Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell. Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Today, we begin a series on the book of Daniel titled The Most High God Rules in the Kingdom of Man. The stories in the Old Testament are like puzzle pieces that come together to reveal God's message but Pastor Rich calls the Book of Daniel the box top to that puzzle, for in it we can see God's overarching sovereignty to work His will even through calamity. And in spite of man's rebellion and evil.
Yes, when evil seems to win, we can know that God will accomplish his purpose, and eventually will set all things right. Let's listen in. How many of you have ever put a puzzle together? I find it very puzzling. You take one piece of the puzzle and it doesn't make much sense by itself, right?
And in order to put the puzzle together, you've got to have. the picture on the box top. You've got to know what picture it is you're putting together. Because you just take one piece of the puzzle. Yeah.
Out of its context, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. That's how some people view the Old Testament. They'll know a story here, a storyter, a historical narrative there, here, there, lots of stories from the Old Testament. Great stuff, better than anything Hollywood can produce. But when it comes to putting it all together, they find great difficulty in that.
If there is a book in the Old Testament that puts that gives us the box top It's the book of Daniel. And it's not just of the Old Testament, but Daniel gives us a big picture, and he does it through God's revelation to the prophet Daniel. The title of today's message is When Evil Seems to Win. You take the narrative that David just read for us in Second Kings. There was a lot of evil going on there.
And we can look at it today, look at our context today, and sometimes you just think, man, I just even want to watch the news anymore. Everything's bad. There's so much evil going on. And we make a distinction here between evil and calamity.
Some call it evil versus wickedness. Wickedness is the human element. Evil is just everything bad that happens, i.e. typhoons, earthquakes, and stuff like that. I call those things calamity.
Those are a natural part of a fallen created order. But evil is what arises in the heart of the created being. Evil originates in the heart and mind of the created being. And sometimes it seems like evil wins. Habakkuk had this.
He had this question. Habakkuk was one of the minor prophets. And he questioned the Lord is looking at the people of Israel. He says, Lord, look at all the stuff that they're doing. They don't care about you.
They have abandoned you. How can you just sit back and let this happen? And God answers Habakkuk and He says, I've got an answer for this. Don't worry, I've got a plan. And it included the Chaldeans, of which we read today.
And then Habakkuk. comes back to the Lord and he says, Lord, you're taking a pagan Nation. and you're going to use them to judge your chosen people? What's up with that?
Now that's not in the text, but that's a rich Powell translation.
Sometimes it seems like evil winds. You look at all the stuff that's going on today. You look back at the twentieth century, the bloodiest century in recorded history. And the things that are going on today, is there ever going to be an end to the terror threats?
Now it's not organized terror, it's just individuals popping up here and there who decide to go into a public place and open fire. or plan to bomb. disease spreading in all kinds of forms in all kinds of places. And all this that is happening, and we wonder: can good prevail?
Sometimes it seems like evil wins.
Now before we get started in Daniel, I want to go back and give an overview. of the history of the Old Testament, so that we know where we are. If we're going to look in the Scriptures, it's very important for us to know where we are in the context of history. Where does this fit? What's been going on?
So let's all begin all the way back in Genesis. We're going to go through this very, very quickly.
So get your pens ready. Get your pens out. Your pens are going to be smoking here. All right? The first 11 chapters of Genesis.
It deals with the origin of man and his environment. There's a very important reason why I put it that way: man is God's highest. creation Man was created in God's image. Everything else that is made was made as an environment for man. Yes, even outer space.
God created those for man's purposes, to bring him glory and to serve man.
So, the origin of man and his environment. We see that in the first few chapters of Genesis. And then also, you see the introduction of sin. where man thought he knew better than God. And God necessarily had to bring that judgment.
God created man to love him. And love necessarily must be free and spontaneous. And if it is not tested, there's no point to it at all. Think about that. God put one prohibition in the middle of the garden.
One. He said, Adam, stay away from that. In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Guess what? They ate of it.
And they died. They didn't die physically at that moment, but they were separated like a branch cut off from the tree, from the source of life. And so God says, you want independence from me? I'm going to give you just a taste of what independence from me is like. And that is the origin of everything that goes wrong in the world today.
God has given mankind a taste. A taste. of what it is to live independent from him. Mankind continually grew more and more evil. And get to Genesis chapter 6, and Noah is introduced on the scene, and God says, My spirit will not always strive with mankind.
And he goes to Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He says, Noah, build a boat. Noah says, What's a boat? God says there's going to be a lot of water.
