylonian culture to ensure that their culture survived and all other cultures were stamped out.
Daniel was the son of his-- of an Is- Israeli politician, and he's abducted by King Nebuchadnezzar's forces and brought into King Nebuchadnezzar's palace for cultural indoctrination. This is what we read here in Daniel one, three, and four. “Then king c-- Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them-- and to teach them the language and literature of Babylon. To teach them the language and literature of the Chaldeans.”
Babylon, uh, Babylon. Imagine being Daniel in that moment. You're probably only fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen. A lot of teenagers in this room. You're in a new place, a new culture, a massive city. You've been separated from your parents. You've been given a new name. They've made sure to scrub you from any ties to your past. And the most powerful man in the world has assigned tutors and teachers to train you in the language and literature of Babylon. Their job is to turn you into a good Babylonian, to indoctrinate you, to re-educate you. And you know that the king is willing to kill anyone who doesn't comply.
If you're Daniel, you feel enormous pressure to bow. And on top of that, the king seems so generous. Read the next verse. “The king assigned them,” these youths, “a daily portion of the food that the king ate and the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king.”
You're drinking the king's wine. You're drinking his, eating his food. You're being offered the best Babylon has. The king is investing in you. He's mentoring you. And if you go along with it, you're promised a position of power and influence in the greatest nation on Earth. Yeah, you know he's a tyrant. But wouldn't you be able to do more good in the belly of the beast? Be honest. What would you do if you were Daniel?
And that question, what would you do if you were Daniel, is exactly the point. The character of Daniel acts as a lightning rod for all the anxieties and the question Israel's asking while they are in exile, too. Do we give in? Do we reject? What happens? Daniel, this lonely Jew afloat in Babylon's cultural sea, is a representative of a displaced and hopeless people.
The book of Daniel then is written not just to describe a particular historical moment, but it's a guidebook on how to hang on to hope when everyone is more powerful w- than you, when the world's gone mad and you're all alone. The message of Daniel is hope in the God who controls the kings and who rules forever. We're gonna hear that over and over again. Hope in the God who controls the kings and who rules forever.
And over the course of Daniel's seventy years working in Babylon, he serves under three different kings. But the consistent pattern we're supposed to notice with each king is that regardless of the changing face of the king, when it looks most hopeless, when the leaders seem most godless, that's when God moves most powerfully and His message goes the furthest.
I'm preaching this, this, this, this book because part of it, I want you to read the Book of Daniel better. I want you to go home at the end of the day and read the Book of Daniel, probably takes about forty-five minutes, thirty minutes, and understand it better. So here's the structure of the Book of Daniel.
Daniel is structured by a series of four parallel and connecting stories. The first chapter and the last three chapters are the beginning and ending of Daniel's exile. The next couplet, Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's dream, tell, um, us about their dreams because it says so on the screen. [laughing] And Nebuchadnezzar has this dream of this four-parted statue, and Daniel has this dream of these four beasts. And the message of both of the dreams is the same: Babylon and the kingdoms after it will all fall by God's hand. That's the message.
And in the next couplet are the two most famous stories you've ever heard, the fiery furnace and the lion's den. And what they show is that when two different kings try to conquer and use their power to crush God's messenger and to silence his message, the opposite happens. Not only can the king not kill Daniel and his friends, but the message they rejected ends up getting proclaimed throughout their entire kingdom.
The same government that kidnapped children, colonized cities, uh, indoctrinated youths, used its infrastructure, the same roads it built to conquer other lands, to spread the gospel, the good news that God reigns forever in all languages, nations and people. That's-- those two stories. Crazy.
Then the middle two, the final couplet, are these back-to-back stories about back-to-back leaders, Nebuchadnezzar and his son Belshazzar. And they're given the opportunity to humble themselves before the God of Daniel, the God who controls the kings and rules forever. Belshazzar doesn't, and he's assassinated immediately. Nebuchadnezzar does, but not immediately. Looking over his city at one point, apparently not getting the Book of Daniel, he says, “Look what I have built by my mighty power and for my glory and my majesty.” [chuckles] And he goes immediately, while the words are still in his mouth, he goes insane. For one year, God disciplines him to live like a cow, literally eating grass. And when his sanity is restored to him and he worships-- he-- When his sanity is restored to him, he worships God.
And the main point of the book of Daniel is proved: hope in the God who controls the kings. God rules forever, and anyone who opposes him is grass-munching crazy. [laughing] That's the message of the Book of Daniel. [laughs] So again, go home and read it. Some of the points I'm gonna be making will feel far more powerful when you read them for yourself.
