Be God's Family
S3 E43. Daniel's Faithfulness Under Duress
This is The Be Gods Light Podcast with Ben Greenbaum and Mark L. Sesser. In 2022, we spent an entire year looking at the life of Jesus from the four Gospels. In 2023, we explored the rest of the New Testament. Here in 2024, we're diving into the Old Testament for a look at how God has been at work from the very beginning. For your weekly listeners, as you may have guessed, Pastor Mark is taking a break from podcasting this week. So joining me today, we have the specialist of special guests. I couldn't be more excited to welcome to the podcast my oldest daughter, Savannah. Savannah, as we begin today, what would you like our vast podcast audience to know about you? Hi listeners. My name is Savannah. I am a junior at Fisher's High School. I love being a part of Fire and Water youth group. I love school sometimes, and I'm also a figure skater. All right, you do. Yeah, and Savannah is going to try to think there's something else. Oh, you're 16. I am 16, yeah. I'll mention that. I can drive. Yeah, you can drive. That's been a hard thing for your mom and I to let go and to toss you the keys. Though, it does make our life incredibly, it's much easier now that you can get yourself from point A to point B. And if only we had a third car that we could give to you, but if only, but not as of yet. But nonetheless, yeah, you're driving now and even drove your sister for the first time yesterday. It was wonderful. She didn't talk at all. It was glorious. Okay. So what you're going to do now to get Charlotte quiet, you're going to be like, come take a ride with me. Yep. All right, fair enough. All right. Well, this past week, our family, including my mom and her husband, Tom, who drove over from New Orleans, we spent this past week in golf shores. And one of the things I cherished, and you'll see how this comes up in our Bible passage today. But one of the things that I cherished growing up were all the trips that I got to take as a kid with your, your me, me, and your grandpa Jack. And I think my favorite childhood trip was to the Grand Canyon. What about you, Savannah, and your young 16 years? What's been your favorite trip? So when I was in fourth grade, we took a summer vacation to Yellowstone, and that was a lot of fun. You and I, we went on that geyser tour, and they had told us before, don't expect any like big geysers to go off or like put on a performance. But one that doesn't really go off, like, I think it had been two decades since it last had. And we were just there at the perfect time. It was a really wonderful experience. And then a year ago, we were just getting back from Zambia. That was a pretty cool trip. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, man, Tom flies. It does. Yeah. Only been a year or that has been a year ago. And then, man, Yellowstone was that long ago, huh? I know. Yeah. I was looking back at pictures yesterday. Charlotte and I look really little. Yeah, because you were really little. She was four. She wasn't even in kindergarten yet. And that was with the fourth grade. The National Park Service gives like free entry to all fourth graders. And so we got free entry to Yellowstone. So bonus. Yeah, Grand Teton's, Badlands, we got it all. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, that was a pretty sweet trip with your Nana. Oh, yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, that's why we took that trip. I remember that. That's why we took that trip. That was Nana when she was little. And so for you listeners, that's my mother-in-law. When my mother-in-law was little, so she's about 10 years old, she had gotten to visit Yellowstone and always wanted to go back. And so that's why we took that trip was to make sure she was able to make her pilgrimage back to Yellowstone. And that was a lot. That trip was a lot of fun. So in our ongoing study of the Old Testament, the people of Judah were taken by the Babylonians on what we might qualify as an extended vacation, a vacation that they did not want to go on as they were taken by the Babylonians into exile and brought into what we would know today as modern day Iraq, which was the center of the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonians were engaged in conflict with the nation of Judah for about 30 years. And during those 30 years, Savannah, there were three different times when groups from Judah were brought to Babylon were taken into exile. And the first was in 605 BC. There was another exile about 10 years after that. And then a final exile in 586 BC when the Babylonians laid waste to Judah, laid waste to Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, destroyed the walls around Jerusalem. But the first of those exiles was in 605 BC. And today we're going to take a look at the book of Daniel, which provides the historical narrative surrounding that first exile. And so we're going to begin there. We're going to look at Daniel chapter 1 in just a couple of brief passages in Daniel. There's no way to cover the entire scope of Daniel. And so we're just going to cover one aspect of that, which we're going to get to here in a little bit. But in Daniel 1, we're kind of given the beginning context of the book and how Daniel and his three buds were brought into exile. We're brought to Babylon. And we're told in Daniel chapter 1, we read it in the third year of the reign of Jehoia Kim. Not Jehoia Kim, he was another guy, but Jehoia Kim, King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoia Kim, King of Judah, into his hand. Along with some articles from the temple of