How much water? Enough for this big boat to float? And so God brought judgment upon the earth. We find that in Genesis chapter 6, 7 and 8 and 9. And then after that, God.
Replenish the earth, he told Noah to go out and to multiply. Man continued to multiply. And man decided to come together and says, let's build a name for ourselves, and they build the Tower of Babel. And God says this is not what I called you to do. And so he confused their languages.
And at the Tower of Babel, we have the origin of nations and languages. And those that had the same language, they went off this way. Others went off that way. They couldn't understand each other.
So they dispersed to all different parts of the earth. And that was the origin of languages and nations. And these are the things that we find in Genesis 1 through 11. Evil is the result of when man thinks he knows better than God. Think about that.
Evil is the result of when man thinks he knows better than God. The God of Scripture who has revealed himself. When man thinks he knows better, and it may involve some kind of a counterfeit God or some perversion, some perverted understanding of God, but when man creates God in his image, And man thinks he knows better than God, than evil. Is the result of that. That's where it comes from.
And if you look in the prophecies of Ezekiel and Isaiah, we see Lucifer doing that very thing, where he wanted to exalt himself above God. He thought he knew better than God. And that was the origin of evil. He was filled with pride and he fell. And he came to the earth after God had created it, and he wanted to lure Adam and Eve away.
And what did he tempt them to do? to doubt God. To believe that God was holding back on them. God didn't have their best interest in mind. They could enjoy more than what God had for them.
And evil resulted. Evil is the result of when man thinks he knows better than God. These are the things that we learn in Genesis 1 to 11.
Now Genesis 1 to 11 is very much a wide angle Image. We come to Genesis chapter 12. And he pulls out the zoom lens in Scripture. In Genesis chapter 12 and following, in the rest of the Old Testament, that leads us then and even through the New Testament, it is focused on the outworking of God's plan of redemption and restoration through Messiah. And he focuses, he begins his focus on one family, it's the family of Abraham.
So we find him introduced in Genesis chapter 12.
So Abraham lived about 2000 BC. And of course, Abraham had a son. His name was Isaac. Isaac had a couple of sons, Jacob and Esau. God chose Jacob for his purposes, even though he was the younger of the two.
Jacob was called Israel. Hence the name of the nation today. The nation of Israel The existence of the nation of Israel. Is a proof for the existence and the outworking of history that has been revealed in Scripture. Jacob's name was turned to Israel.
Jacob had twelve sons. They became the twelve tribes of Israel. One of those sons was Joseph. You remember, he was betrayed by his brothers and sold, and went down to Egypt, worked for Potiphar as a steward. He was falsely accused.
He was thrown in jail. He was able to interpret dreams, and Pharaoh brought him out, and there was famine in the land, and Joseph was put second in command. And as a result of that, Jacob's family was able to survive. They come down to Egypt. And that's what we have recorded at the end of the book of Genesis.
Jacob and all his family come down to Egypt. When Jacob came down to Egypt, there were 70 people in his family. About four centuries later, when they left Egypt. There were two and a half million of them. Approximately.
two and a half million of them.
So they leave Egypt. They were about 400 years in there. And that introduces us then to Moses in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus. Moses comes on the scene, the Exodus happened about 1447 BC. And we all know that story, some of the great narratives in Scripture.
And Moses leads them out. You got the Passover, the plagues and the Passover. And by the way, the Passover is still celebrated today. by the Jews. The New Testament tells us that Christ is our Passover.
They come out of Egypt and they're taken to the Red Sea. Pharaoh's army is in pursuit. God opens up the Red Sea. They walk across on dry land. God takes them to Mount Sinai, and there's where he gives them the law.
That's where they receive their definition and their code, God's covenant with them. And then they go through the wilderness, and because of their rebellion, they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. And when it's about time to go into the land, they go down to the land of Moab and they're about to cross over into the promised land. And God does not let Moses go in. But Moses gives them what we have recorded in the book of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy means the second law.
So he gives them the law, but one of the biggest things that you'll find in the book of Deuteronomy is a warning to the people of Israel. Warning, you're going to go into the land, God's going to give you the land, you're going to live in houses you didn't build, you're going to reap from vineyards you didn't plant. You're going to become comfortable, beware lest you forget God. Lots of warnings in the book of Deuteronomy. Joshua succeeds.
Moses. Joshua takes them across the Jordan. He conquers Jericho, and then they have the land conquest in two different campaigns, the north and the south. And after Joshua passes off the sea, and then you have the period of the judges. You had judges like Gideon, you had judges like Samson, and the last one was Samuel.
