Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript

Daniel chapter 7, the first 10 verses for the scripture text. We’ll actually be doing a review of Daniel 1 through 6 and speak of Daniel as a reformer or Reformer, a celebration of Reformation Day today. So, we’ll be looking at a few verses from chapter 7 that really serve as a summary of chapters 1 to 6. We’ll make some comments again as we have really in the first six chapters of Daniel focusing on Daniel’s work, who he was, and the way God used him and others like him to reform the world.

So, please stand for the reading of God’s word, Daniel 7:1-10. Next week we will take up a full exposition of Daniel 7. And in today’s announcements, I’ve given you some texts that would be most beneficial for you to read and become a little acquainted with this week as we prepare for the difficult section of Daniel, the prophetic section. But if we use a whole Bible approach, it will help us and aid us in understanding these things.

And today we’ll just read the first 10 verses of Daniel 7. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed. Then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I beheld to the eagle, to the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon the feet as a man. And a man’s heart was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it, between the teeth of it. And they said thus unto it, “Arise, devour much flesh.” After this, I beheld, and lo, another like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl.

The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth. It devoured and break in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it. And it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it. And it had 10 horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots.

And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. I beheld, to the thrones were cast down, and the ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool. His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. Thousand ministered unto him, and 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him.

The judgment was set and the books were opened.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your holy word. We are in awe of it, Lord God, and we acknowledge our need as with every bit of it to have your Holy Spirit shine a light upon us that we might understand the things written here and might receive spiritual transformation through the proclamation of your word and partaking of the sacrament. Now we pray Lord God that you would bless our review of Daniel 1-6 and help us father to see Daniel as a reformer and be encouraged to pledge ourselves anew to be reformers in our lives. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Really the text that I just read will serve as an introduction to today’s sermon and really nothing more. We do want to talk briefly about it. On your outlines I see here spiritfilled change agents and reformation. Make me a zephyr. What am I talking about? Well, one of the problems we have with interpreting the prophecies of Daniel is that we don’t know our Bibles very well, and we particularly don’t know the Old Testament very well, and we don’t know the flow of the books, etc.

So what we’re tempted to do when we come to a prophetic text, of which we will be spending several weeks now—Daniel 7 through 12 are coming up beginning next Sunday—what we tend to do is look at the New Testament stuff we know that references this in the book of Revelation, have some preconceived notions about that, and then read that back into what we read in the book of Daniel when in reality of course we should be thinking about how the Bible builds up this imagery and that becomes then the way to interpret what we have in the New Testament and specifically the book of Revelation.

So I’ve given us here a little background information and this is why I want you to read the text if you can possibly either individually or at family worship in preparation for next week’s sermon that’s on the announcements today. But today I wanted to talk just a little bit about what’s going on in the context of Daniel 7:1-10 because I think that what we have here is what I want to do today. What I want to do today is have a little recapitulation, a little review.

Okay, I’ll kind of slow down, take a deep breath, think through what we’ve learned in Daniel 1-6, particularly as it relates to reformation. And in these verses that I just read, and particularly in verses 4 and 5, that’s what we have.

We remember in Daniel 2 we had this image of a man. It was a series of empires. One empire really administered by first the Babylonians, then the Persians, then it would come the Greeks and then finally the Romans. And all of this leading to the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ and his enthronement in heaven. Well, that’s that stone goes to fill the earth, right? And so this is what we know. These four creatures are clearly delineated back to that four-fold nature of the empire in Daniel 2. So we can know generally what’s happening here is the same series of progression of four empires really one empire but administered first by Babylon then by Persia then by Greece and then by Rome all of this leading up to the coming of Jesus Christ and in the text that’s why I read as far as I did because we see then that the culmination of all of this is the coming of the Ancient of Days his enthronement in heaven.

I’ll be making the case in Daniel 7 that the Ancient of Days does not refer to the Father. It refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. No man has seen God the Father at any time. So what we have here is a vision of the Ancient of Days—Jesus Christ. And what we’ll see next week and if you read Revelation 1, you’ll see some definite correlations between this text and what we have in Revelation 1 in terms of the description of the appearance of Jesus.

So what we’re going to be saying generally about, you know, the next six chapters of Daniel is we have this progression of empires culminating in the coming of Jesus Christ and then the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the people of God assuming reign with Jesus as the kingdom is now established and as the old order is passed away. You know, the epistles are written in the last days of the old world. Jesus has definitively established the new creation at his death and resurrection and ascension. But that’s put into effect in the rule given to the church as a result of God’s destruction upon the old of the temple and the old world in AD 70. So the position we’re going to be taking on Daniel is that’s what these prophecies are about. It’s not about some judgment way off in the future. It’s about what happens in the years leading up to the coming, the death, resurrection, ascension, and then the destruction of Jerusalem and the kingdom being given to those who are like the son of man, the church of Jesus Christ at in the full effect of his destruction of Jerusalem and the removal essentially of the old creation.

So what we have here is the picture the same flow of history and then the description of how history will change definitively at the coming of Christ. Now I should say here too that with all prophetic texts or most of them there is a you know there’s a predictive element to them. Things are going to happen that look just like this. But there’s also a thematic element of text prophetic text that’s important for us.

