Daniel 1
So as we start a new book, it’s
probably helpful to know a couple things about the book of Daniel.
You probably know about Daniel in the lion’s den. You know Daniel
wanted to eat the right diet, not the Babylonian diet. You
know that he was the interpreter of dreams. And those are all
neat little stories. We all have been challenged in
American Christian preaching. Dare to be. Daniel, right? You’ve heard that. You too can
be a Daniel and your hair won’t get singed and Nebuchadnezzar
won’t off with your head, that kind of thing. But there’s a
much bigger picture to the book of Daniel. So let me just mention
a couple of things. God’s children are in exile. They’re in Babylon and it’s because
of their disobedience. They’re in exile in Babylon.
And so the question is, will God continue to bless his people
as they are in a foreign land? What’s at jeopardy? Well, it’s
the promise to Abraham, I will be your God and you will be my
people. There will come from the offspring of Abraham, a Messiah,
Well, what happens if the Babylonians kill everybody from the promised
land? How’s Messiah going to come?
So that’s one of the big questions in the minds of the exiles. Is
God sovereign? And is he at the helm? Is he
steering the ship? And will he save the people of
God? And what’s the answer to both? Yes and yes. And it’s a
strong yes. So we’re going to see God’s redemptive
agenda continuing. And it does not come on our timetable
or meet our expectations very often. So people get anxious
for the kingdom to come and we have to be patient because sometimes
it is a ways off. We’re now 2,000 years since the
ascension of Christ, and we have to be patient, knowing he is
still at work. There’s war on the saints, there’s
hardship, persecution, antichrist, all the rest. But the end is
not yet, and the one who endures to the end, Jesus says, he shall
be saved. So we’ll start there. So look
at Daniel chapter one. and let’s hear the word of the
living God. So, in the third year of the
reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim
of Judah into his hand with some of the vessels of the house of
God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house
of his God, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. And
the king commanded Ashvanaz, 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 the literature and the language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned
them a daily portion of the food that the king ate and of 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. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah,
Mishael and Azariah of the tribe of Judah, and the chief of the
eunuchs gave them names. Daniel he called Beltshazzar,
Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and
Azariah he called Abednego. But Daniel resolved that he would
not defile himself with the king’s food or with the wine that he
drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow
him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and
compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs. And the
chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear my lord, the king
who assigned your food and drink. For why should he see that you
were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own
age? So you would endanger my head
with the king. Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief
of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah, test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given vegetables
to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the
appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed
by you and deal with your servants according to what you see. So
he listened to them in this matter and tested them for 10 days.
At the end of 10 days, it was seen that they were better in
appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the
king’s food. So the steward took away their
food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables. As for these four youths, God
gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom,
and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At
the end of the time when the king had commanded that they
should be brought in, “‘The chief of the eunuchs brought them in
“‘before Nebuchadnezzar. “‘And the king spoke with them,
and all of them, “‘none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael,
and Azariah. “‘Therefore they stood before
the king, “‘and in every matter of wisdom and understanding “‘about
which the king inquired of them, “‘he found them 10 times better
than all the magicians “‘and the enchanters that were in all
his kingdom. “‘And Daniel was there until
the first year of King Cyrus.'” This is the Word of God for us. Amen. So the more you live, the
more years you add to your life, it seems the ante is upped, right? There’s more weight on your shoulders.