And the people of Israel said, We don't want to be judged by these people because it was about four centuries of a cycle of sin and oppression and then repentance and then restoration and then sin and then oppression. Four centuries of that. And then the people finally said We want to be like the other nations. We want a king. They said to Samuel, give us a king.
And Samuel says that's not That's not what you should be doing. God is your king. And God says to Samuel, That's okay, Samuel, they're rejecting me, not you. And so God gives them a king. And that brings us then to the introduction of the kingdom of Israel.
And the kingdom. As one kingdom lasted from 1050 BC to about 930 BC. Only about 120 years. The first king was Saul. Started out pretty good, but then he got caught up in himself.
And succeeding him was David. And the interaction between two of those is where you will find a lot of the Psalms in Scripture. David wrote many, many of the Psalms in Scripture. And David was the hero king. of the nation of Israel, the man after God's own heart.
And you'll remember what Dwight taught on David over the last three Sundays. And if you didn't hear that, I encourage you to go back and listen to that. Much, much to learn from that. David's son Solomon succeeded him. Each of these men reigned about forty years.
Over Israel. And from this, you get what we call in Scripture the wisdom literature: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. After Solomon's reign, then we came to the divided kingdom.
Solomon's son was Rehoboam. Rehoboam had a lot of pride. The people of the nation come to him and says, please lighten up on us. Rehoboam went to the elders. He rejected their counsel.
He went to his young peers, and he followed their counsel. His young peers said, You need to clamp down on them. You show 'em who's in charge. And because of that, the kingdom was divided. Jeroboam takes the northern ten tribes, and they become.
The nation of Israel, and Jeroboam is king over Judah. And then we have the divided kingdom. This is the one time in history when the South successfully seceded from the Union. In this time is when you had a whole array of kings and prophets. in the scriptural narrative.
Kings and prophets, Israel, The northern kingdom of Israel had 19 kings, not one of them was good. Not one of them was good. And the northern kingdom of Israel lasted only about two hundred years. In the year 722 BC, they were besieged and taken by Assyria, and they were scattered, never to be brought back again. Judah, on the other hand, the southern kingdom, Had twenty kings, eight of them were good, considered good.
And they were kings like Hezekiah and Josiah and and several others. Judah lasted about 350 years. It's during this time in history, about 800 BC, you had Homer. who wrote literatures, the Iliad, the Odyssey. These are what was happening during this time of the kings and the prophets.
The first Olympics happened in 776 BC. Rome as a city was established in 753 BC during this time of the kings and the prophets. And then during this now, Israel, the northern kingdom of Israel, has already been scattered and taken captive by Assyria. And then comes the southern kingdom of Judah, and towards the end of them, Jehoiakim was the third to the last king, and that brings us then to exile. And that's where we are, as Daniel begins the first two verses of Daniel.
Put us right here at about 605 BC. Jehoiakim was the third to the last king of Judah. He was a wicked king. And this began the 70-year exile of Judah that was prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25. Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah.
Josiah was one who became king at a very, very young age. And he brought great revival in the land. And it says some tremendous things about Josiah. Never before had a man followed the Lord like his father David. And he brought great revival in the land of Judah.
but it was too little and too late. Jehoiakim was Josiah's son. His brother, his older brother, was Jehoahaz, who had ascended to the throne after Josiah's death. Jehoahaz was a wicked king, and he was deported by Pharaoh Necho of Egypt, taken off to Egypt. And then Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonian Empire comes on the scene, and he overtakes the Egyptians, the Egyptian in terms of dominance at the Battle of Carchemish.
And Jehoiakim, then king of Judah, becomes a vassal king of Nebuchadnezzar. And for three years, he's under the dominance of Nebuchadnezzar, and they're having to pay tribute. And the people of Judah are saying, you know, this is so heavy, we can't, we don't like this. And so Jehoiakim rebels against Nebuchadnezzar. And that's when we have what's recorded in the first two verses of Daniel chapter one.
Look at these verses with me. Daniel chapter 1. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Verse 2, and the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand. With some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his God.
and he brought the articles into the treasure house of his God. It's a sad statement, isn't it? God the Creator, the one true living God. And the things are carried away from his temple, and the articles of that temple are carried away, and they're placed in the temple of a Non-god. that is worshipped.
It seems like evil wins, doesn't it? Does God care? Is he powerful enough to counter this? Is he good enough? Evil seems to have won here.