So if we look at how God reformed the world preparing the world for Jesus and then how he reforms it with him and his saints. We’ll also see the theme of how reformation or reformation happened three or four or 500 years ago and also how to affect reformation in our day and age. That’s the basic premise of what we’ll be talking about today from the scriptures. So we’ll look at what happened here and then we’ll see this as a thematic illustration of what happened when reformation occurs. So these are talking about special one-time events, the creation of this empire leading up 500 years later or so to Jesus coming five or six hundred years later. But they have a thematic element to them that’s true and can be applicable to us as well.

Verse 4 says that a whirlwind came up out of the north, a great cloud. I’m sorry, I’m reading from Ezekiel. That’ll really confuse us. Verse 4 in Daniel. We’ll go to Ezekiel in a minute, but first verse 4 in Daniel says, “The first of these four beasts was like a lion had eagle’s wings. I beheld to the wings thereof were plucked and I was and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand upon the feet as a man.” And this is a description of Babylon. And specifically, we can think back to what Daniel’s told us about Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4 of Daniel’s book.

Nebuchadnezzar is like the lion, the great ruler. He’s described as having eagle’s wings. In that in Daniel 4, he’s humbled. He’s brought down to the ground and then he’s raised up as a man, right? He becomes born again, I guess, in modern lingo. He is raised to his feet as a man. A man’s heart was given to him. Before that, he wasn’t he had, you know, he was in the process of being converted by God with Daniel and his friends being there. But the culmination of that is in Daniel 4 when his heart which had been proud and oppressed people rather than delivering them, was now changed. And so Nebuchadnezzar had a new heart given to him. So what we have in verse 4 is a description of Babylon and God’s reformation of it and the raising up of it.

Following that then in verse 5, behold another beast, a second like to a bear appears, and it raises itself up on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it. And they said thus unto it, “Arise, devour much flesh.” And then another of another beast comes a leopard. So the second beast is identified with the second empire and that would be Persia and Daniel has taken us into Persia. By chapter 6 we see Daniel in Persia. The Persians have taken over the empire. Cyrus receives the empire or kingdom that Babylon was in charge of and now it’s given over to Persia, the next holder of this one basic empire.

And then the third beast, the leopard will correlate to the coming of Alexander the Great and the Greeks being given the empire. So this is a series of empires and the first two of these creatures that are related to us here are kind of a review of what’s just happened in the first six chapters of Daniel. Now he’s going to tell us more about what happens with the Greeks. So they won’t be around. He won’t be around when that happens. Babylon and Persia are contemporaneous with Daniel, not so Greece and Rome. That’s for later and we’ll talk about that next week.

So we’ve been given though, we already know what happened when God raised up Babylon, works with Nebuchadnezzar, and then when God transfers the kingdom over to Persia. And we’ll be talking about this in more detail, the specific prophetic items here in more detail next week. But you see, it’s a recapitulation, a retelling of the first six chapters of Daniel, verses 4 and 5.

Now, I’ve got some text below this. What’s going on in Daniel is that we read that Daniel sees in his night vision and there’s four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea. So the winds of heaven on the sea and four great beasts come up from the sea. Okay, that’s what produces this the reformation of the world in terms of development first to Babylon. Persia, Greece, Rome, and the coming of Christ. The reformation of the world, the reformation of the world that happens is a result of the four winds of heaven blowing upon the sea. The sea are the gentile nations. And so the spirit of God blows upon it and raises up these successive empires as then the protector for his people and the precursor to the great empire, the Lord Jesus Christ and Christianity.

Now the verses I invited on your outline are kind of background verses. When we get to this place in Daniel, if we’re we read our Bible through every year and think about it as we read about it and talk about it within our family and our friends and maybe hear it preached upon at Sunday school, taught in Sunday school or preach, we would probably remember Genesis 1:2 that the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters.

Right? So we know that the spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters in Genesis 1 and 2 to bring about creation formation. The world is formless. Reformation is the work of the spirit moving upon waters to recreate a new reality or to reform what’s already there and change it. This is reformation and this is what the spirit of God accomplishes first described in Genesis 1 and 2.

Now another verse that’s important is Zechariah 2:6. Now, you know, I know we’re going to be looking at some prophetic passages and taking them, you know, plucking them out of some very complex passages, but I just want to show you a few little things here. Verse 6 of Zechariah 2 says this, “Ho, come forth,” God says, and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord, for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the Lord. Now, in Zechariah’s vision, prophetic visions, you know, the four horses, the four winds of God are represented as horses in changing and reforming the structure of the culture in the world. And specifically, chapter 2 of Zechariah identifies this spirit of God, the winds of the heaven with his people. He’s talking to Israel that had been taken into captivity, scattered around the world. And what Zechariah is saying is that you are the winds of God that blow upon the gentile sea that create reformation and a new creation as it were in the context of history.

So in Zechariah, these four winds of heaven blowing upon the sea, the spirit of God moving over the deep is said to be God’s people spread into the gentile nations always represented in the Old Testament by the sea. This is what the winds blowing on the sea is all about.