God, these he carried off to the temple of his God in Babylon and put in the treasure house of his God. Then the king ordered Ash Pnaas. That's an interesting name. Yeah, I'll make sure to add it to my baby name list one day. Okay. It's a beautiful name. It's a beautiful name, huh? Do you even know what that name means? No idea. Well, I tell you, but I don't know what it means either. So there you go. Hopefully, if you didn't name your child Ash Pnaas, maybe we could call him Ash for short or something like that. All right. Because that's a hard one to go with. All right. Yeah, let's avoid that. The king ordered Ash Pnaas chief of his court officials to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility, young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand and qualified to serve in the king's palace. He, this is Ash Pnaas again, was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. And so the idea here was to indoctrinate or brainwash these young teenagers, make them loyal to the Babylonians and then send them back oftentimes to rule their own people, but under the auspices of the Babylonian Empire. But the king assigned them, if we continue to read in Daniel chapter one, it's like verse four, the king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table. And so they weren't just indoctrinated in the ways of the Babylonians, but allowed to indulge in the lavish living of Babylonian royalties. So the Babylonians weren't just manipulating or trying to manipulate their minds. They were manipulating their hearts. They were offering them a taste of the power and the riches that came with faithfulness to their Babylonian captors. And it were told they were to be or trained for three years. And after that, they were to enter the king's service. And it's at this point in the narrative in Daniel chapter one that were introduced to the main characters. Now outside of the apocalyptic literature, in the second half of Daniel, which we're not even going to touch on, because that would be a year's worth of podcast. And we're not going to do that today. Is that cool with you? Wonderful. All right, good. Glad that we stay in agreement on that. So yeah, outside of the apocalyptic literature, at the second half of Daniel, these four guys that were introduced here, they dominate the content in Daniel. And so we read in verse six, it says, among these were some from Judah, Daniel, Hanania, Michelle, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names to Daniel, the name, belt, the jar, to Han, Hanania, Shadrach, to Michelle, Meshach, into Azaria, Abend-a-Go. I know that story. You do. Where was the first time you heard that story? Oh, gonna. I couldn't tell you. I've heard it so many times. But I remember you reading it to me in the picture book Bible. Okay. Do you remember the veggie tales on that? I love veggie tales. Yes. Yes, I do. Yeah, that's where a lot of times, anytime I bring this story up, even among adults, anytime that Daniel is preached on without fail, somebody comes up to me. It's like, Oh, I love that veggie tales. Yeah. Very creative and unique. I love it. Yeah. So anyway, but so these guys are brought into Babylon and these four guys could not have been older than their early teens when they were carted off to Babylon. And we know this because later in Daniel, in Daniel chapter six, Daniel is still alive when the Persians defeat the Babylonians, which would have been about 70 years after Daniel was taken into captivity. So he's probably, he's got to be a pretty young God. Most people think he's 13, 14, 15, somewhere in that context. So it's real appropriate that you're with us today. It's one of the reasons I asked you to be a part of this conversation today. So we got these four young teenage guys. And as we see in Daniel, they're persistently, they persistently faced opposition as they sought to faithfully live for God in a hostile nation, a nation that was hostile to their faith. They're being indoctrinated. And yet as we see throughout Daniel, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, these four guys, they maintain faithfulness to the God of Israel and they seek to live faithfully for him. And so one of the aspects of their relationship with God was that they were supposed to live set apart to him. It's the same thing in our life with Jesus Christ. When we receive Christ as Savior, there's this sense that we have been set apart then to God, to live for him. And so we essentially, as Paul would describe in Colossians chapter 1, we move from when we receive Christ, we're told there that we are qualified for the kingdom of Christ. And so Jesus, by his death and his resurrection, he qualifies us for his kingdom. And so when we receive Jesus, we move from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And so then we're set apart from the kingdom of darkness and we're set apart to Jesus. And so much like these guys were called as Israelites, as people from Judah, were called to live faithfully, set apart to God, which was one of the issues that the people in Judah faced because many most of the nation was not living that set apart life. They were giving themselves over to the idols of the surrounding pagan nations. And yet in the midst of all that, these guys in their youth continue to maintain faithfulness to God and now having been brought into exile, one of the things that we see throughout Daniel is their commitment to maintain their faithfulness. And so again, even as young teenagers, as we read the context of Daniel, especially those early chapters, it's pretty impressive when you think