You have Jehoiakim rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar. And it's very interesting to point out here. Look what it says at the beginning of verse 2. Does God know what's going on? Is God in charge?
Look at verse 2. The Lord. gave Jehoiakim king of Judah, Into his hand. Hand. The Lord gave him into Nebuchadnezzar's hand.
Keep your finger there in Daniel. Go all the way back with me to the book of Deuteronomy. Remember when I was talking about Deuteronomy? Moses warned the people of Israel. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter thirty one.
The beginning of Deuteronomy is full of warnings, and the end of Deuteronomy is full of warnings. Warnings and blessings. in Deuteronomy chapter 31. The Lord told Moses. in a confidential conversation, Moses.
This people is going to rebel. and I'm going to have to cast them away from me. It is necessary for a holy God to do. Look at Deuteronomy 31, beginning at verse 16. And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you will rest with your fathers, and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake me and break my covenant, which I have made with them.
Look at verse 17. Then my anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them. And they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us? Because our God is not our.
among us. That gives us a really good definition of what evil is. Evil is the absence. of God. When man thinks he knows better than God, God, I'm going to do it my way, you stay out of my way.
man is pursuing Evil. That's where evil originates. And God steps aside. And he seconds the motion. He says, if that's the way you want it, Have it your way.
I'm going to let you have a taste. of what it is. to live without me. I'm going to let you have a taste of what it's like for you as a branch to try to exist. severed from the tree.
It's not going to be pretty. In God. will remove his protection. And he will Allow His people. to experience the consequences.
The oppression. of being independent. from him. He says, I will hide my face from them. These people who are God's chosen people, the elect ones.
They have gods Purpose, specific purpose. And his power to accomplish that purpose, his protection to accomplish that purpose. And they enjoy all the privileges of God as His chosen people. And God suspends that. He takes that away and He lets them experience The desert.
of life without the fountain of living waters. And after Jehoiakim, there were two more kings in Israel, both of them very wicked, very evil, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. And finally, in 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar says, I've had enough. I'm not going to deal with this people anymore. He goes up to Jerusalem, and he decimates the city of Jerusalem.
He burns the temple, tears down the walls of the city. And that's what we have recorded by the prophet Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations. But that's not the end. Of Judah. That's not the end of God's people.
You see God is in this. Even though it seemed like evil wins and a pagan king comes and overrules everything that God's chosen people are about. Seems like evil winds. But you see, God is in this. And here then we have the thrust of the book of Daniel.
This is a phrase that you're going to see repeated numerous times in this book. the Most High, Rules. in the kingdom of men. The Most High rules in the kingdom of men. It's an absolute statement.
There are many who think they are elevated. There are many who venerate themselves. But the Most High. The Sovereign One. Rules.
in the kingdom of men. What Daniel teaches us is that God is sovereign over history. And what we can do, we can do it looking at history, we can do it even today. All the stuff that that is happening and much of it very undesirable. Very oppressive.
And we take all these pieces to the puzzle and we say, how does all this fit together? I can't make sense out of this. I can't make sense out of somebody going into a school and opening up. Opening fire. I can't make sense out of that.
God takes all the pieces of the puzzle and he puts them together. And he gives us The big picture. And what we have recorded in Daniel, as throughout all of the Old Testament and all the way through the New Testament, is he gives us the big picture. It is his story. God does not cause the evil.
Let me be absolutely clear on that. Just like I described it before, evil is. is what happens when man thinks he knows better than God. and goes his own way. Evil is the branch willfully severing itself from the tree.
The only thing it can do is die. And God says, if that's what you want, I'm going to give you a taste of what it looks like. And in the book of Daniel, then We see the boxt top, the big picture of history leading up to the first advent of Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came in history. And then also, particularly in the second half of Daniel, Then we see history and prophecy Leading up to the second advent of Messiah, when Jesus Christ will come again. And Daniel brings all the pieces of the puzzle together.
And he shows us the big picture showing us that God is sovereign. Over history. Nothing that man can do is beyond God's sovereign purpose. Nothing. If you're still there in Daniel, turn with me back to the prophet Isaiah.
Look at a couple of verses in the prophet Isaiah. Chapter forty six. Isaiah chapter forty six. This is Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah was about 700 BC.
So this is about three hundred years after David. And about a century before Judah was going to be taken captive by Babylon. And Isaiah is prophesying what is going to happen to Babylon. Look with me at Isaiah 46 at verse 10, declaring this is God speaking. Look at verse 9, start at verse 9.
