Who Is In Control? with Pastor Ben Carruthers

Babylon doesn’t only invade with armies. It invades with stories, habits, and names. As we kick off a summer series in the book of Daniel, we dig into Daniel chapter 1 and the theme Pattern to Promise: the repeating cycle of God’s people being pulled toward rebellion and away from God’s promises, and the even stronger promise that God keeps moving toward us with forgiveness, grace, and unconditional love.

We start with the historical backdrop of Israel and Judah, then watch Babylon’s strategy up close. Nebuchadnezzar takes the best and brightest young men and rebuilds their identity through education, language, and indoctrination. Even their names are replaced, shifting them from God centered confessions to labels that honor Babylonian gods. That’s where the story gets uncomfortably modern, because cultural pressure today often works the same way: reshape what you love, how you think, and who you believe you are.

Then comes the king’s table. Daniel’s refusal to eat becomes more than a diet choice. It exposes peer pressure, fear of consequences, and the deeper faith question underneath it all: who is in control? We contrast the world’s power, rooted in fear and destruction, with God’s power, which brings life where there should not be life. If you’ve ever looked at the chaos around you and wondered where God is, Daniel 1 offers a grounded, hopeful answer: God’s hand may be quiet, but it is real, steady, and good. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review then tell us: where do you feel the strongest pull to conform?

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Transcript

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Pattern To Promise Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That was it. Uh well, good morning again. My name is Ben Cruthers, an associate pastor here at Central. Great to be with you this morning as we launch into our new summer series in the book of Daniel. And I'm excited about this because when we think of the book of Daniel, we remember certain stories, right? You heard the name Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We we remember that story, remember from maybe from Sunday school or maybe recently. We know the story of Daniel in the lion's den. Uh but what we want to do is we want to take this book and open it up and really see what's going on here. What is God doing here? And the whole theme of this sermon series is called Pattern to Promise. Uh, because there is a pattern going on here that has gone on in the Old Testament that goes and continues on in the New Testament and continues on to this day in our own lives. And that pattern is a pattern of rebelling against God. Rebelling against God. We've read it in the Old Testament, we'll see it in Daniel, and we see it in our own lives today. This pattern of the world pulling us away from the promises of God. Pattern to promise, but it ends, always ends, this pattern does of rebellion, always ends in the promise of God. Always ends in the promise of forgiveness of sins, of unconditional love, of that God does not leave us or abandon us, no matter how far we try to rift or how far the world pulls us away. So this pattern to promise is our theme as we go through this book of Daniel. Today in chapter one, there's a certain word that I want us to focus on. It's a word that we don't like using a lot, and we even don't like using it in the sense of God, but that is the question of who is in control. Who is in control? I want you to think about that question as we dive into this. But this idea of a pattern or a cycle, we're used to that. We we understand a pattern or a life cycle of something. We see it all the time in the world, especially in things of this world, right? So think about this. Think about at the stores that now you never see tapes anymore, right? Cassette tapes. But you do see what? Records. Records from years ago. You go to Target and you see LPs, but you don't see tapes. Now there are studies. Now we know LPs are coming back, right? We see those in stores, but they're even the younger generation are looking for cassette tapes. Now you may ask yourself, where'd you get those cassette tapes? I will tell you, my 98 Lincoln only has a tape player. So if I want to rock Billy Joel, I do it through cassette tape. So we see the cycle, right? We thought these things died. They're coming back. What about books? What about e-books? Remember many years ago when the Kindle came out and the e-books came out, bookstores were gonna close down, Barnes and Noble is gonna be no more. We see a huge trend now that people are going back to hardcover, softcover, physical books. The studies show that more adults are reading real books than e-books. Okay, how about movies and television, right? This past Friday, Masters of the Universe came out in theaters. He-Man was released. Yeah, there's one person. Thank you. All right. I was a huge He-Man fan. I had all the toys. I went and saw the 1987 live action movie in the theater with my dad, starring Dolph Lunger. I loved it. Here we are, 30, 40 years later, He-Man has new life. I told my wife, I'm like, you know, it's really a busy weekend. I really gotta find time to go see this movie. It's for work, all right? It's a work project. We see it all over. How about in fashion and in style? Do you guys know that the mullet is back? And when I mean back, I rocked a mullet in fifth grade. Yeah, I know, right? Not just the mullet, I had the sidesteps cut in, the side spike, all of it. When I look at this picture, I think, how in the heck is it back? How would the style come back? But it's back. These cycles, these patterns, there's a little too much laughter, by the way. When I show the picture, I'm kind of offended by it. When we look, there is a cycle, there is a pattern to the things of this world, and there's a pattern in our faith in God. There's a pattern in the way that we relate to God, and we see it all over Scripture. We're reminded about it in our daily lives. And in chapter one of the book of Daniel, we want to look a little bit and dive into that pattern of rebelling or being pulled away from God, but always coming back to the promise of God.