Now, Zechariah 6 says this, “And I turned, lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains. And the mountains were mountains of brass.” And then he describes the chariots and the relationship of these chariots to four horses that go out into the world. And it then says in verse 5, “These are the four spirits of the heavens which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.” Well, what’s that about? Well, that’s about the temple of God. There are two bronze mountains in front of the temple. They’re named Jachin and Boaz. And God is strength and he will establish. There were the two brass, two great hollow brass pillars that would ring with the pomegranates against them the wind that stood in front of the temple. This is what God said. Build it this way. Have two big columns. Name them Jachin and Boaz, the priest and the king would be anointed there for service. These things are big bronze mountains.

Now in Zechariah’s vision and then from the midst of these two mountains come out four chariots and we know that later in Solomon’s temple the water was described as being the laver becomes water chariots that take the water into all the world and then later the water goes out and all the world is filled with the knowledge of God. So what Zechariah is telling us is now the four winds that go out from before the presence of God are related to the people of God leaving the worship of God, the temple of God, going into all the world, the four winds.

And they’re going to be sent out, Zechariah is describing here in the, you know, in the exilic period of time when they’re in exile. They’re really being sent out by the spirit to be the spirit of God, the winds of God to stir up to change the gentile nations. This is why when we get to the pre-exilic prophets to talk about God’s judgment on Jerusalem, but also in him taking God’s people into captivity and north both the northern and the southern tribes into captivity. This is why we have in those prophecies specific prophecies about the nations that surround Israel. This is a new feature in the revelation of God historically. You know, leading up to these gentile nations that will be significant for working with God’s people, there are specific prophecies given by the prophets against Edom or Assyria or whoever it is. Why? Because the people of God, the spirit of God is going out and changing, reforming the world by affecting gentile nations.

Now, this is a picture of the coming of Jesus Christ, right? When the water flows out of the temple, floods the whole earth, right? Full of the knowledge of the Lord. There are no Jews and Gentiles anymore. It’s all one people, one army of God. We’re those winds that come out from the worship of God and change the world around us. No longer Jew gentile distinction, but we’re still the winds, zephyrs, little winds, spirit empowered people who in Daniel’s vision flow out as fire and water, ministering spirits, angels, but now us into all the world.

And we leave worship where these winds, these change agents, the way that Daniel and his friends were. So when God blows upon on the Gentiles. He doesn’t do it in a way that works around his normal means of using people. He uses people as conduits, spiritfilled people as conduits, as change agents for the world to bring reformation, reformation of what’s going on. That’s what Daniel 1-6 is about. How the spirit of God changes the gentile nations. Raising up, taking down, converting some. judging and killing others but moving the whole world in preparation for Christ’s kingdom which grows to fill all the world in a very explicit and direct way.

So these texts tell us how to interpret Daniel 7 which tells us how to interpret the events of Daniel 1-6 as being the work of God in blowing upon the Gentile sea by his people being spread out as the four winds of heaven leaving temple worship in Jerusalem to affect change in all the world. This is what Daniel 7’s all about.

It’s interesting that later in Daniel 8, we read this in now in Daniel 8 there are two creatures that are described sacrificial animals and it says the goat waxed very great and when he was strong the great horn was broken and for from for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. Now, we’ll get to this in a few weeks. It’s talking about some other rulers or empires that come up, but the point is that when the Greek Empire is divided up, it’s divided up toward in relationship to the four winds of heaven, the people of God.

And Daniel’s prophecies in 10 to 12 will describe in great detail individual rulers, Greeks in the north, Greeks in the south, and everything is described in relationship to the four winds of heaven, the temple and God’s people in Jerusalem. Okay? So, the rulers, these gentile creatures that come up out of the sea are in relationship to God’s people. It changes them and they’re changed in relationship toward the four winds of heaven.

Daniel 11:4 says the same thing. When he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, shall be divided, this is Alexander the Great, shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven. Doesn’t mean his was quartered. He actually had six parts of his kingdom. But it means that his kingdom is broken up in relationship to the people of God. World events are going on towards in relationship to the people of God who are the four winds of heaven.

And by way of application, what happened in the Protestant Reformation was a reformation of the world as the pure preaching of God’s word of the proper use of the sacraments came out of worship and the people of God flowed in the spirit of God. They were those little zephyrs, right? You know, make me a sunbeam for Jesus. Make me a zephyr for Jesus. A wind of change in the world. And the whole world, political structures, etc. were re-established, reformed, recreated through the application of the once-for-all recreative work of Jesus Christ. And that’s what’s going on today. Political events are towards God’s people. You see, the world is divided according to our to the elect of Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So when events happen. We ride the winds, the spirit of God as it were into the empire and the various things going on in that empire as change agents as transformers and reformers of the world.

So David Spears, you know, riding the desires of the political empire in which we live ends up going out into Iraq. And you know, from one perspective, he’s there because the empire sort of decided this. It wants war with Iraq for whatever reason. And it moves people, its people about. But what David is thinking, of course, is that he’s actually there on a mission from God. He’s to do his job the way that Daniel did his job, but he’s there ultimately on a mission from God. He’s there as a zephyr for the Lord Jesus Christ, right? If he’s riding the work that God is doing in the empire, it’s as one who is a faithful Christian.