But as I have you here, I wanna answer three questions today. One, who controls the kings? Who controls the kings? Two, which king will you trust? And three, how should Christians respond to this cultural moment?
So who controls the kings? I think the first thing you're gonna notice about Daniel when you read it this week... Do you see how I'm expecting you to read the Book of Daniel this week? [laughing] Okay, just making sure. One of the first things you're gonna notice is that God controls the hearts, minds, action, and affairs of the kings.
In chapter one, verse two, we're told it's actually God who gives Israel over to Nebuchadnezzar and sends them into exile. In one-seventeen, we're told that God actually gives, uh, Daniel wisdom and understanding to understand the language and literature of Babylon, which I think is fascinating, by the way, that God would give him wisdom and understanding to understand the indoctrination materials so well. But that's another sermon for another time.
When Daniel praises God for helping him to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's first dream, he says this in two, twenty to twenty-three, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you.”
In one of Daniel's more clever moments, uh, before he gives King Nebuchadnezzar the bad news that his dream's interpretation is, like, bad news for him, he flatters the king, but he flatters the king by praising God. “You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, and the glory.” I think that's brilliant. And that's just the first two chapters. [laughs]
In chapter four, after being rescued from the fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar sends to all peoples, nations, and languages a poem, [laughs] a poem that worships the God of Daniel. Chapter four, “King Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in the earth, peace be multiplied to you. It has seemed good to me to show you the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. How great are his signs! How mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation.”
When K- Nebuchadnezzar has another uninterpretable dream, [lip smacks] Daniel tells him the reason that he has this dream, in four-twenty-five, is to know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and he gives it to whomever he wills. And whenever Nebuchadnezzar goes insane and comes back from his insanity, do you know what Nebuchadnezzar says? “I know that the Most High reigns, uh, the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will.”
What's the point of the Book of Daniel? God controls the kings. God controls the kings, and God rules forever. [lip smacks] I could keep going. I really could. There's so many. [lip smacks]
But the same message is preached even as kings come and go. King Belshazzar refuses to humble himself. He's assassinated. King Darius, when he throws Daniel into the lion's den, but seeing the saving power of God, he decrees that God's kingdom will never be destroyed. Six-twenty-six, it's what Katie read at the beginning of, uh, our service today.
If you read Daniel this week, notice that every time-A king speaks, a human king speaks, is to proclaim that God's kingdom will last forever. And every time God speaks, it's to proclaim that every kings and kingdom will, will eventually be destroyed. It's profound.
What's the point of Daniel? God controls the kings, and God will rule forever. And I've just narrated to you six chapters of the Book of Daniel.
And at this point in the book, chapter six, everything changes. The book move... has moved through recording all these different events in Daniel's life as he was a ruler in Babylon, and then it shifts to all the visions and dreams that he had over that seventy years. So as you read it, it feels really surprising because Daniel switches from the third person to the first person, to describing a story, to what feels like a prayer journal. And that's supposed to signal to us, and it feels really weird as a reader when you get to it. It's supposed to signal to us as readers that we need to pause and reflect on what's just been read.
Daniel is inviting us to answer the question: Who will you trust? Will you trust the God that controls the kings, or will you trust in the fleeting power of changing kings? Who will you trust?
Our age is one of increasing loneliness and isolation. More people will-- took their life in twenty eighteen than in twenty seventeen. Opioid addiction is crippling towns. Globalization and mechanization are draining jobs. Self-harm is literally a social media phenomenon where you can go online and see people boasting about the way that they're injuring themselves. The next generation is delaying adulthood further and further, uh, owning homes, buying cars, getting married later and later, while at the same time we're expected to be hyper-aware of their sexual possibilities earlier and earlier.
One author says that-- says it this way: “We live in an age where fifteen is the new twenty-five and twenty-five is the new fifteen.” If you want just, like, a sum-up little catchphrase for student ministry, that's it right there. [laughs] Fifteen is the new twenty-five and twenty-five is the new fifteen.
And in a cultural moment like this one, it's really easy to trust the fleeting power of changing kings to get us back to where we once were. It's really easy to trust the fleeting power of living in the moment or not caring or not ruffling feathers and just enjoying what we can. It's really easy to trust in that sense of power that comes through self-harm. It's really easy to trust in the fleeting and vulnerability that prescription meds offer us. It's really easy to trust and believe that actually the narrative of the world is it's just death all the time, and what's best for us is just to grab whatever pleasure and happiness we can.
