Daniel 1v1-2 During the third year of King Jehoiakim’s reign in Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it with his armies. The Lord gave him victory over King Jehoiakim of Judah. When Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon, he took with him some of the sacred objects from the Temple of God and placed them in the treasure-house of his god in the land of Babylonia.
“The Lord gave him (Nebuchadnezzar) victory over King Jehoiakim of Judah.”
Who was King Nebuchadnezzar
Who was he? From a human historical perspective:
1. The military leader of Babylon, considered a war hero, moved into power, and secured and alliance with the Medes by marriage.
2. He united the Mesopotamian region, and led what is considered to be one of the most influential empires in the Ancient world.
a. He was a brilliant strategist b. He gave women more rights and freedoms than any before him c. He supported the arts and gave freedom for them. d. He was devoutly religious to the pagan mythologies of the day.
He was considered one of the greatest leaders of the ancient world.
I want to consider this phrase. It jumps out at me. I causes me to pause. Why?
Because it says God handed over His people to a pagan King.
A few years earlier, during the reign of Josiah, God had told the Prophet Habakkuk, that HE was going to do it.
He was going to raise up the Babylonians to world power… (1v5-7) that He is actually using the Babylonians for His purpose.
The Lord replied, “Look at the nations and be amazed! Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it. I am raising up the Babylonians to be a new power on the world scene.
They are a cruel and violent nation who will march across the world and conquer it. They are notorious for their cruelty. They do as they like, and no one can stop them.
Why would God do that?
If I am honest, I would have been asking some questions of God…
a. If you are a loving God, why would you allow bad things to happen to Your people?
b. Are you in control?
The Prophet Habakkuk responds, much the same way, with a question of, “are you crazy?” Which is essentially the question, “Are you in control?…but laced with more, “I think you are making a mistake.”
"Are you just going to wipe us out?”
God responds with what amount so a promise of, “I have this..and I have a reason”
“Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked; but the righteous will live by faith…”
The book of Daniel begins with this as the landscape: God sending His people into captivity, God granting victory to this man Nebuchadnezzar. I want us to consider the question:
What was God up to with the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar?
a. Dealing with His people and their lack of consistent devotion to Him. (Idolatry)
There had been a history of Kings who, “did evil in the sight of the Lord,” and God had made declarations against them. 2 Chronicles 33v2 (speaking of Manasseh) He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the pagan nations whom the Lord had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites. He rebuild the pagan shrines his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He constructed altars for the images of Baal and set up Asherah poles. He also bowed before all the stars of heaven and worshiped them.
His people had grabbed onto the religious systems and practices of the world around them, and had begun to weave them into their own worship of Yahweh.
-Asherah poles -Pagan Shrines -bowed before ALL the stars
b. Dealing with the great deception in the world.
To really understand this Nebuchadnezzar, we began to study this pantheon of Babylonian gods.
An Ancient deception…
The ancient world believed in a pantheon (multiplicity) of gods. Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was no different.
There are stories in the Old Testament, like the Tower of Babel, that are actually stories of worship to these god. (Tower was built and dedicated to the god Marduk,)
When we used the term, ‘gods,’ I want to clarify this is with a small, ‘g.’
The way I was raised was to believe, ‘myths or idols.’ But I think we are getting this wrong.
I came across something that struck me as I studied these gods that Nebuchadnezzar worshipped…
One of these gods was Enlil (key)
Enlil was considered as one of the Mesopotamian gods in the supreme triad, along with Anu (god of the heavens, also known as An) and Enki (god of wisdom and earth). This brings us to the question – what natural (or supernatural) element did Enlil himself represent? Interestingly enough, this is where the historians and linguists are baffled alike, with the very Sumerian word “líl” meaning ‘ghost or even haunted’. To that end, Enlil could be interpreted as ‘Lord ghost’, but that wouldn’t make much sense, especially given the importance of Enlil in Sumerian religion. So as a re-interpretation (with practicality taken into consideration), Enlil may have been portrayed as the ‘Lord of Air’ or basically a deity representing the sky and atmosphere.
The concept of the Trinity in Babylonian mythology?
Hebrew culture teaches God as Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Elohim - plural. (The Lord is plural, yet one God)
This is a central tenant to who God revealed Himself to be.