You know, it’s interesting because in Revelation, what do we see? We see the false church riding the beast traveling with it affecting the wrong kind of change in judgment. Right? So we ride the actions of God in history knowing that political changes are directed toward the four winds of heaven for the purpose of his people that they may carry the gospel of Christ when they get blown into the world tomorrow into wherever you go. You go as a reformer, a recreator, a change agent that God has implanted in to the system of the empires in which we live.

Daniel 7:17 says, “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth.” Now, we just read that these four beasts came up out of the land. By the way, in Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel sees a vision. He sees four, not beasts, what? Four creatures, right? He sees these cherubim, these four creatures, it says, who are bringing the Ancient of Days. He’s bringing the holy one who sits enthroned above the firmament that these angels carry. He sees four creatures. Here in Daniel, we see four creatures. Surprise, surprise. King James version translates it beasts, but they’re not beasts. I mean, since they are. They’re lions and tigers and bears, oh my, but they’re it’s this exact same word, Aramaic, but it’s the same as the Hebrew word heard in Ezekiel 1.

And if you’re Daniel, you’ve read all along about Ezekiel 1. It’s been a bestseller, as they say, for 10, 15, 20 years. The prophecies have been out. You know Ezekiel. You’re same age as him. You both learned from Jeremiah. You’re going to know his prophecy well. You’re going to know. That’s what you’re going to think about. This comes important next week when we talk about son of man. Ezekiel’s the son of man. Daniel could have thought of himself as one like the son of man. We’ll see more about that next week. But that’s why I want you to read Ezekiel 1. It sets up this vision. Daniel’s vision is in a sense parallel to it. And so these beasts that come up are creatures. Immediately if we make that association with the same word, these things appear differently, do they not? They’re not rising up in opposition to God. They’re being changed by the spirit of God moving in their midst. And the very first one sets us up for all of that. Nebuchadnezzar, new heart, stands on his feet. You see the Gentile nations are being affected by the proclamation of the word through the prophets and through his people going out. People like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego being change agents, reformers, recreators.

And so these beasts, well, in Daniel 7, in the first few verses, it says that they come up out of the sea. And here we’re told these kings come out of the earth. Well, because they really come up out of the sea, the gentile nations, but they’re coming out of the land because it’s the people of God, the Jews, that’s what the earth refers to in the Old Testament. It’s the people of God that are causing these kings to come up. You see, so they can be said from another perspective to come up out of the earth. And the point here is that this is what reformation is what happens in Daniel 1-6.

This is the spirit of God moving in a people to establish change and reformation in the context of the world. So now that’s all by way of introduction and we can look then as we have just a few fairly small points today. The big picture is I pray that God will send us forth from this place praying anticipating looking for how we are zephyrs for the Lord Jesus Christ. How we ride the empire we go out in the power of the Holy Spirit. We go out from between those two brass mountains. That is the person and work of Jesus Christ. In him is strength. He shall establish. We have that message repeated to us in the worship of God. And we flow from this place as ministering spirits blown to the four corners of the world in business, neighborhoods, vocation, political action, whatever it is as reformers, people that the Lord Jesus Christ thematically applying the text is using to change the world around us.

Seen in that light, the events in Iraq take on an entirely new perspective because what’s really going on there is not ultimately a military endeavor. I mean, it is in a sense, but it’s the military, the army of God, and the spirit of God is blowing upon the Arab lands. And we are confident that as it blows upon the Arab lands and the people of God, the David Spearses of our generation are sent there with the gospel of Christ, then we are confident that God will raise up from that deep, dark, formless void of Islam, people who are obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ, who are converted and will see political reformation, cultural reformation because of religious reformation in that part of the world.

Big picture stuff, but it applies to you. It’s your individual level. You are the same thing. You go forth to businesses, corporations, schools that are not self-consciously honoring to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you go forward as the great hosts of God who are the four winds sent into those empires in those places. You know, in Ezekiel, that chariot of God that’s described, those angels, those cherubim form a box. Their wings are touching. They have four faces each one. form a square box and on top of the box is a covering. It says it’s like a sea of glass, like a crystal and on top of that is the Shekinah of God. God comes to Ezekiel. What is it? It’s the ark of the covenant from the temple or what the ark of the covenant represented to us. It’s the ark. It’s the firmament, the mercy seat, right? And it’s the presence of God sitting between cherubim.

It’s God coming to Ezekiel. And the interesting thing is that chariot also has wheels. Just like Daniel says in his vision, these things have wheels. That chariot doesn’t do any curvy motions. The chariot goes boom boom. No turning. Just if it wants to go left, it goes left. Right. It forward straight. Boom. Boom. Boom. Why? Military motions. It’s the host of God, the army of God in military motions. You know, you send your military out to drill. They don’t drill in circles. Typically, they drill in right angles. Well, that’s who we are, right? We’re replacing the cherubim, the angels as a result of the coming of Christ. We’re the spirit empowered carriers of the message of the gospel to all the people, right? And we go forth from here as the host of God inspired by the work of the Holy Spirit.

