“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17
We begin the week with a new series through the incredible book of Daniel. Every election season, Christians are increasingly torn in their loyalties as politics dominates the media and social media. Sadly, a sense of pressured urgency polarizes Christians into warring factions. It is possible that the average Bible-believing, Jesus-loving, church-attending Christian is torn and troubled, wishing there was an option between veering to the right or left. Thankfully, there is an option. That option is going up to the King and Kingdom who rules over all kings, presidents, kingdoms, and nations. The Christian is supposed to think in terms of living Kingdom down or Hell up. When all is said and done, the only two cultures for eternity will be Heaven or Hell, and the Christian is supposed to live Kingdom down and not be pulling the culture of Hell up into their life with sin and folly. The Old Testament book of Daniel is incredibly timely because the Word of God is timeless.
In the days of Daniel, he was taken into exile to Babylon. Today we’d call him a prisoner of war, or this act as human trafficking. Daniel prophesied during the Babylonian captivity at the same time as Ezekiel (Ezekiel 14:14, 14:20, 28:3), Jeremiah (Daniel 9:2), and possibly Habakkuk, who may have still been alive at that time. In Lamentations, Jeremiah looked back at Israel’s destruction, and Ezekiel looked forward to religious restoration, but Daniel awaited political restoration under King Jesus.
The book of Daniel can be divided into two sections. The first section (Daniel 1-6) records the experiences of Daniel as he interprets the dreams and visions of others. Daniel is an incredibly supernatural series of divine revelations. The second section (Daniel 7-12) records the four future apocalyptic visions that God gave to Daniel. The book spans a great number of years and was likely completed around 530 B.C. The theme is the destruction of all ungodly kingdoms and the coming of King Jesus Christ and His eternal Kingdom.
Babylon was corrupt to the core. It was the largest and most powerful nation on earth in its day, a superpower with a deadly military, strong economy, and demonic power. There, Satan and demons tried to counterfeit God’s heavenly Kingdom of light with an earthly kingdom of darkness. Everything from politics to entertainment, gender, sexuality, and education was ungodly, unhealthy, and unbiblical. Daniel was trapped in a world that he could not control and was pressured to think and act like a Babylonian, which would have made his life easier at the cost of having a relationship with God. Simply stated, Daniel was forced to decide between living as a believer or a Babylonian.
In the opening chapter of Daniel, he and three other young men (likely teenagers) were stripped of the birth name given by their parents and instead had the government legally change their names. Those name changes are listed below, and each one is an attempt to forcibly convert them from devotion to the true God to devotion to the demonic spirits worshiped as gods in Babylon.
Hebrew Name Babylonian Name
Daniel: “God is my judge” Belteshazzar: “Bel protects his life”
Hananiah: “Yahweh is gracious” Shadrach: “The command of Aku”
Mishael: “Who is what God is?” Meshack: “Who is what Aku is?”
Azariah: “Yahweh is my helper” Abed-Nego: “Servant of Nebo”
In naming the young men, we see that the spirit of Babylon that exists in every nation and culture is always seeking to change our identity and loyalty from the one God to the counterfeit demonic gods. Throughout the book of Daniel, the young men are called by their new names by the Babylonians, but curiously, they never refer to themselves by those new demonic names. The point is that our identity must be set by our God, who gives us a new nature. Worldly cultures can change your name, but only God can change your nature. It doesn’t matter what others put on you; it only matters that God’s Spirit is in you.
Tomorrow we will look at the author of this great book.
Do you truly believe God has made you new and given you a new identity in Him?
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