Remember the former things of old. For I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient times, things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, I will do all my pleasure.
Now look at verse 11. This is very interesting. Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes my counsel from a far country. Who is he speaking of there? He's speaking of Cyrus.
You see, not only does he prophesy that Israel, that Judah is going to be taken captive, but he has also prophesied the one who is going to bring Judah back to the land. and reestablish. God's people in their land. Second half of verse eleven. Indeed, I have spoken it.
I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also do it. Loved ones, do you find those comforting words? It is the sovereign God, the Creator.
and Redeemer. Who says these things? The Most High rules in the kingdom of men. Two points. when evil seems to win.
And some of us may have that sense.
Some of us are dealing with fears of what's going to become of us, what's going to become of our country, what's going to become of the world. When evil seems to win, two points. Number one, it's not outside of God's sovereign control. Remember Oh drew the box top. It's not outside of God's sovereign control.
Point number two. God employs man's evil. to accomplish his purpose. Man thinks he knows better. And that's where evil comes from.
God steps aside and says, Have it your way. I'm going to give you a taste of what it's like to live independent from me. And in that Order. God employs the evils of man to accomplish his purpose. You see, a sovereign God can do that.
In Jeremiah. Chapter twenty five. Last time, we'll turn here now. You're in Isaiah. Turn up now to Jeremiah chapter twenty five.
Look with me at verses eleven and twelve. Jeremiah twenty five, eleven and twelve Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation in the land of the Chaldeans for their iniquity. You see, God uses the evils of mankind to accomplish his purpose. and yet he still holds mankind accountable for his evil thoughts and behaviours. I will make it a perpetual desolation.
So I will bring on that land all my words. End of verse 14: I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands. And this is something that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, learned in a very real way. And the people of Israel needed to learn as well.
Now, listen to this, please, okay? When we believe, evil seems to win. And we are tired of the cost. Remember this.
Okay. God is is more interested in your character. than he is in your comfort. God is more interested in your character. than he is in your comfort.
This ought to be a challenge to us because as Americans who are so prosperous and comfortable in so many ways. We have so many conveniences. We have so many things to cushion us against the harsh realities of life. That will not last forever. It cannot.
God is more interested in your character. than in your comfort. And he has much to teach us. where we spend so much energy and resource. in amassing the comforts of life.
God would much rather that we use our energies. To develop the character that he wants to develop within us. And sometimes he will use the calamities of a fallen created order, and he will use the evils of other people. to accomplish that purpose in us. All this with the understanding that God is sovereign over history.
Let me give you, then, a summary of chapter one of Daniel. and this will take us through the next three Sundays. For today, when evil seems to win, God's people are overcome by a pagan nation. And to them, it seems like evil wins because the good guys, they're taken captive. They're taken out of their land, and now they are servants in a foreign land.
And these are God's people. And it seems like evil winds.
Next week, we're going to look at the topic of encountering change. And it focuses on Daniel and three friends. Hanani, Mishiel, and Azariah. We know them more popularly as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But these guys had to encounter quite a bit of change.
A change in the land, a change in culture, a change in languages, a change in their names. They even had their names changed. Imagine that. Encountered this kind of a change because it seemed like Evil One. But then After that we learned from Daniel.
and we learned from his friends. But we learned in Daniel chapter 1 particularly. to stay focused. It seems like evil winds, you encounter lots of change. But we need to stay focused.
Keep our eyes fixed. Fixed. On the reference point that is provided us, that God has provided us through His self-disclosure. Keep our eyes fixed on that. He is our objective.
Daniel knew that. And because even As he encountered all that change, Daniel stayed focused, and because he stayed focused, Lastly, in chapter one, we see him as a shining light. him and his friends as a shining light, in the context of oppression. And what we learned from Daniel is how we as God's people are called to behave in hostile courts. The only way we can do that is if we maintain our focus.
On the God who has revealed Himself. the one true and living God. In Daniel's book, Daniel brings great comfort to the Jews in exile, pointing to God's providential power. And so for us, His book comforts us who live in an imperfect world and at times a horrifying world. But Daniel teaches us that God overrules and eventually will overcome.
human evil. The Most High rules. in the kingdom. of men. May we be challenged and may we be comforted by this message from the introduction to the book of Daniel.
Thank you for listening to this message titled When Evil Seems to Win. The first message in our Daniels series. It was first preached at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem on October 26. Mm-hmm. You can hear more from this series, Mondays on DelightInGrace.com.