about their age, what they were facing, the pressure that they were facing. And yet they saw to maintain faithfulness because right off the bat in chapter 1, there's like this conflict over dietary practices. And so the king is trying to give them steak and wine. He's given them all the luxuries of the royalty themselves would have received and Daniel and his friends and the story is a little bit more complicated than just like dietary ritual law that we see in Leviticus is we won't dive into that. That would be a lengthy podcast too. That would be a lengthy podcast. Yeah, that's a fair observation. So we're not going to dive in to that. Though, could you recite all the Levitical law if you tried? I couldn't. But when I was younger, I believe that I could read the Bible from the start to the end. And I got all the way through the Pentateuch and Leviticus just really, that was a tough read. That wasn't tough read. Yeah, what I realized, this is a funny story real quick. When I realized that you, because I didn't even know that you were doing this, right? And so then one day you were like, Daddy, what were you like five or six? I think I was more like eight. You're that? Well, I feel like Leviticus would be a pretty tough read for a five year old. That's fair. But that wouldn't have stopped you from trying. That is true. That is absolutely true. But one of the funny things with that is so when you were eight, we'll say when I realized that you were doing this, all of a sudden my mind went straight to the story surrounding Judah and Tamar. And for our listeners out there, if you want to tackle that one, you can. I think Mark and I talked about that much earlier in the year. And all of a sudden I realized you're like, Oh, Daddy, I'm reading through Genesis right now. And I was like, Oh, that's wonderful Savannah. And then all of a sudden I started thinking about the different stories in Genesis. And I was like, Oh my goodness, you can't read that yet. And so, yeah, we had to kind of navigate around some of those things. But right off the bat in chapter one, there's this whole conversation about dietary practices and Daniel and the boys decide that they're not going to engage with the again, trying to live that set apart life. They see that God's calling them not to eat from the the steak and drink the wine from the king's table. And so they give themselves over, at least for a time period, if we look later in Daniel, you see that they're actually eating this food, but they give themselves over to that kind of set apart life. And it was a way for them to maintain that set of partners and what God was calling them to. But like right. And so they're like tossed in jail for it initially. And so then Daniel, the guys refused to eat the steak and drink the king's wine. And so we see that in chapter one. And then in Daniel chapter three, which the sermon yesterday was on, they refused to bow down. Shatter. This is Shatterac Meshach and a bend to go. Daniel's not a part of that piece of the narrative. But those three guys refused to bow down to like this 90 foot statue that the king sets up calls for everybody to bow down to they refuse to bow down to it. And that's where we get the whole narrative about the fiery furnace. Remember that one? Yep. Yeah. And so that's the whole fiery furnace narrative. And Jesus shows up, I believe in the fiery furnace and rescues them from the flames. And then of course in Daniel chapter six, Daniel gets tossed into the lion's den because he refused to follow the king's edict that forbid Daniel from praying. And that was after the Persians to come in. It says King Darius, I believe, I remember correctly. And he had he was kind of Darius was manipulated into stating this edict for the nation that they were they had to honor the king. They couldn't pray to their gods. And Daniel, we see him in secret. He doesn't, you know, go stand out on the street corner and say, Hey, look at me. I'm praying to the God of Israel, but Daniel with humility and in secret continues to pray. And these guys that were seeking to do him harm, they rat him out to the king. And then he's forced into the lions den. And we know that that God rescued him from that. But central to the trials in Temptay, and it's kind of what I wanted to briefly talk with you about today. And that's why I asked you to be on the podcast, because you know, you probably be about the same age as these guys when they first were brought into Babylon. But central to the trials and temptations and opposition that Daniel and the boys faced, there was this constant pull to align themselves, right? With Babylonian culture with Babylonian worldview to eat the foods they ate to worship what they worship to honor the king above God. And so with the constant opposition and the temptations they that they faced to conform, they still remain faithful to God. They still continue to live that set apart life. And so, you know, Savannah, you're 16 years old, you're junior in high school, rather than talking about the societal pressures or the things that like kids of your generation are feel that tension, you know, to conform, especially the obviously the Christians that you know, maybe the temptations that they're faced to conform their lives to are the pressures that they feel that might be in conflict with their relationship with God, rather than talking about what your peers might face. What are some of the societal pressures that you feel? And before you answer the question, so none of our vast listening audience, right? All four of you, yes. All four, yes, your, your Mimi, your Nana, my mom, your mom, yeah, and Doug, because Doug's forced to and probably Pastor Mark. Yeah, Pastor Mark, and I bet you, Lisa, probably listen as well. So we've increased. Yeah, we've increased the listening. That's six people that that's awesome. I know, man, you're going to go viral. So excited. And that what all your generation wants is to go viral. Yeah, I'll talk about that in a second. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Good leeway. Oh, or leeway or segue, segue, sorry. I can't think you're fine. You're fine. I know like every vocabulary word known to man is rooted in your brain right now because you just had to take the PSAT last week. I did. Yes. Lots of vocab. Yeah. So anyway, but before you answer the question, all right. So none of our listening audience thinks I'm putting you on the spot. Just everybody knows Savannah agreed to the question ahead of time without pressure from me. So Savannah, I'll pose the question again. What are those kind of societal pressures that might compete for your heart, where you consider your relationship with Christ, what that should look like. And then the things that kind of the tension you feel. That makes sense. Yes. All right. Thanks for the quick disclaimer. So what I'll say is academically speaking, there's a lot of pressure there. And I'd say that I feel a lot of pressure to perform well academically, to become what we view as a successful person. I plan to pursue medicine. And so over the summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of the an internship at the Well Center. I spent a lot of time at Riley. I spent a lot of time like in the research Institute, and I absolutely loved it. But one of the things that it caused me to miss was our annual summer mission trip, which was really unfortunate because I wanted to see Troy's hometown and just be able to volunteer in Niagara Falls. And so I'd say that it was really sad and stressful for me to miss that and watch all my friends go and have that experience, especially because I care very deeply about my faith. And it really created this conversation or just these thoughts for me about, am I allowing some of the academic pursuits to get in the way of how I am in my faith in the time that I spend with Jesus? And what I have to think about is I believe that God gave me these spiritual gifts so that I can pursue medicine. He made me very scientifically-minded. He made me someone who likes to talk and reach out to people, someone who can communicate as I did with a lot of the patients at Riley that I saw as I was shadowing. But at the end of the day, it's just really hard sometimes. It really presents an obstacle when I'm trying to read my Bible. My dad just mentioned I took the PSIT on Thursday, and I was sitting in the LGI when we were done, and I was singing to myself. I've been studying for this test for hours each day these past couple months, probably. And then I thought to myself, maybe I should open my Bible just like right now and pray because I prayed so much before the PSIT. But just those prayers, don't constitute my relationship with God. You really have to have that active relationship. Go to youth group. Pray frequently. Really read your Bible itself into God's words. So I've really tried to implement that as part of my life. Really thank God for the gifts he's given me, but I won't like it's in the way a lot. One of the things you also mentioned with social media, I'd say that vanity and just appearance-based things really impact that relationship as well. I'd say that's something that I, along with a lot of my peers, struggle with. And we think about our appearance. We think about how we appear to others on social media. And it's really hard because you know that you were fearfully and wonderfully made by God. But you know, when people have their thoughts, their opinions, you know, they can write and comment sections on your Instagram posts, things like that. And it really gets in the way of how God views you. So one of the things that I did recently was I would like, when I was cleaning my room this one day, I have this mirror on my door, I believe. And I was looking at it and I was like, it feels kind of empty. You know, I can see myself in the mirror, but what am I really supposed to be looking at? I'm really supposed to be looking at how God views me, how I am a child of God, and you know, how just, you know, in my young 16 years of life, that's what my parents have intended to teach me every single day. So what I did was I wrote Bible verses, one of which was from Psalms, the fearfully and wonderfully made verse. I absolutely loved that Bible verse. And I just put them all around my mirror. One of my other favorites is Esther 414. And it's for, this is the moment for which you were created. And it really reminds me to utilize my spiritual gifts, but not to allow those to get in the way of my relationship with God. And so unfortunately, with all these things that I do, I have to miss out on things sometimes I'd really like to do that I think would grow my faith. Like, for example, I had to miss the fall retreat as well because of an internship I'm involved with. And that really broke my heart. Like, I love to do things with fire and water. I love Troy and Liz. I love that community. But there are also other opportunities that have come up. Like I mentioned Zambia last year, I got to go and kind of do medical work as well. Like I was taking blood pressures like in the middle of this village. And it was absolutely wonderful to have people come up to me and just to speak with them and communicate. I