Prayer And Israel’s Backstory

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So as we do that, will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord God, we give you thanks and praise for this morning. We thank you for this ancient text, this ancient book of Daniel that has incredible stories of incredible men and women of faith. Lord, as we dive into it, help us to see the deeper meaning here. Help us to see that this ancient text, this ancient book, the patterns that we see are very much alive in our own lives. So, Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear your word. In your name we pray. Amen. So before we get into Daniel 1, we have to understand kind of where we are in the life of Daniel, in the life of the Israelites. So you got to give me two to three minutes for a little history lesson. If you don't like history, too bad. You're gonna get it anyways, right? And it's really important. If you doze off, we'll just have your neighbor poke you in about two minutes to wake you up to it. But it's really important. So what's going on here in the life of Israelites, in God's people? So this is post-Exodus. This is even post the three kings of the United Kingdom, right? So when when God's people were free, they got the promised land, and then they wanted a king. God said, No kings. They said, Yeah, we want a king. God said, no king. So they set up this system of judges, which really didn't go very well either. And so finally, God gave them a king, right? King Saul. Then they had King David and King Solomon, the three kings of the united kingdom of Israel. This happens after that. This happens about 980 BC, where those kingdoms split into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom uh is made up of ten of the tribes of Israel. They head north because they don't like King Solomon's son's new policies, new taxes. They're leaving. So they head north to the northern kingdom, which we call Israel. The southern kingdom is still ruled by Solomon's son for a while, and that's the southern kingdom we call Judah. Okay? That's about 930 BC. 200 years pass, and the northern kingdom, which we call Israel, is taken over by the Assyrians. Now, over those 200 years, the Bible tells us that they had 19 kings. And out of those 19 kings, the Bible tells us zero were good. We see this incredible pattern of rebelling against God. So within those 200 years, they're taken over by the Assyrians. 400 years, so they had two hundred years more than the northern kingdom. 400 years, they've had 19 kings in Judah, the southern kingdom. The Bible tells us that eight of those were good. Eight, but we continue to see the pattern. So 400 years later, here we are at the book of Daniel, where the Babylonians come and take over the southern kingdom. So you see the pattern of here's God's people given the promised land, being pulled and pulled away from God to the point where the kingdoms split, then the northern kingdom is taken over, and now the southern kingdom is taken over. And that's where we end, or that's where we begin in the book of Daniel. Everyone's still with me so far? Not too hard. Okay, very good. That was seminary 101. That's what I learned. Very worth every penny. Okay,

