The Spirit of Babylon v. The Spirit of God

All right, Church at the Grove.

Listen, I'm gonna tell you, I'm going through the whole chapter of Daniel 1, and I need, listen, the 915 was with me.

11 o'clock, sometimes like it feels like I'm preaching in a library, so I need to know you're with me.

Are you with me this morning?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome to those of you that are online.

I want to say, Mom, it is great to have you watching with watching me preach this morning.

You're the one person I know that is watching me.

So props to my mom.

I told her I would give her props this morning.

Um, listen, we are uh we're we have lost our cotton picking minds in this world that we live in.

I don't know if you've noticed that, but but we have.

We're gonna be in Daniel chapter one today.

We're gonna be in the book of Daniel over the next six weeks.

We're talking about how to remain faithful in a faithless culture.

And we're 44 days away from a day that is that is gonna just completely rule our minds and our thoughts.

You have probably already been overwhelmed and inundated with emails and commercials and text messages, and it's gonna be election, election, election.

But can I just tell you something right now that on November 4th, when you get up, Jesus is king, okay?

Can I tell you that?

Listen, you don't need to be anxious, you don't need to be worried.

Jesus is king regardless of what happens this next uh few months, next couple of months that we go through.

And we're gonna we're gonna be in Daniel chapter one, and we're gonna see a lot of parallels in the time of Daniel as he was taken out of his home, out of his world, out of his comfort zone, and he was taken to a country called Babylon.

And I need you to know this, that when we talk about stories like what we're talking about today, it's not about just what happened, it's about what always happens.

As we study the book of Daniel, I want you to, we're gonna we're gonna focus not on just what is seen, but we're gonna focus on what is unseen.

There's always something working under the current of what we see.

There's always something going on.

And and and we're gonna talk about two things that most of you have been told not to talk about, especially at family gatherings.

When you get together with your aunts and your uncles and your sisters and your cousins, and and if you live in East Tennessee, your sister might be the same as your cousin.

That's a whole nother problem.

But but you you're you're told not to talk about religion and politics.

We're gonna talk about that a little bit over the next six weeks, not in the sense that you might think we're gonna talk about it.

But we're just gonna address it.

We live in a world that's lost its mind, that that where people get nasty and they get ugly during times like the season that we're in, and they lose focus of what matters.

And Daniel is a perfect story for this season because Daniel had to learn how to live in a world that was very unlike his home.

And he he he was kidnapped as a young person, probably a teenager.

And this story took, it's 2,600 years ago, 605 BC, 605, 605 years before Jesus, Nebuchadnezzar was this evil king from this country, this this this land called Babylon, and he try they travel 700 miles to the southern king, kingdom of Judah, and they conquer Judah, and they they kidnap and they human trafficked, and what do you you could call them prisoners, prisoners of war or or human trafficking?

They take many of the young people from Babylon and they march them 700 miles back to Babylon, which is modern day Iraq from the southern kingdom of Israel, where Jerusalem is today.

And so imagine being a part of that.

There's no airplanes, there are no vehicles, there are no motorized uh ways of transporting people.

It's it's they had to walk.

They walked 700 miles, but it the the journey itself was not the significant part.

It was the change of the culture, it was the change of the system.

It was a counterfeit kingdom to the kingdom of God.

That's what Babylon is.

Remember, it's not just what happened, it's what always happens.

There's a spirit that comes out of Babylon.

There's a spirit associated with the kingdom of Babylon that has always existed.

It's always existed.

It existed during the time of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It existed during the time that Egypt kidnapped and took slaves, God's people, and kept them as slaves that killed children, threw them, threw children into the Nile River.

It's the spirit that has always existed behind the scenes.

It's the spirit that existed in the land of Nineveh that Jonah was sent to to be a missionary.

It's the spirit that existed in Nazi Germany that tried to get rid of all the Jewish people and other other ethnicities, other groups of people.

It's the spirit that is still at work today in drug cartels and human trafficking and all types of evil things that are taking place in our culture.

The spirit of Babylon is a counterfeit kingdom against the spirit of God and the kingdom of God.