And Ezekiel’s vision in between these cherubim, he sees lightning and flashes going on. And these angels, these cherubim are moving the presence of God in relationship to the fire and the lightning of God. The spirit of God is indwelling this chariot. The spirit of God is directing the cherubim where to go and what to do. That’s who we are. We’re the four winds. You know, like you got synapses firing in your brain. Look at the paper. See what time, you know, you’re doing things because electrical energy is going. Well, the representation of that is where spirit-filled people and the spirit of God directs us and takes us blows us where he will for the purposes of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is who we are. It’s a wonderful picture and you know we unfortunately we just lose so much of it because we just don’t know our Bibles very well. What a delightful picture this is. That’s my hope that you’ll think of yourselves in terms of the glory chariot of God or the four winds blowing upon the waters as the formers, recreators, little zephyrs for Jesus.

Wherever the spirit of God carries you, wherever the empire might take you and responsibilities and things, doing the will of Jesus Christ.

Well, how did Daniel do it? That’s what Daniel did. How did he do it? And we’ve talked about this all along, but a little bit of review. Few simple points about what reformers like Daniel are.

Reformers first of all love God’s law and teach its application. I mean, I think that we have pretty self-consciously a structured exposition by Daniel of the Ten Commandments. You know, if you don’t know the Ten Commandments very well, you’re not going to see it when God structures a text of scripture based on it. It’s incredible to me that most many pastors, maybe most that I know, at least a lot of them, cannot tell you what happened on the seven days of creation day by day. And you do ask yourself, can you list the Ten Commandments? It’s astonishing. You know, Ben couldn’t be ordained in the medieval period unless they had memorized the entire book of the Psalms. And now we don’t know the seven days of creation. How do we understand the Bible? These are some of the basic building blocks of how God structures his word. It’s basic stuff. How are we supposed to live? Well, God gives us, you know, a first great commandment and second like unto it and then tells us that we can think of it as 10 commandments as well.

And Daniel in part here does just that. He just repeats the ten commandments. They’re in a new wilderness situation. They’ve been brought out of Egypt where they’re enslaving people in Jerusalem. They’ve been delivered from that and now they’re going to get at the law again. It’s not a new law. It’s the same old law but kind of made applicable to their situation. So Daniel is used by God to reform the world. And Daniel loves the law of God and he thinks through its application in the new situation that God has placed him in. And then he teaches as these prophecies and stories go back to Jerusalem to the people. He teaches them the law again because that’s what they need, right? They’ve broken God’s law. They’re not in Sabbath victory and rest. They’re in Sabbath judgment for their enslavement of one another.

So reformers love the law of God. Calvin, Luther, these men love the law of God. We don’t have to, you know, try to figure out on our own what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to understand God’s law, apply it in our context. And that’s what a lot of what they wrote about. And the reformers today are men who take the law of God and seek its application in our day and age, not who mature beyond it somehow. You know, Ezekiel says, “I’ll take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I’ll take away the middle of your of who you are, the temple, ark of the covenant. In the middle of that, the stone tablets on stone, the ten commandments, and give you a heart of flesh.” That isn’t pitting those two in opposition. That’s saying that what was glorious, holy, and wonderful the ten commandments are actually seen embodied in the heart of flesh the Lord Jesus Christ who is the center of what we are now but the point is they’re continuous although there’s of course discontinuity and Jesus is the great fulfillment of all of that but not against that I’m amazed when people say well you know man wasn’t made for Sabbath the Sabbath was made for man therefore Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and therefore we don’t have to keep it what that is an odd take on those verses and you know it doesn’t flow from what the text says.

We do not move beyond or against the we move beyond it in a sense and further application but we do not move in opposition to the ten commandments. The whole point of the book of Hebrews is not discontinuity. It’s the continuity from old to the new. And that’s why we can move beyond that to now worship in a new way because the heart of flesh has come. But it’s a heart. And it was the right heart to have then and now it’s the right heart to have today.

Okay. And it’s the application of those ten commandments in the life of Jesus Christ. It’s why the reformers love to have Old Testament reading as well as gospel reading and epistle reading. The Old Testament and the law speaks of Christ in the Gospels. The epistles meditate on the application of the law in Jesus’s life and to their situation. So what we have here, and I won’t bother to review it again, but again a retelling of the Ten Commandments.

Some people have said they don’t understand the fourth story, how that relates to the fourth commandment. Well, remember, you know, it’s interesting in Calvin Strawber liturgy if which we’re going to I’ll read a little bit from at communion table today, you know, after the absolution of sins, the congregation would sing the first tablet of the law. Then there would be an exhortation from the minister that they’ve been saved by grace. Then they’d sing the second tablet of the law. All this in response to absolution. So Calvin is stressing the third use of the law as a guide for living, holy living. And he does that in two sections. First tablet, second tablet. I don’t know where he made the break. I didn’t get the time to do that research. But the first four commandments are in essence the first tablet from one perspective. It’s the things on a you know on a vertical level speaking of our relationship to God.

And the last six are horizontal. Now the fifth is sort of vertical but it’s horizontal. Earthly rulers, mom and dad. The first four are a sight. We’ve made this point over and over again from the pulpit. Please, if you don’t understand it, start to look at it. Ask me more about it. Talk about it in your family worship. This is important because the Sabbath day was supposed to be the day when God came in the seventh day, met with his people, and enthroned them.

