Daniel: Introduction (3)

Introduction
But why did God send His people to captivity in Babylon? Because they refused to obey His Law and to trust in Him, rather than in their own wits or the ways of their neighbors. God is serious about obedience, and when His people are not, He will take steps to remind them of what He expects. Amos summarizes the repeated sins (three transgressions, and four) of the people of Judah.

Read Amos 2.4, 5.

Read Daniel 9.3-7.
Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the LORDmy God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.”

Think it Through
1.  Judah was sent to captivity in Babylon because they failed in loving God and keeping His commandments (v. 5). Does God expect the same of His people today (cf. Matt. 22.34-40; Rom. 3.31)? God’s people in Judah first neglected God’s Law, then ignored it, then transgressed it freely. Do you see anything like this pattern among Christians today? Explain.

2.  The prophets – like Amos – were sent as God’s agents of grace, to remind the people of His Law, to indict them for their waywardness, and to hold out the promise of forgiveness and renewal if they would return to the Lord. But the people of Judah ignored them (v. 6). Daniel saw this conduct as shameful (v. 7). Why? Are there prophets among the people of God today? What is the nature of their calling?

Meditate
“Although Daniel has already received manifold grace due to his faith and innocence and although he has received quite a reputation before the Lord in regard to his virtues and praises, he strives with fasting to be worthy of God; he puts on sackcloth and ashes and makes confession with tears.” Cyprian of Carthage (fl. 248-258AD)

And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Luke 13.2, 3

Lord, do I need to repent of anything? Does my church? Do we as a generation of Your people? O Lord, before Your judgment falls…

Pray
How shall we sing the LORD’s song
In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget its skill!
If I do not remember you,
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth—
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.

Psalm 137.4-6

Psalm 137.4-6 (The Gift of Love: Though I May Speak)
No songs have we of joy to sing. Our enemy, to taunt and sting,
Bids us rejoice, as they oppress: We have no voice to praise or bless.

How can we sing, exalt Your Name, or praises bring amid our shame?
If we forget Your Church’s fame, O Lord, then let our hands grow lame.

T. M Moore

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All psalms for singing adapted from The Ailbe Psalter. All quotations from Church Fathers from Ancient Christian Commentary Series, General Editor Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006.