It's always existed and it exists today, and it wants to control you, and it wants to control you into thinking that the world is going to end if things don't go your way on November 3rd.

So let me let me come over here and speak to the people on the left in the room.

See, see, we think that, man, if our guy doesn't win, man, the world is gonna fall apart.

And can I just tell you, those of you that are on the left, obviously in the room today, that Jesus is king regardless of what happens.

See, you won't sit over here next week.

Now, if you're sitting on the right over here, you're getting the same message.

Regardless of whether your guy wins or your guy loses on November 3rd, Jesus is king.

Jesus is king.

Those of you that hadn't decided, or you're riding the fence, or you just don't want anybody to know where you stand.

Jesus is king.

Regardless of what happens, Jesus is king.

Jesus is king.

And yes, there we live in a modern day Babylon.

We live in a post-Christian American culture.

And yes, it's changed.

But listen, it it the world is always changing.

This story is not about just what happened, it's about what is always happening.

God is in complete control.

He's in complete control in this story where Babylon conquers the nation of Judah, the kingdom of Israel at the time.

God is in control today, 2020.

Here's what happens in 605 BC.

God simply uses Babylon as his wooden spoon to bring some judgment upon his people.

God was in control of that.

And God's in control of it now.

See, here's one of the principles we learn is the kingdom of God always wins out, but God does allow judgment to come upon his people because of their disobedience.

And that's what happens in this story.

Let's dive in.

I'm gonna actually finally read some scripture.

Okay.

Daniel chapter 1, verse 1.

Daniel 1:1

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, king of Judah, into his hand with some of the vessels of the house of God.

And he brought them to the land of Shannar, to the house of his God, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God.

Now, when they're talking about these gold utensils, these vessels, they're talking about the tools that would have been used in the temple sacrifice and temple worship.

And they would have been considered sacred.

And part of Babylon conquering the nation of God, Israel, God's people, is to mock their God.

And it's a mockery by taking the things out of their temple and taking them back and utilizing God's tools in the worship of false gods in the kingdom of Babylon.

Verse 3.

Then the king commanded Ashkenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both the royal family and of the nobility, youths, young people 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 so the king was strategic.

The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, this evil king, this evil kingdom.

They're very strategic.

And this is not always about what happened.

It always happens, is they are strategic.

They take the brightest, the youngest, the ones that have the most potential, that look the best, that are the smartest, that can perform, that have potential.

So they can indoctrinate them into their culture and use their skills and all of their intellect and whatever they bring to the table and offer, they can use it for their benefit.

Smart, charming.

And so this was part of their strategy is to take God's children and to indoctrinate them and assimilate them into the kingdom of Babylon.

And here's the tools of the enemy.

There really is a devil, there really is an enemy.

There really is, and there's a spirit.

It's the spirit of Babylon.

And it exists today.

And the enemy wants to use his tools to try to indoctrinate us and to assimilate us.

And he uses tools like isolation.

He wants to take Daniel and all of these other young people and to remove them from their comfort zone and to bring them to their kingdom so they can begin the process of molding their minds and molding their perspectives and changing their outlook on life.

And so that's how the enemy will use strategy against you to isolate you.

We've been talking about community.

We've been talking about the importance of being involved in the body of Christ, being involved in community groups, being involved in smaller circles, not just rows, but where somebody's going to miss you when you don't show up.

Somebody's going to pray for you when you have a need.

And so the enemy wants to isolate you and to pull you away from God's community.

That's what he wanted to do with Daniel and the other young people is to get them to deconvert from their belief in Yahweh, the God of the Bible, and for Jesus, and to reconvert to the God of Babylon, to the to this polytheistic, to this world of many gods.

We talked about this whole series, and where it's so important to be connected in community.

And think about it.

What do we tell college students?

This is what my wife and I have been telling college students for years.

High school students that are about to go to college.

Whenever you move in, the first weekend that you are in your college town, don't you dare sleep in on Sunday morning.

You get up and you go find a church family.

You spend a few weeks if you need to.

You visit a few places.

You figure out where you can get connected.

Because the first Sunday you sleep in makes it that much easier for you to miss out the next Sunday.

And then there's two Sundays, and then it's three, and then it's months.