There’s more at stake. So maybe you’re young and you’re
single. It’s just you. All the money you earn, all the
fun you have is for you. Then you get married and you’ve
got a spouse to take care of. And then you add children, maybe
a dog. And then you get all these responsibilities. You’ve got
to get life insurance because without you, others can’t make
it, those sorts of things. So the more you live, you’ve
got to up the ante. There’s more at stake in the
game of life. And so all around you, you begin
to feel the weight of the world. You feel the weight of the news
that the world is falling apart, that the world is paganizing
and that the world is hostility to Christian faith and life. And so you begin to feel this
weight, this struggle, this difficulty. And one of the challenges is
that over time, if we distance ourself from God’s word, If we
forget who God is and what he’s promised to do and what he has
done in the past, we can forget that God is the same yesterday,
today, and forever, and that he is sovereign and he is at
work ruling in the world. He is ruling and redeeming. And
so we need reminders of that from time to time because life
east of Eden, removed from the garden, life removed from the
blessings of original creation before sin, can be quite traumatic. It can be quite traumatic. And
that’s what we have to remember here. Israel is out of the garden. Like Adam and Eve, they’ve been
banished from the promised land. They are out of the place of
blessing. They are out of the place where God designed for
them to flourish and to thrive in this life. Why are they out
of the garden? Why are they out of the promised
land? It’s because of their disobedience. If you obey, I’ll favor you.
You disobey, I’ll remove my favor. And so life east of Eden, life
outside the promised land, life in Babylon and not in Jerusalem
can be quite traumatic. And we think of that sometimes
in life of in light of the politics, maybe in light of the worldviews
that are around us, in light of our health concerns. We think
of it in light of what our children or grandchildren are doing. We
think of it in light of what our neighbors are doing next
door and how that’s destroying our house values. And on and
on this can go and weigh down on us. Sometimes we’ve got to
take a deep breath. And we have to remember, it’s
okay, God’s in charge. The world and everything in it
is his, and we can keep on, we can go on because God is working
out his purpose. So I put a little title on this
tonight, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, and maybe some of you have
already thought, no, that’s in another chapter. But I want you
to think of Daniel in the Lion’s Den in this sense. He’s been
carted off from tiny little Judah, tiny little Jerusalem, And he
is now in service of the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. He
is in the lion’s mouth. We think from time to time of
megalomaniac rulers like Hitler. We think of others along the
way. They were wicked, evil, nasty. Everything was wrong about
them, but they were powerful and they had a grand influence. Well, Daniel is in the lion’s
den. He is in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. When I was a pastor in Greensboro,
we had a lady named Ursula, good German accent, and she was one
of Hitler’s youth. She played volleyball for Hitler.
And from time to time in the life of the church, we would
sing Oh, what’s the great hymn that uses the German national
anthem? Glorious things of thee are spoken.
And she would put her head down and turn away and she refused
to sing because it reminded her of Hitler’s youth. You can imagine
what Daniel is going through here. He is one of Nebuchadnezzar’s
youth. Nebuchadnezzar, took over the
declining empire of Babylon and he is, at Daniel’s time, at the
height of rebuilding it into its former majesty. And he has
beat every world power. He’s beat Egypt. He’s handled
all the big countries. and he is a mighty emperor over
a great empire. He has the largest borders that
Babylon has ever seen. And one of the things he’s trying
to do, and you catch hints of this in our passage, he is trying
to win lasting influence over every aspect of life. What is
eaten, what is learned, begins to sound like art. days of Marxism
and critical race theory and all the rest. He is reprogramming
every state, vassal state of his empire, so that they believe
what he believes. His land and borders stretch,
but he wants his influence, not just in culture, but also in
religion. He seizes not only people of
the religion, but he seizes the implements of their worship and
brings them to the house of his God. That’s in a sense, a way
of putting his foot on the neck of Israel who worships Yahweh. Now you probably know one of
the seven wonders of the ancient world was the hanging gardens
of Babylon. We don’t know where they were
exactly. We know where Babylon was. Babylon as a city was essentially
the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It was a magnificent place to the scale
of Jerusalem under David and Solomon, to the scale of the
places in upper Egypt where the Pharaohs ruled. Great, majestic,
mighty building programs for their glory. So I want to think
about this passage tonight, and I want to think about it in five
ways. The first is Daniel in Jerusalem. Let’s think about Daniel in Jerusalem
before he gets carted off into exile. So Jerusalem was the capital
of Israel. It was the southern kingdom of
Judah, the last tribe not to be exiled. Remember all the other
tribes, the 11 tribes were exiled in 722 by the Babylonians. But Judah, receives God’s favor
and his mercy for a time more. And so in the year 605, there
began a series of deportations of the people of God. And until
586, so about a 19 year span, Babylon took over Jerusalem,
besieged Jerusalem, carried off in multiple deportations, various
ones to Jerusalem. And by the time 586 comes, they
level the city. That’s why Jeremiah wrote Lamentations. The city was burned. It was destroyed.