It's easy to trust in those kings. But the message of Daniel offers hope, true hope that there is a king stronger than our cultural moment. Yes, the tide's out, but tides always come back in, and the farther and longer the tide churns past the breaker, the faster and more powerful it, it returns.
Who will you trust? Will you-- Who will you throw your weight behind? Where will your confidence come from? In changing kings? In your own power? Or the king who controls all powers and rules forever?
And that's the question the Book of Daniel wants to ask you at, at the end of chapter six. And if you're on the fence, Daniel seven is supposed to get you off of it [laughs]. It's a vision of four vicious beasts. Each animal represents kings and culture that tear apart God's people. The kings of this world kill and conquer all those who trust in Jesus and anyone else who would stand in their way of gaining more power.
And in the middle of the violence, we read this: “As I looked, thrones were placed and the Ancient of Days took his seat. A thousand thousands served him and ten thousand time ten thousand stood before him.” Who is this king out of the middle of the carnage? It's God. It's the God who controls all the kings. We're supposed to see victory is on the way.
But did you notice? There are thrones, plural. Who sits on those extra thrones? Who-- Where-- There's an empty seat in God's divine throne room. Who sits there?
And we get the answer, uh, that's in a different vision that happens that night, and Daniel says this: “And behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days, and he was presented before him, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom is one that shall not be destoy-- destroyed.”
Apparently, from the wreckage of those beasts, from the bodies of the slain, a man stands up, walks to the throne of God, and then sits down next to him. Daniel has no idea what is going on [laughs]. And if you read the book of Daniel, you probably won't either.
And Daniel turns to h-- to an angel who's standing next to him, which is just part of the book of Daniel. You're gonna have to get used to it. He turns to an angel standing next to him, and the angel explains it this way. He says, “These four great beasts are four kings who shall rise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever.” Forever and ever.
The angel says that the son of man is actually any son or daughter of man who hopes and trusts in God. That's who will reign forever. That's who will be given all authority. There are ten thousand times ten thousand thrones sitting empty, waiting to be filled by those who are faithful to God.
And I'm sure in that moment, every lonely, suffering, enslaved, and exiled soul cries out, “Then when, Lord? When will I sit in power? When will this happen?” And it's actually the last question of the Book of Daniel. “Oh my Lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” Twelve eighteen.
And I'm sure enough of us in this room have cried out something similar. When will this end, God? You're supposed to control the kings, but it looks like you're not doing your job.
And for Daniel, this question is left unanswered. Daniel, when he says, “When, Lord?” he's told, “Wait.” He's promised the kingdom of God is coming and that soon he will sit on his allotted throne, but not yet. It's chapter twelve, verse thirteen.
And the hope that Daniel is given is that God controls the kings, God reigns forever, and when his kingdom comes, we will sit with-- in power with him soon.
And that leaves me really unsatisfied [laughs] as a reader. Soon? That's the best we have? [laughs] Daniel is still in exile. I kept asking myself while I was-- as I was writing this, why not then? Why didn't Israel get to sit on their thrones? Why doesn't any powerless son or daughter of man who trusts in God just given the authority and the power they need to overcome? If the throne is empty, why can't we sit down?
And I think the answer is in how the Son of Man is both one person and many people. Because when Daniel sees the vision, what does he see? He sees a singular Son of Man rise up out of the wreckage of the beast, and he walks towards the throne, and he sits down next to the Ancient of Days after being crushed by the beast.
It's only when Daniel then asks the angel the meaning of all this stuff that the angel responds and says that the singular Son of Man represents all sons of men who trust in God. In other words, the Son of Man, when the Son of Man is crushed by the beast and ascends to his throne, that's when we rise and sit on ours as well.
So the question automatically doesn't become, “When, Lord?” It becomes, who is the Son of Man?
And I wonder if a lot of Israelites thought Daniel was the Son of Man. After all, Nebuchadnezzar literally turns into a beast and tries to melt Daniel in a furnace. But after seeing-- But Nebuchadnezzar, after seeing someone like the sons of the gods just happen to be in the fire with him, he calls him out, and then what does he do? He elevates Daniel to a throne above all kings, nations, and peoples. Daniel had power and authority in a kingdom that reached all nations, and that happened twice.
King Darius, when he tries to throw him to the lion's den, uh, realizes that doesn't work 'cause the lions' mouths just remain closed. And what he d-- what happens is Daniel is re-elevated to his position of power, to his throne, and his enemies are thrown to the beasts instead.