And not only that, is you have already been enrolled into the University of Babylon.

And so not only are you missing out on what God has to say to you on Sundays and through his word and in the community of faith, you are spending every day being indoctrinated into the University of Babylon belief system.

Now, let me, I am not anti-public school.

I am not anti-public university.

I went to a University of Babylon.

I went to a public education.

As a matter of fact, I we we are encouraged, we encourage you as believers to be in the world, but we also tell you not to be of the world.

You've got to be aware of the world's strategy and the enemy's strategy.

So hey, let's get kids isolated, let's get young people isolated, and let's indoctrinate them, which is the next strategy.

The enemy is indoctrination.

He says in verse 4, youth, youth without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding and learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, listen, and to teach them the literature and the language of the Chaldeans.

So we're gonna take these young people with all this potential, all this intellect, all this knowledge, and we're gonna teach them our language and our literature.

We're gonna take them and walk them through the University of Babylon for three years so they can be used for our benefit.

And the brainwashing starts.

They're isolated, and now they're being indoctrinated.

Babylonian language, philosophy, literature, science, history, astrology.

You go on and on and on.

It's not just what happened, it's what always happens.

And so we need to be aware of it.

It doesn't mean that you can't send your kids to public school or you can't send your kids to a public university, but you need to be aware of the strategy that the enemy wants to use.

Satan, the enemy, has been using the kingdom of Babylon throughout history to indoctrinate his people.

You'll notice mentioned in this book the word eunuch.

And just so you know, and I don't want you to go Google this word, but they would castrate these young people after they marched them 700 miles to Babylon.

And it was strategic.

We do not want them to be marrying and having children and potentially causing an insurgency that would cripple the kingdom of Babylon.

No, what we want we want to do is we want to undo every gender uniqueness and gender role.

We want to remove any of the aspects of God's special way of creating us and the roles for which He has created us.

We want to alter what is healthy human sexuality.

Let's change it.

Let's brainwash the whole culture into thinking that there is no absolute truth.

There are just as many avenues and valid pathways as you can imagine to get to God.

All belief systems are equally valid and are just the same.

Let's ignore what scripture teaches that there is no other name by which we can be saved than the name of Jesus Christ.

Do you see the strategy of the enemy?

It starts at an early age, and and listen, it's not just what happened, it's what always happens.

And Daniel teaches us how to live faithful in a faithless culture.

How to live faithful in a faithless culture.

How to combat the indoctrination systems, how to understand how how how the enemy would put computers in our hands and how how he would use entertainment and music and television and all.

And by the way, I don't think that there's a devil under every rock, and I don't think technology is all evil, but the enemy will use any advancement he can against us.

And so isolation, indoctrination, assimilation is another strategy.

Verse 5 says the king assigned them a daily portion of food that the king ate and of the wine he drank.

They were to be educated for three years, that at the end of that time they were to stand before the king.

And so they were to be held captive, educated, indoctrinated, isolated, and then assimilated.

And so the goal was hey, eat the food, the Babylonian food, drink the Babylonian drink, and that's part of their whole system.

Physically, we're going to assimilate them into our way of life.

Here's what you need to know is that the world will try to offer you things with this message that if you can have this, whether it's a drug or whether it's a relationship or whether it's success or money, you can find some sense of peace and you will continue to consume and you'll find at the end of every one of those paths is emptiness.

And nothing will compare to Jesus.

Jesus is the King, and He is the only way that we will be satisfied.

He is the only relationship that will bring us wholeness and bring us peace.

His presence in our life, our following him is a guaranteed pathway to joy.

Nothing will compare to Jesus.

So isolation, indoctrination, assimilation, and then finally confusion.

Verse 6, it says, Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah of the tribe of Judah.

And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names.

So here's what happens: they changed their names.

So we're not going to allow you to keep your Jewish name.

We're going to give you a Babylonian name.

And so Daniel, they called Belteshazzar.

Hananiah, he called Shadrach.

Michel, he called Meshach, and Azariah, he called Abednego.

And if you're a fan of veggie tails, Rak, Shak, and Benny, right?

That's who it, that's who that's what.