There was not a stone left upon a stone. And so, after several
centuries, the mighty city of God at Jerusalem, built up by
David, Solomon, and their successors, was laid to waste. Now, why was
this so? Well, when God established Israel
in the promised land, he told them, you obey me, you’ll get
blessings. You disobey me, you’ll get curses.
We recognize that from our study of Genesis, don’t we? Eat and
die, don’t eat and live. So the same principle applies.
Obey God’s law and it will go well with you in the promised
land. Disobey God’s law and it won’t go well. Well, God was
very specific. Read the entire chapter of Leviticus chapter
26. God says, if you obey my commandments and here they are,
your land will produce, you’ll have grapes and grandkids and
prosperity, but you disobey me, your land won’t produce, there
won’t be grapes, there won’t be grandkids, and life will be
painful and difficult. And then he said, and you will
be carted off. by a foreign nation of my choosing,
and you will be carted off for 70 years.” Now, why 70 years?
70 years is gonna be important in the book of Daniel. Well,
they had failed to give the land their Sabbath. God had told them,
six years you shall plow and harvest, and in the seventh year,
the land will give you enough to eat. from the bounty of years
before. And so the land shall rest. It
shall be fallow or it shall have its rest in order that it might
produce. And then every seven years times seven, every 49th
year, there shall be a year of Jubilee. Well, Israel failed
to do that. And so why 70 years? God is going
to let Israel, the promised land, rest for 70 years to make up
for all the Sabbath years that were missed. And so Daniel is
in Jerusalem before he’s exiled, and Jehoiakim is on the throne. Now who is Jehoiakim? Well, remember
Josiah, eight years old, loved the Lord, became king. Josiah’s reformation brought
a little life back to Israel. Well, he had wicked sons, and
when Josiah was killed in battle, his young 20-something son was
made king, but the king of Egypt, who destroyed his father and
his father’s kingdom, Said, nope, don’t like this one. He reigns
three months. He gets kicked off the throne. Jehoiachim becomes
king. And so he fights. He is obstinate towards the king
of Egypt. Doesn’t go well for them. Obstinate
towards, or I’m sorry, the king of Babylon. And so he becomes
a prisoner, a vassal, and the power of Nebuchadnezzar overtakes. overtakes Jerusalem and so that’s
why they’re in their fix. So the book of Daniel is going
to span about 80 years or so of Daniel’s life, but it’s going
to tell a story that goes from 605 all the way to about the
160s, about 160 years before Christ. And it’s going to tell
about the period of the Jewish revolt over the Romans occupying
them, the period of the Maccabeans and all those fun, wonderful
stories. After the exile ends, you get
Ezra, and you get Nehemiah, and you get the decades, nearly a
century or so, of Israel returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding. So a lot of history here. But this is Daniel in Jerusalem.
He’s part of the people who received the judgment of God, and it’s
carted off to Shinar. So that’s the second thing we
wanna look at, Daniel in Jerusalem, and now Daniel in Shinar. And we read in verses two through
seven, the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand,
that’s Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, with some of the vessels of the
house of God. He brought them to the land of Shinar. Now that’s
pretty significant. The ones of you who are here
on Wednesday nights for our Genesis study, the land of Shinar, not
a good place. In fact, in the land of Shinar,
what was built. Tower of Babel. Why did they build a Tower of
Babel? To make a name for themselves. What did God do? He saw it from
heaven and said, I think I’m going to go down and take a peek.