Babylon’s Plan To Rebuild Identity

SPEAKER_00 7:36

here we go. Now we're diving into the book of Daniel, chapter 1, verses 3 through 5. It says this. Says some good stuff. Here we go. Then the king commanded his palace master, Ashnans, to bring some of the Israelites out, or bring Israelites of the royal family and of nobility, young men without physical defect, and handsome. So if you need a picture, just think back to that mullet picture, if that's what you're thinking. That's what you're versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight, and competent to serve in the king's palace. They were to be taught the literature and language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they would be stationed in the king's court. Okay, so this is how Babylon takes over, and it's brilliant. They just don't go in and destroy and and and kill. They do some of that. But they go into Judah and they take the best and the brightest young men. Teenagers. So when we're reading in Daniel this story, he was a teenager. They take the best and brightest young men. We're talking about young men, probably in maybe more well-to-do families, maybe some political tie-in. The description sells itself. These were attractive, young, healthy, powerful young men. And so Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar sees that, they take this group of young men, really Judah's future, and they take them and they bring them to Babylon. And they're going to try to brainwash them. They're going to try to get them to forget their history, forget their past, forget who they are, forget their relationship to their God, and they're going to teach them their literature, their language, their history. They're indoctrinating them into their culture. While they're doing this, they're destroying Judah's future. Because this is their future. And they do this for three years. Three years of hearing nothing about the history of this invader to your land. Three years of being indoctrinated into this entirely new worldview. Now, we know what it's like to have your ideas of the way that the world works change or even how to live your life. This is what happens to us. And sometimes it doesn't even take three years. Sometimes it takes a day or two to have the way that you live your life change, right? This happens to us, especially in marriage, right? When you're married, when you enter into marriage, your life's gonna change. Uh my wife and I celebrated 11 years of marriage yesterday. I know you wouldn't recognize it because I'm sitting here and she's sitting there. That's what 11 years will do. But I asked her, I said, you know, like what are some of the things that we had to like change right away when we got married? And and there was a bunch. I had been a bachelor for many years and living the bachelor life for many years and living by myself for many years. And now I was going into this family unit. I was gonna be married and have kids, and and so I said, What was one of the biggest stories you can think about? And immediately, I mean, without blinking, she said, plates. Let me tell you the plate story, all right? So we're we're not even married yet. We're planning our wedding and we're planning our reception. And I just kind of want a low-key, you know, I'm super cheap when I, you know, I have a tape player. I mean, come on, right? And I don't want to spend a lot of money. And so we started hammering what we're gonna do. We're gonna have barbecue, it's gonna be great. And it comes to, oh, we need plates. People need to eat off plates. I said, Yeah, we should get some plates. And she said, we can rent plates. And I said, I didn't even know that was a thing, that you could rent plates. Who's renting plates? Yeah, you can rent plates. And then she told me how much they were. And I said, I don't want to rent plates. I said, I have a Costco membership, man. You don't need to rent nothing when you have Costco. And so literally, you laughed, but I said, I can go to Costco and grab a ton of plates. They're really nice, the heavy, dirty, sturdy ones, no food will fall, they're great. And she kind of laughed it off and she's like, I know, we're gonna order plates. I said, Ha ha ha ha, I'm going to Costco. Uh, eleven years later, in marriage, you'll be happy to know that we had nice plates for our wedding. We did not have paper plates, right? But there are things like that. When you when you start a relationship or start a new job, there are things the way that the world might look different and change. And when I got married, I had two kids right away, and it was awesome. And the first night they after the morning, the two kids came into our bed, and I was like, what is this? This is my sanctuary, this is my holy place. Like, they are not allowed, and that didn't go too well for me either, really. The biggest thing that I look back at my time being married and going into this family unit was really the thing that I had to learn was that I wasn't gonna be right all the time anymore. That there were things I was gonna have to give up, and they were worth it. You see, we go into these situations where we will change and we'll be molded, and and that's okay. But this is not one of those cases. This is one of those cases where they are taking everything away from them and giving them a brand new way to view the world. Not only that, a brand new way to view God. So they just didn't take them out of their homes and teach them their new history and the language and the literature, but they changed their names. Now we might think, well, that happens all the time, right? People change their names and people change their name for a symbol nowadays, whatever it might be, but that's not a big deal. It is a big deal because their names represented their faith, their names represented their God. Daniel 1, 6 through 7 says this. Among them were Daniel, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azrah from the tribe of Judah. The palace master gave them other names. Daniel called Belshazzar, Hananiah called Shadrach, Meshach, Meshach, and Ezariah Abednego. This is what their names used to mean, and this is what their names mean now. Daniel, God is my judge. Hananiah, God is gracious. Mel, who is what God is? Azariah, Yahweh, is my helper. Their names represented their faith in God. And Babylon comes in, takes away everything, including their identity and their God. Their new names, Bel protects his life. Bel was the Babylonian god of earth. The command of Aku, who is what Aku is, servant of Nabu. They took away their names that represented their God, their faith, and they gave them new names that represented Babylonian gods. And a Babylonian faith. And they were indoctrinated into this new life. They were stripped away of who they were, their faith in God, what they knew, and they were given this new worldview. The world pulled away everything they knew and loved and gave them something new. Does this sound familiar? Does this pattern of the world taking things away from you and trying to get your worldview to change, trying to take away your faith in God, your belief in God, pulling you away from the truths and into some other different truth area? This should sound familiar. Because this is what we live in. We live in a culture that is constantly trying to pull us away from the promises of God. And unfortunately, we are people who are constantly pulled away from the truth of God. This story of Daniel and his friends is not so foreign as you think it might be for written thousands of years ago. So that's what's going on here, right? They're indoctrinated in this new culture.

