A Generation of Radical Faith - Ps Kaleb Thomson

So we see here in the first chapter of Daniel, like I said, this Babylon king named Nebuchadnezzar, he captures Jerusalem and his goal is to try and get all the sort of best crop of young people out of Israel, the people that were following God, and he wants them to bring him into his court and get them to serve him.

And he has this purpose where he's like, I wanna train them up in our literature and our wisdom, in our history and in our language.

What's King Nebuchadnezzar trying to do? He's trying to rid them and strip them of their God-given identity that they have in Christ.

And he's trying to disciple them into the Babylonian culture.

Now, throughout the entire Bible, in the beginning of Genesis, all the way through to Revelation, Babylon is always sort of like pictured as this antichrist system of the world.

That's where they get the name, the Tower of Babel.

Even back then in rebellion in Genesis, all the way to Revelation, Babylon is always depicted in the Word as this rebellion against God and His ways.

We even see in the names that they change these boys' names to.

See, Daniel...

His name meant God is my judge, but they changed his name to Belteshazzar, which means may Bell protect my life.

Bell was like the chief pagan God at the time.

Hananiah meant the Lord is gracious.

They changed his name to Shadrach, which I still don't mind.

And it means illuminated by the sun God, or it means inspired or led by the sun God.

Mishael meant who is like God or who is what God is.

And they changed his name to Meshach, who is like Aku, which again is like a Babylonian pagan god.

Azariah, they changed his name from the Lord helps to Abednego, which meant servant of Nebu, which is again another pagan god.

So Babylon has this idea, hey, we're gonna come and we're gonna grab these young people and we're not only gonna disciple them into our ways, our language, our history, we're not only gonna get them to talk like we talk, act like we act, think like we think, but we're actually gonna completely strip them or try to strip them of their identity as followers of God.

The goal of the Babylonians was to strip them of their God-given identity and make them like they were.

And I think if we're all honest, we'd probably be able to look around at the world today and realise that same thing is still happening.

Do we all agree? In some level, whether it's as obvious as it is with Babylon as to now, that antichrist system in the world is still doing that same thing of trying to get the young people and rid them of their God-given identity and make them like the culture of the world.

And that's why Daniel is a timeless book because it speaks to us in every single generation.

Not just this young generation, not just my generation, every single generation.

We will always have to face the pressure of will we conform to what culture says our God is and will we conform to the pressures of culture or will we stand firm in the Word of God and will we trust Him with our life? This is Daniel's story.

This is our story.