If anyone gave Israel hope that their interests might be represented in pagan Babylon, it was Daniel. But Daniel is not the Son of Man. He does not lead all other sons and daughters of men to their thrones. He dies in exile, colonized, alone, just like everybody else.
You can hear the unanswered question of the Book of Daniel cry out, “When are you coming, Lord?” And from the pages of Mark one one, Jesus answers back, “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.”
Jesus is the Son of Man. And what is the gospel? It's that Jesus is about to be crushed by a beast, but when he comes out the other side, he will sit on his throne next to the Ancient of Days, and we will join him. Pretty good news. [clapping]
What is this gospel? How does that come about? There's this beastly group of men called the Pharisees, and they had plotted for a long time to crush Jesus. They arrange this kangaroo court in attempt to get some charge to stick, stick to him. And so one guy calls out hoping the charge of blasphemy will stick, and he says, “Are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah? Are you the one the scriptures tell us we should be looking for?”
And Jesus knows what this Messiah must do. Just like Daniel had to go through exile, the fire, and the lion's den, Jesus knows that the Christ must be forsaken, descend into hell, and be torn apart by beastly Roman guards. But he also knows that on the other side of crushing is a throne.
So Jesus responds with the words of Daniel in Mark fourteen sixty-two, “I am the Christ, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power, coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Who is the Son of Man? It is Jesus. What is his gospel? It's that in Jesus, all sons and daughters of men will rise with him. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, our exile is over. Our displacement has ended. Our loneliness is solved as we take with Jesus a throne next to the Ancient of Days. That's the gospel in the Book of Daniel.
And yes, I know our culture is toxic, but also know the immeasurable greatness of God's power towards us who believe. Jesus is raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Ancient of Days. He has all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion over every language, nation, tribe, and tongue. And since God is not only powerful, but also rich in mercy, he has seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Jesus, all the thrones are filled. We reign with him. Amazing.
Yes, I know that you feel increasingly disconnected from the people around you, but you are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, you cannot number them. Jesus prays daily for you by the throne of the Ancient of Days, and the Holy Spirit's presence can no more leave you than you can tear your bones from your body. You will rule among ten thousand times ten thousand. You are not alone. Jesus is on the throne. Yes. Amen.
And I did not mean for that to rhyme, but I had no other way to say it. [laughs]
So yes, Jesus is on the throne. But how do we res- how do Christians respond to this cultural moment? Because we still live in a time that feels like Daniel in a lot of ways. Yes, we rule in heaven with God in some strange way, but we all-- but we, uh, but we don't rule our culture or our world. How do we live in that tension?
And the, the Book of Daniel's answer is hope. Hope. I don't mean optimism. I mean if Jesus is sitting on a throne controlling all the kings, if we sit with him and exercise a power unimagined by Daniel as he ruled on a throne in one of the most powerful civilizations in our world, we should actually be fundamentally hopeful about our culture. This is not a hope that we'll one day be in charge of the culture, but a hope that the darkness of our world just mean that resurrection's around the corner. Yes. Instagram influencers are not in charge of the trajectory of our lives. No president can limit Jesus' power. Every YouTube personality and Silicon Valley exec bow to Jesus. The Son of Man has been given dominion and glory in a kingdom that spans all people, nations, and languages. Jesus controls the kings, and if that's the case, we shouldn't complain.
Which sounds like such a downer. We're all the way up here ruling forever, don't complain. But hopefulness cancels out complaining. Since God has proven over and over again that the bleakest times are often the most powerful, the right response to a world gone wrong isn't to roll our eyes and to sneer at it, but to be expectant for it.
Both older and younger generations do not hear the command to not complain very well [laughs]. Older generations see the state of our world and wanna complain and get back to the way things used to be. Younger generations, people like me, also complain. It's basically the definition of being a millennial. Like—[laughs].
But in our complaining, we disconnect. We're jaded by the whole thing, and we think the superior position is not to be involved. But to all generations, the Book of Daniel would tell us, to the extent to which we complain is the extent to which we fail to hope in King Jesus. We are forgetting that God raises peoples and cultures from the dead. We forget that mustard seeds need to be buried first, and we forget the job of the farmer is not to complain that a seed isn't a tree yet, but to sow, and tend, and keep, and water, and fertilize, waiting and expecting to taste the fruit.
Bridgeway, we talk about revival a lot, which is good. But I, and I— but we, and I include myself in this, we also complain about our culture a lot too. If revival is an expression of hope, then we need to stop complaining about our culture and pray for its resurrection and revival, and be profoundly hopeful for it.