Food, Compromise, And Peer Pressure

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Then the story continues where this group of young men are bringing or brought food from the king's table. Right? So right away, this might seem weird, right? These young men are taken away. They're put in the kingdom, the palace of the king, and now they're given really good food.

unknown 15:26

Right?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Like this isn't like you get just the grains off the table or the crumbs. They're presented with the same food and drink from the king's table. If it was up here, we'd all be like, that looks good. That looks good steak. I'm in, right? This is, and the wine was good wine. It wasn't the bad wine, it was the good wine. And they're presented with this stuff. But if it's from the king's table, it means that it was sacrificed to the king's God. And so what lied before Daniel and his friends and all these other young men was food that was unclean for them to eat. Food that their God said, don't partake in that. So Daniel has a choice here. He's got to choose when. Well, this is this is what's presented to me. This is gonna make me unclean. And so he has a plan, he has an idea. He goes to the guard and he says, Listen, I don't want to eat any of that food. Just bring me some vegetables and some grain, and I'll be fine. And he's like, Listen, if I do that, the guard says to Daniel, if I do that, the king's gonna kill me. You're gonna be presented before the king, and you're gonna look scrawny and weak, and he'll know, and I'll be dead. And so Daniel says, I have a plan. Give me the grains and the vegetables for ten days. And after those ten days, present us before the king, and we'll be in better shape. We'll be better looking than these fellows over here. Everything's gonna be fine. Scripture tells us that God softened the guard's heart. That's exactly what happened. So for ten days they did not eat of the king's table. They only ate grain and vegetables. And after that ten days, they were presented before the king, and sure enough, they looked better, they looked stronger than all of the other men there. Now there's something going on in this part of the story that we need to be aware of, right? We know the pressures of Babylon. We know the pressure that says the king could come in, you're not following the king's order, you're disobeying, you're gonna die. The king had that power. There's a pressure there, absolutely. But the pressure that's a little bit hidden here is remember, Daniel is among his peers. These young men that were taken out of Judah, he would have known them. They would have gone in the same social circles, they would have played on the same football team, whatever it might be, right? They would have known each other, they would have been in each other's families, their houses. And here Daniel sees a group of them dining at the kids' table. It's not just the pressure from the king, but it's pressure from his peers. And that can be even more powerful than a king's pressure. When I was in first grade, I remember this story very vividly. Uh I went to Ramsey Elementary School. And back when I was in first grade, if you were a new kid, you were kind of viewed as like an alien from a different planet, man. Like you didn't want anything to do with that kid. They were weird, they didn't know anything, they didn't know where the bathrooms were in the school, they were just foreign identities. We don't want anything to do with them. And sure enough, this kid came to Ramsey Elementary, first grade, uh, and his name was Chad Anderson. Chad, if you're watching, I'm sorry. Okay. Chad's Chad's new, and the whole day I can see kids treating him like the outsider, even in first grade, way back then. No one's sitting with them, no one's playing with him, all that kind of stuff. And we're in line to go to recess, which for a new kid is probably just torture, right? What am I gonna do? And his last name was Anderson, my last name is Cruthers, so we were right next to each other in line. This kid had the courage to turn to me and ask me this question. He looked at me in the eyes, first grade, and Chad says, Will you be my friend? Yeah, oh my gosh. And I looked at his eyes and I said, No. I know. I'm your associate pastor. Hey, how you doing? I said no. Not because he wasn't a nice kid, not because I was a jerk. I don't know, maybe I was. You have to ask someone else. I didn't think I was, but it was because all of the other kids in line, their eyes were on me. And if I said yes, then I was with Chad in this alien environment that no one wanted to do anything with. And how they looked at him, they were gonna now look at me. And I said no. And the story gets worse. That day I realized he rode my bus home. And the story gets worse. They moved into the house behind us. So, needless to say, I went and apologized thanks to my mom. And me and Chad were actually friends for a couple years, so happy ending. But the pressure of the world can pull you to do things that you're like, I would never do that. That sounds horrible and cruel. But when all the eyes are on you, it can change your actions. And so I say this because this is what's going on with Daniel. Daniel's not just standing up against the pressures of possible death or a powerful kingdom, he's standing up against the pressures of his friends and his peers who are giving in to this. And even with those hard pressures in his life, somehow he was able to stand. Somehow he was able to say, I'm not going to do that. You see, the sermon could end there, and it could be a sermon about the pressures of this world, and it's real, right? That that's a fine sermon. That's a fine message, and that's what's going on here. But I think there's something else underneath this.