Right? You’ve been faithful. Now, receive more responsibility, be greater, more greatly faithful. You’re enthroned in Sabbath day worship. And of course, what happened was that Adam and Eve sinned and so they were cast out. But even then they were clothed with a cloak of rule. Wasn’t little breaches or little tiny things they wore on their bodies. It was a tunic, a robe of power that God gave them. The work of the Lord Jesus Christ actually leads to enthronement, empowerment on the Lord’s day on the on the Sabbath even for Adam and Eve through their repentance. That’s what the Sabbath is about. So when we see Nebuchadnezzar at the end of the cycle of four stories being given rule and authority over all the world and using that rule to honor Jesus Christ. We can see that his Sabbath enthronement.

It’s the purpose of it. Or when we look at Nebuchadnezzar and remember that the Sabbath law is not just for us. It’s for the people we live around. It’s not primarily that you can have rest. It’s that but it’s primarily so you would give rest to others, to your servants. That’s the great commandment. It’s not selfish, it’s, you know, selfless. It’s to give to others. And so when we read in the fourth section that Nebuchadnezzar is not helping the oppressed, he’s not giving them release. He’s not bringing them into Sabbath redemption. Then we know this is a Sabbath day story. So the cycle of the first four commandments leads to Sabbath enthronement. Rest and peace is not the absence of conflict and nothing going on. It’s positive rule for Christ. And so this is what Nebuchadnezzar is brought to in the context of the fourth word. Now I made that point because it’s important to understand these cycles and some have said they didn’t.

I also make the point because I think it’s important to talk about one application and I’m not stepping on anybody’s toes here. Stepping on all of our toes maybe I suppose I may step I don’t know if I’m not deliberately trying to step on anybody’s toes but this is important to say this church believes it is part of the confession statement of this church that an application of the fourth commandment in our day and age this side of the cross of Jesus Christ a proper understanding that Jesus Christ as Lord of the Lord’s day the Christian Sabbath means certain things in terms of our activities and on your outlines I have the beginning and end of the covenant statement as people become members of Reformation Covenant Church the bookends for what we do what it means to be part of the church of Jesus Christ.

And the first of eight statements is I will attend this church’s worship services unless providentially hindered. Nothing is more important in your life than attending the worship services of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing is more important than for the word of God to assure you of forgiveness, grant you knowledge, and cause you to come to rejoicing life. Nothing is more important than for you to be reminded every Lord’s day of your deficiencies, of your sin.

Calvin said, “The word is to drive us to the sacrament.” We hear about Daniel being a great reformer, knowing the law of God, loving the law of God, being an excellent, you know, great worker and all this stuff. And what it’s supposed to do in us is to drive us to want that in our lives. And to recognize that to some degree this last week, we failed. We’re supposed to hunger and thirst after righteousness when God’s word is preached. And that hunger and thirst is slaked, satisfied right there. You see, it’s good for you to hunger and thirst to desire to be better than you are today. To know that the gospel is good news to you. It’s not neutral news. It is words of blessing to you, but it is blessing that requires response. If you don’t go out from here there tomorrow, this place today and into your week tomorrow, not if you go out not desiring to be zephyrs for Jesus. You see, you failed in responding to the word of Christ to you today. What you should want is to be a better zephyr, a better little wind puff, a mighty wind from God than you were last week. God wants you to want that. And he says that when you take the sacrament, you’re united to the person and work of Jesus Christ and he gives you the spirit or rather the spirit ministers Christ to you so that hunger and thirst is met through the sacrament.

Then you then are empowered to go forth from this place being transformed by the transformative work of the Holy Spirit. So worship is numero uno. If you’re going to skip something on Sunday, never let it be the worship of God. Always be at a church where you renew covenant with God and he feeds you the sacraments. You see, now God’s arm is not shortened. Churches that don’t have weekly communion, he still empowers his people. God loves us and puts up with our silliness. But worship is absolutely important and that’s where our covenant begins. In the last part of our covenant, I will keep the Lord’s day, the Christian Sabbath, worshiping and resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the risen Savior, refraining from unnecessary commerce and labor, enjoying opportunities of Christian fellowship and benevolent activities as the Lord provides.

The whole day is to be sanctified. Fourth commandment in application today. It is vital to understand this. God’s people were taken into captivity because they did not honor the Sabbath day. That’s what God says. They didn’t honor him. They didn’t come to completion of their focus upon the person and work of God. They didn’t seek first to glorify God. They sought to enjoy him forever. You Enjoy all the blessings. Enjoy the fruit without the root which is the person and work of God as he comes to minister to us and worship. May this never be true of us. The root is the Christian Lord’s day set apart for specific purposes. And one specific purpose that I must articulate is refraining from unnecessary commerce. That’s what our covenant statement says. If you’re a member of this church, this is a requirement upon you.

Okay? It’s a delightful joy to fulfill to spend the whole day not worrying about this stuff. We base this on Nehemiah 10:31. If the peoples of the land bring wares of any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, non-Christians, in other words, non-Jews are going to come. They’re going to sell stuff to us. The mall’s going to be open. We would not buy it from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. We will force them to rest if they won’t rest themselves. We will not encourage their labor. We will tell them, “This is a day to rest in the finished work of Christ. Do not sell things today.” Now, that’s a clear teaching of Nehemiah, an application of the fourth commandment to his day and age, and we think it’s proper in our day and age. Doug H. wrote a position paper on the Sabbath many years ago, summing up the preaching of this church on this topic. Doug said, “The idea here is the prohibition against buying and selling. You are not to help to keep your store or business open, nor were you to patronize the store or business.” Okay? Now, this is keeping the Sabbath. This is you know, the first tablet of the law. If you’re a reformer, you love the law of God and you try to think about its application.