Comes a building inspector. And what does he do? Frustrates
their work. He stops their building and then
he scatters the people. So the land of Shinar is not
your beacon of spiritual hope. It’s like we heard discussed
in Sunday school this morning. a judge of Israel is hanging
out in Gaza, the Philistine capital city, not, not smart. This is
like, nephew Lot living toward, near,
and now in Sodom. It’s not a place of biblical
prosperity. So Daniel is in Shinar. Jerusalem, once great, has been
destroyed. And so he’s been carted off from
Jerusalem. The articles of the temple, which
if you read Ezra and Nehemiah, you’ll see they’re brought back.
They’re returned by edict of the king and they reestablish
worship in Jerusalem. So God providentially watches
over those articles. of the temple. But notice the
best and the brightest of Israel, of Judah, are brought. Verse 3, the king commanded Ashvanaz,
his chief unit, to bring some of the people of Israel, both
of the royal family, the nobility, the youths without blemish, of
good appearance, skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge,
understanding, learning, competent to stand in the king’s palace
and teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans
and he’s going to talk about their education, their food.
So Daniel is in Shinar and the challenge for him is to be faithful
to Yahweh in a strange land. Now that’s our very struggle,
isn’t it? Promised land days are over.
We’re scattered among the nations since Pentecost. We are sent
out in the world to be a light, we’re to live a faithful Christian
life, we’re to gather in church, be a witness, we’re to send missionaries
and all those things. So our challenge, just like Daniel’s,
is to be faithful to Yahweh in a strange land. Our enemies are
our own flesh, our remaining sin, our enemy is the devil who
wants to deceive and destroy us, but our enemy is also the
world. And we’re living in a time where the world has really Well,
the church has taken the world in, and you can’t really distinguish
from time to time, or lots of the time, the people of God from
the people of this world. So we’re gonna see Daniel in
Shinar, Daniel in Babylon, he is gonna resolve, he’s gonna
set in his heart to be faithful to Yahweh in a strange land,
no compromise, and he’s willing to risk his neck for it. And the steadfast love and the
mercy of God will be with him. And so, uh, uh, he’s going to
be reprogrammed. Did you catch that in the language?
Pick up in verse five, the king assigned them a daily portion
of the food that the king ate of 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. And then it describes
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah. And not only do they get reprogrammed,
they get renamed. And we don’t have time tonight
to go into the names and the meanings of the names, but all
of their names in Hebrew means something about Yahweh. They
mean something significant about themselves and Yahweh. And so
what kind of name do they get? Do they get a new Yahweh means
this or that name? No, they get a pagan name. And
so this is a reprogramming of these folks. So Daniel in Jerusalem,
Daniel in Shinar, we want a third look at Daniel in God’s grace. And this is the most important
thing for us to consider. You see it beginning in verse
eight all the way through 20, but Daniel resolved that he would
not defile himself with the king’s food or with the wine that he
drank. Therefore, he asked the chief
of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave
Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the
eunuchs. God’s steadfast love, God’s mercy,
God has said that all through the Psalms, all through the Old
Testament was with Daniel. How do you know if somebody is
a Christian? You’re at the YMCA working out.
just because they’re at the Young Men’s Christian Association.
Does that mean they’re a Christian? They’re on the treadmill, I’m
a Christian at the YMCA. Or you go to work on Monday morning
at the water cooler, you say, I went to church yesterday. Somebody
else says, I went to church too. Does that mean they’re a Christian?