The Real Question: Who’s In Control

SPEAKER_00 20:37

It's a greater question that Daniel has to answer, and we have to answer in our faith. And it's not just about am I gonna give in to the temptations of this world? Again, good message, good to know, good to understand. But there's a deeper question here. Daniel has to ask himself, do I believe that King Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon are in control? Or do I truly believe that God is in control? You see, because if I believe that Babylon's in control and I believe that King Nebuchadnezzar has more power than God, more control, then I'm gonna eat of this table and everything's gonna be fine because he's in control. The world's in control. But if I don't eat of it, I'm saying I believe that God is in control. And I believe that God is powerful. I believe that God is more powerful than this empire that has just taken over my homeland. And this is what I'm standing up for. This is what I'm standing up against. Who is in control? Now, again, go back to Daniel's situation. You have just seen this powerful empire come in and destroy your homeland. Scripture also tells us that they went. Into the temple, the house of God, your God, and taken artifacts out of there, taken cups that we'll later find out in later chapters, taken stuff from the altar of your powerful God. They took it out of the temple, and now it's in this king's house. You have seen all of this death and destruction brought upon by this king. You've seen them go into God's house and destroy it and take stuff out of it. If you're Daniel, and if you're seeing this, you would probably say, This kingdom is more powerful than my God. Because that's what's on display. And even with that display of power by the Babylonian Empire, Daniel and his friends remain strong. They continue to say, God is in control. How could they do this? Think about your life. Think about the pressures from the world that you're in and the things that are tugging you away and that pattern that just keeps pulling us away, and the small things that can pull us away, and the disbelief that we can have in God by the way the world looks today. How many times people run away from faith? Because if God is real, if God is in control, then how in the world does the world look like this today? It's a great argument, by the way. But they were able to stand. How? How were they able to? I think it comes down to Daniel saw power on both sides. Daniel saw how Babylonia and the Babylonian Empire used their power and how God used their power and control. You see, the power and control from Babylon only comes from death and destruction. Over the fear of death, you will do what I say. If you don't, I'm going to destroy everything that you know and love, and then you'll see my power. The power that comes from the world that we live in, it doesn't come from love, it doesn't come from the good things in life. It purely comes out of the fear of death and destruction. Think about it. Think about the things that pull you away from God. Normally it's the things that don't make sense. Or it's those pressures of the world. Think about the things that lead you away from God and think about the destruction that it leads to. Broken relationships, broken families, addiction. These things that the world tries to offer, the power that it has, only lies in death and destruction. And Daniel's seen this time and time and time again. He's seen the world's power come and destroy. But Daniel's also seen the power of God. He knows his history. He knows the story of his people, of his people being enslaved for Egypt for hundreds of years, and God rising up out of death and destruction, rising up this leader, Moses, to lead his people to freedom. This is what God's power looks like: the ability to rise out of nothing, to bring life where there shouldn't be. God raises up Moses and brings his people to new