Now, we got people, you know, going to other places where this application is not taught. And we are more than happy to enter into discussions with people that think this is an improper application. But for now, this is the teaching of this church. And wherever the wind of God blows you, wherever you are as a zephyr for Christ, wherever the empire takes you, this should be your goal to honor this covenant, to honor this understanding of the teaching of the pastors of this church. This is what you’re supposed to do. We think it’s good for you. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is made for you.

In spite of what you think might be good today, the Bible says this is good for you. This will cause you to rejoice. This will rest you up. This will get you ready to go out tomorrow as that military chariot for Yahweh. Daniel’s full. The importance of Lord’s day worship. I list some items here for us. You know, the temple items in chapter one. The whole thing is set in the context of temple worship by the people of God associated as temple items. The altar stone of Jesus Christ in chapter 2, that’s a worship stone, stone cut without hands as an altar stone. The false temple that Nebuchadnezzar sets up in chapter 3, the watcher and the seven times that the evaluation of Nehemiah, the sevenfold action in his being taken down and humbled, the watcher, you know, the lampstand of God evaluating and judging And the con another worship connotation here in chapter 4.

Chapter 5 Belshazzar’s false feast. It’s a rejoicing worship feast to be but he takes communion in an ungodly way and he’s judged because of it. Daniel’s prayer is the focus of Daniel 6. Why he’s thrown into the lion’s den. Worship abounds in the gospel. Yeah. The gospel of Daniel. Daniel’s a reformer who loves the law of God and he understands the importance of the first tablet. The importance of the worship of God as ing everything else that he does and his thing is written in that way.

Secondly, reformers assured of their relationship with God attain to excellence in education, vocation and statecraft. And here again, this is simply reiterating a point we’ve made a number of times from this pulpit as we go through the Gospel of Daniel, the book of Daniel, and recognize though how important it is. We went over some characteristics of Daniel last week from chapter 6. We could go over more. We won’t take the time now. But what we see over and over again in Daniel from the very beginning of the book is that this is a young man who is blessed by God because he puts God first because he puts God first because he worships God. That’s why God grants him more wisdom and knowledge because he puts God first in chapter one by not eating the king’s food and making a statement about who the ultimate king of kings is.

God blesses Daniel with healthy appearance. Because he put God first and served God continually. Daniel 6 says, “That’s why God stopped the mouths of the lions.” You see, “Not because of any good thing in me.” Daniel says, “Do I have knowledge for you, Nebuchadnezzar, but because of the Lord God? He’s the revealer of secrets, not me.” Daniel is a reformer because he is assured of relationship with the sovereign God. Trust that relationship, builds on it, and as a result attains to excellence in education, vocation, and statecraft. He’s a holy, spiritfilled bureaucrat by the end of the book. He’s given rule and authority in the Persian Empire, and had been done so somewhat in Babylon, too. But that’s what he is. His vocation is statecraft by now. And he’s learned to do it because of his putting God first.

You want excellence in your educational studies. You want good grades at school. You want to be a good worker for your employer. You want to get to work on time and do a good job. You want to affect political action in this state in a positive way and help civil magistrates to rule for King Jesus. The way you get there is the way that Daniel got there by putting God first. You see the worship of God, the Lord’s day. This is what causes us. This is where we flow out of. This is where the spirit empowers us to do these other things. And throughout the book of Daniel, we could just read reread read it yourself. Look at chapters 1 and 2 with your family, with your children. Say, “Let’s be reformers in our day and age. Let’s be like Daniel. Let’s find out what Daniel was like.” And then you read chapters 1 and 2, like the list I gave you from chapter 6, and say, “What’s the list we can make of what Daniel was like?” And that’s the way we are reformers for God. He wasn’t, you know, he didn’t do great things. He ended up doing great things, but because of his simple obedience and desiring to put God first, you see, Acknowledging his relationship to God, he builds his vocation.

Third, reformers defeat the deceitful and envious. I mentioned this here, but I want to make we talked about this last week. When God blesses his reformers, his change agents. Some of the people that come to come up in the context of the Gentiles being aroused by this hate us. And Daniel was hated by envious men in Persia. But I wanted to make the point that it’s not just envious men in Persia that hated Daniel. Daniel’s great teacher was Jeremiah. He’s an old man by the time Daniel writes his stories. But we know that toward the end of Jeremiah’s life, he was hated not by Babylonians or Persians. He was hated by Jews. Daniel went into a lion’s den because of the envy of Persian guys or Babylonians.

Jeremiah went into a pit, a slimy cistern, buried as it were, just like Daniel buried because not of Persians and Babylonians, but Jews put him there. People of the book, you see, and the reformers spawned envy and hatred against themselves, not just from those outside of Christ, but from the Roman Catholic Church that refused to be reformed. The same thing’s true today in the Reformation that goes on in our day and age.