But you need to understand that was part of their strategy.

We're going to control their identity.

We're going to change their names.

We're not going to allow to get that, allow them to keep their God-given names that have special significance, meaning to their identity that's given from God.

We're going to give them new names.

Daniel literally means God is my judge.

And they give him the name Belteshazzar, which comes from it's a form of the name Baal, which is one of the false gods.

And by in Babylonian culture that you see throughout the Bible, and it literally means Baal protects.

New names, new identity.

Here's what the world, here's what the world wants you to buy into, is that your identity can be found in something else than your relationship with God.

I'm gonna confuse you.

I'm going to confuse you where you feel like you can find your identity and hope and possessions or things or relationships, all types of things.

And the truth of Scripture says that our identity is found in one place, truthfully, and that's in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is King, and He's the one that gives us our identity.

And so part of their strategy is to confuse you.

So how do we remain faithful in a faithful, faithful, faithless world?

How do we remain faithful when we're faced with seasons like we're in right now?

Is this number one, determine early who you will follow.

Verse 8.

Three words.

I love the first three words of this verse.

Read it with me.

Just the three words.

But Daniel resolved.

Let's say it together again.

But Daniel resolved.

He decided.

Daniel decided, probably before he was ever taken, before he marched 700 miles to Babylon, he decided he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine that he drank in verse 8.

Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow himself not to be defiled.

So he enters into this conversation about their diet and about what they would eat and about what they would drink.

And Daniel offers a suggestion.

And here's what we learned.

The second step to be faithful in a faithless world is to be respectful to people who don't think like you.

Be respectful to people that don't think like you.

Let me come over here to those on the left over here.

There's going to be people that aren't going to vote for the same person you vote for.

There's going to be people that have different belief systems than your belief system.

There are going to be people in this world that you come across who may be confused about how what their lifestyle is or how they're supposed to live.

We're to treat those people like they should be treated because they are created in the image of God and God created them with the same purpose He created you, and that's to find your hope in Jesus Christ.

Yes.

So before those of you on the right start getting real excited, let me come over here to tell you something.

If you wake up on November 4th and your guy hadn't won, let me tell you, you may not like it.

But let me, it might be God's wooden spoon to bring a little bit of judgment.

And you need to understand that people might believe differently than you believe.

But God's mission for his church, for his followers, it will never change.

And so whatever happens on November 4th, Jesus is still King.

And for those of you that don't know whether you're supposed to be red or blue and you're in the middle and you haven't decided, and you just don't want anybody to know.

It's the same for all of us.

Jesus is king.

And here's what is the result of Daniel being respectful, of Daniel living in a foreign land with the spirit of Babylon and the kingdom of Babylon reigning over him.

Look at what it says.

And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs.

The chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear my Lord the king, who assigns your food and your 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, Daniel said to the steward, whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hanani, Michel, and Azariah, Test your servants for ten days.

So he negotiates.

He has a winsomeness about himself.

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 manner and tested them for ten days.

So Daniel has this unique, winsome way to negotiate and to have healthy conversations and come to an agreement.

Daniel can be faithful to his God and he can be four people at the same time.

People who believe differently.

We can treat people with respect, with love, with compassion.

What's the result?

The result is that God is faithful.

How do you live faithful in a faithless world?

Trust God to be faithful to his promises.

Trust God to be faithful to his promises.

Look what happens.

At the end of ten days, it was seen that they were in better appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food.

So the steward took away their food and wine that they were to drink, and he gave them vegetables.

He gave them the food that they asked for.

Here's the other part I love about that.

Fat was in back then.

That's what it says.

It's not always what happened, it's what always happens, right?

Verse 17.

As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill and all literature and wisdom.

And Daniel had understanding and all visions and dreams.

So Daniel's in a foreign world, a foreign land.

There's this evil spirit of Babylon that has always existed, that rules.

In the middle of all that, God gives him 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 him, and among all of them, none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Therefore they stood before the king.

And this is this is a this is the evil king.

This is the Babylonian king.

This is the spirit of Babylon.

It's this the spirit that's always existed.

And in every manner of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and the enchanters that were in all his kingdom.