Let me, let me pause for a second right here. Revival is one of those Christian words that everybody uses and nobody defines, so let's, let's take care of that. Revival [clears throat] is when the ordinary Christian life gets just squeezed down into a small amount of time. It's when the experiences which, that you've had, the accumulative experiences you've had with God over a lifetime happen in moments. It's when as many people get saved in a weekend that you've seen saved in ten years. It's when the Bible that you've studied and memorized finally, for the first time, comes alive every time you crack open a page and play that magic scripture game where you just open the Bible a random place and it just speaks to you. That happens all the time in revival.
When you pray for the sick, they get healed. It's when the normal activity of the Holy Spirit is concentrated and intensified. If the normal Christian life is sugar water, revival is caramel. And we want that.
Jonathan Edwards experienced one of the greatest revivals in American history. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people came to know Jesus. And it happened in a culture far more toxic than ours. I think most of us have this idea, this myth, that the Western world in the 1800s was like pretty much 100% Christian, and it's just been this long, slow decline ever since. But that's not true.
Charles Simeon was a preacher in Cambridge in England who was born the year after Jonathan Edwards died. And he writes about how theology professors at his time would often teach their classes stone cold drunk. As he preached on Sunday morning, people would throw rocks through the windows of his chapel and try to hit him, breaking all the glass, distracting him from his sermon. He said oftentimes he couldn't concentrate on sermon prep because people would be having sex in public outside of his windows.
In the 1800s, in Cambridge, in a supposedly Christian center, there apparently were so many riots. There would be riots on the University of Cambridge and hundreds of people would die at a time. The culture was toxic. And just like today, Jonathan Edwards, when he preached, he preached in a context where youths were delaying adolescence, buying homes, getting married later in life, having premarital sex, committing self-harm. And the world back then, just like it does today, says we've lost our youth.
But it was precisely in that moment that God moved in revival, resurgence, and resurrection. What if our secular post-Christian world isn't a sign of doom, but of imminent revival? And what if the uncomplaining, hopeful prayers of Bridgeway Church are how it begins?
The book of Daniel offers hope in times like ours. Our world is not beyond the reach of God's mighty hand. The tide always comes back in because God controls the tides. And besides, God often likes to wait before our bodies are hovering over the lion's mouths before he closes them. God did not save Daniel when Babylon became a Christian nation, but when Daniel was faithfully and hopefully praying in a godless one.
The kingdom of God does not depend on our will, our efforts, our exertion, our wokeness, our Supreme Court seats, but on the power of King Jesus when he was raised from the dead and took his seat at God's right hand. The book of Daniel calls us to hope and to wait and to pray since God controls the kings and Jesus reigns forever.
And I can think of no better way to celebrate the kingdom that has already come and will inevitably come soon than communion. So I want to do something a little bit different with us today. As we come and take communion, I want communion today to feel for you like an act of rebellion. An act of rebellion against the emperors and kings of this world.
Because we still live in the book of Daniel. Our world, like Nebuchadnezzar wanted, wants to convince you of the long, slow, victorious march of Babylon and just give in to it. Give in to the fact that everything dies except the king of this world. Our world wants to colonize your imagination with the language and literature of our times. Every day the ruler of this world is offering you his bread and his wine and it seems so generous. If you go along with it, you're promised not to be ostracized but positions of power and authority. If you can adjust your beliefs and preferences, you can experience all that you want. The joy of sexual liberation and to brunch on Sunday morning. Bow before the king of this world and you get what you want.
But the bread and the wine that are on these tables on either side of me and in the back of the room over there are the feasts of an alternate king with an alternate kingdom. If you come and take communion today, understand that it is a rejection of this world, its narrative, its power, and its rule. You are coming to feast at the table of a more powerful sovereign who offers better pleasures.
While his reign is sometimes invisible, no king has ever overthrown his power. And while the bread and wine you are drinking are not the spoils of war in some far-off country and are in fact the crucified body and blood of our Savior, that is not a discouragement. They are reminders that not even death can stop our king.
These elements are a feast that will sustain our faithful, hopeful presence in a world gone wrong. And they are symbols that while the feasts of the world might offer power and pleasure, Jesus' feasts offer resurrection from the dead.
You've listened to the language and literature of the Ancient of Days. Now King Jesus generously offers you to feast from his table. Eat his bread, drink his wine in his presence. Come and feast. Renew your trust in the king who controls all things and rules forever.
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