Look behind the actions. There is deceit out there right now. I got a track this week from Vic Lachman that essentially is deceitful about what men teach in Auburn Avenue. Theology may or may not agree with them. But for anyone to say these guys are teaching righteousness by works is a lie. It’s a lie. It’s deceitful and it’s an attack upon good men. I don’t know the motivation of Vic. I like Vic. I plan on calling him this week. I’ve had friendship with him. I like the man. But there’s bad things going on because God’s people, the spirit of God is causing us to think through the implications of what covenant is to build covenant communities in a better way. Maybe to build upon the work of men like John Calvin and to blow away some of the dust that’s accreted over the work of Calvin for the last hundred years and for that men are being lied about and some men are being envied because of their success and the impact of their ministries.

I heard a pastor a great man just a couple months ago said to me you know we’re just pastors are so envious of each other’s ministries. Yeah that’s a Israelite in whom is no guile in there’s some envy in there no guile he’s telling the truth it’s the truth of me too. It’s true of most of us. We’re prone to envy for some reason fall into this sin really easily. And if you don’t know that, you’re not going to guard against it. And you’re going to find yourself motivated by envy and becoming a Persian or a Babylonian striking out against God’s people. But the reformers change the world of go the world because the Lord God is empowering them to defeat ultimately the envious and the deceitful.

Four reformers reform the world through simple acts of faithfulness. Simple acts of faithfulness. And I’ve given to you again here Daniel 2:47, 3:29, 4:34, and 35, 6:26. This is the flow. Read those verses and you’ll see how the rulers from Nebuchadnezzar on to Cyrus become more and more obedient and promoters and followers of Yahweh till the very end. God isn’t just a God who delivers, who gives special knowledge, a God of gods, better than all the rest of the gods. At the end, God isn’t a God who just can’t be spoken against as Nebuchadnezzar had said. But Cyrus finally says, “All men must tremble in fear before Yahweh.” You see, that’s the reformation of the world affected by Daniel. Through the simple acts, simple obedience to God, the world changes.

I’ve got a man listed here, Major Austin Pearson. You talk about deceit and envy. Our political process has become rife with these things. I cannot believe that I get mail from Darlene Hulie every two years saying that she is a fiscal conservative and whoever is running against from the Republican side is a tax and spend liberal. I mean that is what she mails me every two years. I mean it’s such a distortion of reality as to be incredible to me. The campaigns are filled with deceit and lies. And a lie was told this week about the president of our country. You know Daniel was no fool. He knew Nebuchadnezzar needed to be converted, but he was respectful and submissive to the authorities that God had established where he went. And I am more than a little tired of good Christian men and women, my friends, being disrespectful, referring to lies told by the president or this or that other civil ruler when they do not know the truth and cannot back up these assertions with facts and quotes.

I’m engaged right now, the last two days in such such an email exchange. Give me the proof that he said this. Assertion was that now President Bush approves of homosexual marriage if states wanted and there give me the proof pastor please friend. No, no proof is given. And in fact they give me a citation that doesn’t say that at all. Deceit is being spread about envy is being promoted. Pres you know the presidential candidate Kerry he wants you to hate rich people and want to tax them more. That is envy manipulation. That is demagoguery of a horrible sort. And I don’t care if he was Democrat, Republican, or Constitutional Party, any candidate that promotes envy self-consciously trying to get people to want what other people have earned for themselves, that candidate will never get my vote because he has displayed, you know, that what he is going to do is stir up the winds of hatred and envy, not the winds of peace.

So these things exist in our land. And this last week, you know, lies were told about ammunition that have been stolen out of a dump. And nobody knows all the truth yet, but the statements that were taken as truth to gin people up against some sort of hatred against the president were amply rebutted by Major Austin Pearson who just did his job on Friday. Got up very clearly without notes gave a press conference that he was there at that ammo dump and took away most of the ammo. And he wasn’t, you know, have any any acts to mind. He was just doing the with competence the task that God had him do a year and a half ago at this ammo dump and then with confidence and competence standing up and saying, “Well, this is what actually happened. We were there and loaded it all up, took most of it away, and he defeats.” See, all the great powers that blow forth deceit, envy, and slander are blown away by simple act of competence on one man’s part. And God says that’s what Reformation’s all about.

Yeah. you know, on earth is not his equal. In the mighty fortress, that’s not talking about Jesus. You know, that’s talking about the opposition in that first verse. A lot of people get that wrong. On earth is not his equal. We are not up to the task to fight the Persian and Babylonian slanderers, envy creators, and deceivers on our own. But the Lord Jesus Christ is pleased to use our simple acts consecrated and dedicated to him of competence to blow aside all the bluster of the evil one.

One little word shall fell him. You’re a little word. You’re a little zephyr. You’re a little wind for the Lord Jesus Christ. You’ll be carried about tomorrow. And as you honor him, remember his commandments, have confidence in his love for you, you will reform your world. You’ll be part of an ongoing reformation that the spirit of God is using to recreate, to reform this world and bring it into submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Praise God. Go.

Let’s pray.

Father, we do pray that you would make us men and women of simple competence, honesty, hard work, diligence, respect for authorities. Lord God, grant us these things through our union with Jesus Christ at the table. Help us to hunger and thirst to want to do these simple things with competence, to love you, to put you first, to meditate upon your law, to delight in it. Make us fruitful, Father, through the work of your spirit in Christ. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.