Here's what we we learn from this is that God's ways are better than the world's ways.

God's ways are better than any other way.

God has his hand upon us.

If we can be faithful, if we can follow what he teaches.

As a matter of fact, I wrote him, I wrote here, following Jesus makes life better and makes us better at life.

There's hope in Jesus.

It's all about Jesus.

Jesus is King.

Y'all sound like you're in a library, okay?

Is anybody hearing what I'm saying?

All right.

Yes, thank you.

Verse 21, and Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.

What is that?

Last part.

Chapter one.

He spends his whole life in Babylon.

He never gets the journey home.

He spends his whole life in Babylon.

But he resolves that he'll spend his whole life representing his king.

Not the king of Babylon, but King Jesus.

Daniel remains faithful.

And so 2,600 years ago, in a pagan secular society, God has a remnant.

God has a people.

God has faithful followers that we can read about today that are an example to how we should conduct our life in the modern-day Babylon in which we live.

Jesus is in control.

Jesus' ways are better than any other way.

Jesus is king.

Jesus has got you.

Jesus has a plan for you.

And just like Daniel traveled 700 miles out of his comfort zone and from the world where he was taught about how to live faithful to his heavenly father, Jesus left his comfort zone.

And he traveled out of heaven to this world.

This planet called Earth.

Where the spirit of Babylon is evident in every area, every corner, every nook of this world.

And Jesus came to represent the kingdom of God.

And he was faithful to the end.

Eventually giving his life up and being crucified and killed and taking our place and taking upon himself all the punishment and all the judgment that we all deserve.

Not only did he provide for our salvation, he left us with the gift of the Holy Spirit that would live inside of us, that would lead us and guide us when we find ourselves in situations where we're not sure how to step.

Maybe how we find ourselves now living in a world that's full of disease and plague and dissension and division and 44 days from a from a from an election where where people potentially will lose their cotton picking mind.

And he says, I am king and I am in control.

And you put your faith in me, don't you put your faith in anything else?

Jesus is king.

He gives us hope.

Would you pray with me this morning?

And let's just call on the name of Jesus.

God, we need you.

We need you now.

We need the hope and the joy that you provide.

We're not we're not gonna we're not gonna call on you to to necessarily change an election.

Father, what we're calling on is for you to come and change the human heart.

Would you come and save people?

Would you draw your church back into its proper perspective and how we should view life and how we should see that there is an evil spirit of Babylon trying to isolate us and trying to indoctrinate us and trying to assimilate and confuse us?

And Father, would you give us strength to be faithful in a faithless world?

Would you give us the strength to make the right decisions and how to interact with people with compassion and winsomeness and with favor?

God, would you draw people that don't know you in the relationship right now?

That's many of there might be some of you this morning that are in this room or that are watching online, that your first step is to step out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.

It's to put your faith in this Jesus that we're talking about this morning that gave his life up for us.

And he died on a Roman cross, and he he was willing to endure the pain and the punishment and the separation from his heavenly father so we could be reconciled to our heavenly father.

And he he walked out of a tomb proving that he had power over death and over sin in the grave.

And so if you've never taken that first step, put your faith in Jesus, simply call upon his name.

Admit that you need it, and then trust and believe and repent and put your faith in Jesus.

Say, Jesus, save me.

Jesus, you're my Lord.

I'm turning and putting my faith in you.

If that's you, I want to encourage you to text.

Start to follow to 9700.

That might be some of you that are in the room right now, or you may be watching online.

Text start to follow to 9700.

And let me encourage us, Father, those of us that are the church, your mission for us hasn't changed since Jesus gave it to us.

And he ascended to your right hand.

It's for us to go and make disciples.

May we be about the business of our Father.

May we not get caught up in the distractions of the enemy and the distraction of this season, this year.

Lord, may it be all about Jesus.

He is our King.

Everything ends with Jesus.

And so, yes, in this broken world, and we might wake up, and it may seem more broken tomorrow, but thank you that the next day that we wake up is one day closer to that day that you will return as the righteous King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And we worship you right now in preparation for that day that will step into eternity.

And we say that you are our King.

We pray.

Would you stand with me and join as we close this time?