You go through scenarios like this throughout your week. How
do you know somebody else is a Christian? It’s not in their
outward behavior. Well, it actually is, but it
starts in their heart. We recognize someone is a child
of God, yes, by their distinct living, but it flows from a heart
changed by God. And notice what Daniel refuses. He refuses to be defiled. He
refuses to have the root of who he is, his identity, his way
of living for Yahweh. And so he purposes in his heart
not to be defiled. Now, in today’s world, It’s hard
sometimes to distinguish between Christians because the church
is much like the world. But literally, what does the
church mean? You have ek on the front end of the word, klesia,
ekklesia, and it literally means from out of. We are the people
called out of the world. And so we ought to, yes, dare
to be a Daniel, to use that phrase. We ought to purpose in our hearts
not to defile ourselves with the world. with the flesh and
with the devil. We ought to live in such a way
that people can tell that we are different. And when asked,
we give an account of the hope that is within us. But just like
our world today, Daniel probably faced a little nudging and prodding
from some of his companions. Oh, just fudge a little. You
don’t want Nebuchadnezzar to be mad with you. You want a promotion,
don’t you? Just keep that Christian business
off to the side. Don’t mention Yahweh. And so
the test here is, are you going to eat the veggies or not? Now
this might seem to be a little benign. Were Jews required to
eat vegetables only? No, I think they ate meat and
drank wine and did all this stuff. What’s the big deal here? That’s
what we say. What’s the big deal? Just go
on a business trip over the weekend once or twice a year. It won’t
kill you. And then it becomes nine and ten times a year. I’ve
watched men I’ve served in the church over the years, they are
dying on the vine because in order to climb the corporate
ladder, they’re just gone. On a plane on Monday, back on
Friday, and their families fall apart. Or just to pay the big
whopping mortgage to live right in the neighborhood, We’ll just
plop the kids in some kind of other outsourced care, because
we’ve got to have this street address. It will bring us prestige,
and we need the cars to suit in the garage, in the driveway.
And so in many ways, many shapes, many forms, we are tempted to
fudge, but not Daniel. He decided, I will not defile
myself. I’ll live by principle, I’ll
purpose in my heart. What’s the issue here? God has
strategically placed him in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. He’s
put him in the court of Babylon, the world power at the time.
This is like working in the West Wing. This is like working in
the Kremlin. This is like working in Downing
Street in London. This is a big appointment. Well,
Daniel, is beginning to feel a little pinched. Can’t you imagine?
He’s changed my name. He’s changed my clothes. I’m
reading Aramaic now, not Hebrew. I’m reading literature of all
these pagan gods. And then it’s critical race theory,
right? It’s Marxism. You start to make
this contemporary. You start to feel a little pinched.
And you start to say, I can’t take this anymore. And so what’s
the big deal with the vegetables? What’s the big deal with the
meat and the drink and the wine and all the rest? I think Daniel’s
just saying, look, there’s a point where I draw the line here. And
you think, this is a small matter, but look what’s coming. There’s
Daniel who won’t bow down to the idol, the big, tall idol
every day, worship it. There’s Daniel who won’t pray
to anyone but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The ante is
going to get more expensive, isn’t it? We’re gonna up the
ante as Daniel lives more life in the land of Shinar. And so
he’s fortified for what’s to come. And God gives favor to
Daniel and to his companions. What a wonderful thing that is. But we’re also going to see throughout
the study of Daniel, Daniel’s favor begins to benefit. It benefits
Nebuchadnezzar. He can interpret his dreams.
Nobody else can. The other people in Nebuchadnezzar’s court benefit. Daniel is going to save the necks
of all the enchanters and magicians who can’t Interpret the King’s
dream. Hey, don’t don’t kill them. I’ll
do this for us all I’ll win one for the team here. Well, let’s
think about a fourth area Daniel in civil service Daniel in civil
service now before we think of it. Let me remind you of what
it says At the end of that last section. I forgot to make mention
of it Daniel wins favor with the chief eunuch and goes through
the program, he’s healthier looking. And then when they’re tested
at the end, what’s it say? 10 times better, 10 times smarter,
10 times more useful. God’s favor on Daniel and his
companions has been great. But verse 21, this last section,
the next to last section actually, Daniel in civil service, this
is a statement, a verse you might just whiz right by. Daniel was
there until the first reign of King Cyrus. Well, King Cyrus
is a little ways down the road, like 538 BC, this is 605. So we’re talking, oh, 70 years,
right? The time of exile until all the
Sabbaths were fulfilled. And so Daniel is, say, a 15-year-old
brought to Jerusalem, is gonna live probably well into his 80s
or 90s. And that whole time, he is going
to be a civil servant. He is going to be there many
years, and he is going to serve many kings. And when we get to
Cyrus, That’s a different nation. Babylon has fallen. Persia has
risen and it’s God who moves in the heart of King Cyrus. You
read of it at the end of second Chronicles and you read of it
at the beginning of the book of Ezra. It is God who moves
in the heart of King Cyrus to let Israel go back home and he
gives them the wealth. and the blessing to rebuild the
city, to rebuild the wall, to reestablish the temple and its
worship in Jerusalem and Israel. So Daniel is going to be in civil
service through five or six kings and even through a regime change.