It caused me to start hunting for other similarities. It led us out of just Babylonian religion and to look at:
Norse mythology, Sumerian mythology, Chinese mythology, and Hinduism
As we went back and cross-referenced many of these old mythologies and religions, we discovered that many of them, not just Babylonian mythology, contain this idea of a, ‘supreme triad,”
Additionally, the majority of all these mythologies and religions contain nearly identical elements of belief: a. Creation from nothingness b. Sacrifice for creation (a god was dismantled and the elements of his body created the world) c. a great flood d. a geographical center of the world e. Younger gods defeating older gods.
In other words, there are patterns, similarities, and a central story in the majority of these world religions / mythologies.
They are all espousing a very similar story with different characters.
As I looked at these 5 tenants I realized I began to see what I would call the great deception.
a. The Triune God in three persons is mimicked, in this, ‘supreme triad,’ of gods.
b. The stories of Yahweh’s interaction, (relationship is exchanged for slavery)
c. the locations of His interaction (Eden) are given fresh perspective. d. supernatural power exist in and through blood
e. And inserted is the POSSIBILITY of a different, newer god taking over the older GOD.
Consider this: If you create a story with all the same elements as an original story, but slightly adjusted, you have plagiarized the original, yes, mimicked the original, yes, but you have also inserted reasonable doubt about the original authorship.
By inserting doubt, you have created a platform to deceive.
The great deception?
Consider: I will be like the most high….Isaiah 14
This is attributed to the enemy. It is the revelation of why he was cast down from heaven.
The word, “be like,” is rendered “compare, liken, similar”
The enemy’s first desire was to be, “comparable and alike,” to God.
We know that Jesus declared this same enemy to be, “a liar and a deceiver."
John 8v44b When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
If his original desire was to be viewed, held in authority like God, then perhaps we begin to understand the original deception:
I believe the enemy has whispered through the ages, through the mythologies of the world, into the religions of the world, a very similar story to the real story of Yahweh, but one that is different enough to lead people away from the True God, to question the authenticity of Yahweh, and to see the God of the Hebrews as, “just another way to get to God.”
So, to our question, “What was God’s agenda with Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians?
Their gods.
The Babylonians were leveraging a witchcraft power through ceremony from these “gods.”
It was the same witchcraft power the vast majority of ancient religions were attempting to access. While being slightly different, they aim towards the same goal:
Manipulative power, which can be harnessed through surrendering to the, ‘gods’.
Nebuchadnezzar’s gods were not just mythological creatures.
I would submit these were the demonic forces, principalities, rulers in high places, that Paul speaks of:
Eph 6v12 For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.
It hit me. God allowed His people to be taken captive for reasons that mattered deeply to him.
1. God had a desire to reveal Himself as the King of Kings, the God of gods, on a global scale to destroy the lies of the great deception.
He was ready to set the record straight and reveal these Babylonian gods, who His people, Israel had begun to mix into their worship of Him, as nothing more than demonic mimics of the real thing.
To do this, he would place His people into this situation so He could reveal His strength.
2. There was something in Nebuchadnezzar that was actually hungry to know the truth. So God ordained a living evangelism campaign to show this man, the most influential man in the world at this time, who He really was. He would use this moment to show the watching world the truth.
So God, the true living, loving God, gave His people over to the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.
It should give us pause. It challenges the question, “Is he sovereign?” “Is He really in control.”
I would submit that the the greatest test of our trust that,”He is in Control,” happens in difficulty when we don’t like it or understand it.
What we will see with Daniel and his friends is the kind of pursuit of God that reveals trust.
My question for us this morning is about mixture.
The statement about Manasseh, “that he bowed before all the stars,” haunts me.
It is symbolic of one who worships God, and everything else around him.
Throughout the history of God’s people, they have always wanted to worship Him and something else as well.
I want to challenge us to strip every aspect of mythology and spirituality that is not purely about Him from our lives.
The enemy is a deceiver. Do not allow deception.
Maybe you have fallen into the great deception that Yahweh is, “one of the paths.”
The way to break this lie is through intimacy with Him. Face to Face encounter with Him. Encountering the Scriptures. These are the relational safeguards that will protect us from mixture.
He alone defines himself.