life. Out of death and destruction, God is going to raise up Daniel and these young men to bring life, new life. God overcomes death on the cross to bring new life. This is the power that God shows. And there is nothing or anyone or major country on planet Earth that has that power, purely God, to create life where there is no life, new life, resurrection, life. The world can't offer that. So the world comes with death and destruction. And we know what that feels like. But we also know what new life feels like. New life feels like this table where we come forward and receive the body and blood of Jesus and we receive the forgiveness of sins. Not because of anything that we have done, not because of the amount of knowledge that we have or the things that we did that week, purely because we are children of God. This is the power of God, of unconditional love, of redeeming life. I believe Daniel sees both sides of power, both sides of control. And he has seen kingdoms come and kingdoms fall, and heard the stories of these earthly kingdoms come and fall. And he's heard the story of God being with his people through all of it, and believes in the power and control of God.

God’s Hidden Hand And Hope Today

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So where does that leave us with today? Because many of us are like, man, those are all good words, but it is hard. It's hard out there, man. The pressures are hard, and there's death and destruction abundant. So where is God? It's pretty hidden, these verses in Daniel. But if you go home, I'll show you two. But if you go home and read Daniel 1, the fingerprint and hand of God is throughout the whole story. Look at these verses. Verse 2. And the Lord delivered. The Lord is in control. Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel. God is in control. To these four young men, God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. God is in control. In the first few verses of Daniel, as you read it, God is reminding you, I'm in control. No matter what it looks like. And man, at Daniel's time, it looked bad. It looked awful. It looked like there was no hope. And so God continually reminds us, I'm in control. Sorry, I got loud and the baby cried. I apologize. God is in control. In my first two years of marriage, you know, it was pretty rough. Not that marriage is rough, marriage is great. I love you. You're great. The first two years were rough in the sense of because of the mistakes that I had made in my life and the death and destruction that I had brought into my own world, and now I brought it into her world. And so the things that were supposed to be really good and time to celebrate were just brought down by death and destruction. I can remember when Arlo was born, our first son, it was time to celebrate, and we did. He was incredible, and all of a sudden he had health problems. And we got through that, and then all of a sudden, something else happened in our life. And every time we seemed to have a good thing happen, it seemed like we were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And in the middle of that, I was kind of like, where is God? I get it, man. I've made mistakes. But come on. What is going on? Where is he? And thankfully, my wife and other people reminded me that he was there. And now, 11 years later, we look at our life and we can't think of a time where God wasn't present. Even in all of the heartache, even in all the death and destruction. Sometimes it takes some time to see his hand at work. Sometimes, Central, it takes someone to tell you that God is in control. And that control is a good place to be. Because God wields his power with love, forgiveness, grace, and mercy, everything that this world isn't. So, Central Lutheran Church, today I tell you that no matter what is going on in your life, the death and destruction, that God is in control. And it's a good place to be. Amen.