And he’s going to outlast. In my office, I have a coffee
mug, keep calm and carry on. That’s what Daniel did. Daniel
just outlasted all the rest. What happened to old, I forget
which king was it, many, many, Tekel Parson? And when that was
interpreted, what’s the handwriting on the wall? Falls over dead. And what happened to all the
others? They fell over dead, but where’s Daniel? He’s in service
to the king with the grace and favor of almighty God. And so
Daniel is a shining example to us of God at work through his
people. He is sovereign and he will save. And you’ve got to
just carry on. You’ve got to keep the promises
of God in your head. Well, we’ve looked at Daniel
in Jerusalem, Daniel in Shinar, Daniel in God’s grace, and Daniel
in civil service. Let’s look at one last thing,
and that is God in Daniel. Now, not God in Daniel the man,
but God in the book of Daniel. In this first chapter, we see
that God gave Joachim into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar. God gave Daniel favor and compassion. in the eyes of the stewards of
Nebuchadnezzar. And then God gave the four, Daniel
and his companions, he gave the four of them learning and skill
beyond measure. And we see that Daniel works
through many rulers, but it’s under one ruler, and that is
God himself. God is at work. And that’s something
we’ve got to see as we live life in this world. You know, we’ve
become accustomed to think that the United States is all there
is, right? And we’ve got to pray for the right election. You know,
we’re already praying 2022 midterms. What if that had been Daniel’s
position? Oh God, this Nebuchadnezzar, he’s bad news. You know, he’s
a pagan, he worships idols, he’s got too many wives, he just,
oh, I can’t stand to be in his court. So next time the election
comes up, oh wait, those things don’t happen when there’s an
emperor. Because what happens if somebody tries to take hips
turn? Well, they’ll probably off with the head, that sort
of thing. And so we can’t put our trust in men. We can’t put
our trust in horses and chariots. We put our trust in the one true
ruler who is at work. Think about how many presidencies
you’ve lived through. In my short life, compared to
some of y’all, I’ve lived through a number of presidencies, and
there have been some idiots. There have been some jerks. They’ve
dragged us off into some strange things. They’ve dragged people
into their office and done strange things. You’ve seen more of it
than I have, because some of y’all stretch back into more
of the 70s than I do, and into the 60s and the 50s, and some
of you maybe the 40s and the 30s. But we’ve made it through
all these presidencies, through all these regimes. At the end
of this year, when we read 2022 in review in our news magazines,
we’re gonna read of strange things happening on the world stage
and in the American stage. But one thing will be consistently
true. God is on his throne. And that’s why Daniel was written.
That’s why Daniel was written. It was to encourage exiles. I
still rule. Jerusalem may be burned. It may
be destroyed, and it may be the reproach of Israel. but I still
rule and wherever you are, you do as God commands and I am at
work and I will come in victory. That’s how Daniel is going to
end. Daniel is going to predict. He is going to predict the coming
Messiah. He is going to predict that Jesus, the son of man will
crush all the nations. They will rise up against Israel.
They’ll rise up against God, people, even to this very day,
but Jesus comes and Jesus we’ll have the victory. Let’s pause
and pray. Lord, we remember that we are
strangers and exiles on the face of this earth. We remember that
this is no different than the people of old, the people of
recent years, and now it’s our age. And so we remember Peter
who addressed the church scattered across Asia Minor, scattered
across the face of the earth. To think it not strange when
we face all kinds of trials, but we look to you, the one who
rules and reigns over our lives east of Eden. So we pray that
this word tonight will make sense for us of the world we live in,
and yet the sovereignty of God who rules and sits on the throne
of the unseen world and will come in great victory. Help us,
we pray in Christ’s name, amen.