think that those relationships with people like across the world seeing how we all worship differently, but are all praising the same God and, you know, recognizing what Jesus has done for us. It's really beautiful. So I mean, I make the most out of every opportunity I'm given to worship and communicate with people who believe the same as me. But yeah, sometimes it's really hard to have to miss out on those things. And you feel as though things that you have to really dedicate your time to get in the way of your faith. So really finding that balance, finding the ways to utilize the gifts with which God has given you. It's tough sometimes, but you know, I'm going to college in a couple of years. I'm really excited to see what opportunities I'll have on whatever campus I end up on to pursue my faith more and dive deeper into God's Word, things like that. That's awesome, man. Wow. Okay. Thanks, bro. Wow. Well, I'm always amazed, you know, sometimes you open your mouth and like what comes forth, and to hear your heart on all of that because it is. I mean, there's this active, I know that I've experienced in my own life where I had this sense when I was in seminary about what my life would look like. And part of that, what I came to realize was it was driven more by what western culture would define as success rather than what Jesus Christ would define as success. And so, one of the huge tension points I had was probably, I don't know, probably around the time you were born, maybe a little, maybe a little bit before that. But I had this sense that, you know, one day, you know, I graduate seminary. We move to Indiana, so so mom can go back to school to get another degree from Indiana University. And we thought, you know, your mom would graduate from IU with her nursing degree, maybe work for a couple of years at Riley, which she's now been there for 20 years. I don't know if you do that, but yeah, mom's 20th year at Riley. I know they posted her on Instagram. It was really exciting. It's pretty cool. Yeah, pretty awesome. Yeah, her 20th year at Riley will be, I think, is like December 4th or something. It's her anniversary date. And so, it's amazing to think that we've been at Indiana this long. But when we first came, our idea was like, we're going to be here for a short time, and then we're going to move. And we're going to go wherever God leads, because I thought, you know, my destiny is to is to be senior pastor at a church. Like, this is where God was calling me to be based upon the gifts that I had. And so, I had kind of planted that in my mind as like, this is who I am. Rather than who I am being centered in Christ, I came to realize that who I am had become centered in this ideal world that I had set up, which meant Ben Greenbaum, senior pastor, you know, decent sized church. And that was kind of my vision for life. And I remember I was jogging one day on the treadmill at home. All of a sudden, it hit me that I just had this thought to myself like, what am I amounting to? You know, I'm serving as an associate pastor at this church. This is, you know, 15 years ago, I'm serving as an associate pastor at this church. What am I amounting to? I need to move on. It's time to move on. I got to have that senior pastor at it. And then it was almost like the Holy Spirit just kind of spoke into my mind and said, Ben, none of that stuff is who you are. Who you are is defined by your relationship with Jesus Christ. And you have to find your contentment and peace in him rather than in what the world says you need to have or you need to be. Because who you need to be needs to be defined upon God's plan and God's will for your life. And it was amazing to me in that moment because it just kind of threw off all the so-called dreams and goals I had for my life. And just said, you know what, I'm just going to seek to make much of Jesus Christ in my life. And while I've failed at that a bazillion times over, that's been the central focus of my life is to just I'm going to make much of Jesus in my life. And wherever that leads, that leads, but I'm going to find my contentment. I'm going to find my peace in him. I'm going to live set apart to him. And I'm not going to allow the world, especially as the world would try to define me based upon my work identity. I'm not going to allow the world to define me. I'm allowed Christ to find me and find my peace there. And so when you know it, I've been, you know, I've served, you know, granted served as a site pastor for a second site at a church for a while where I was preaching every week of the year. But I have primarily served as an associate pastor for the whole of my ministry career. And it's turned out to be, I mean, one of the greatest blessings of my life that I never would have anticipated. And yet just kind of giving up control and giving those things over to God and getting to experience the blessing of being where he wants me or where he wants us, you know, rather than maybe sometimes we're Ben Greenbaum wants to be. And until like right now, like just a tremendous gift that's been given to me is the opportunity to serve with the, you know, past remark and to be here at Fisher's United Methodist and the opportunity to be on a great staff with a great group of folks serving collectively serving together. And what a joy it has, it has been. So we're closing up shop here because our time is sure anything else you you need to any other, you know, Mike drops of wisdom. You want to thrust upon us today? No, I mean, I like your idea of how God should constitute success rather than society, which is why I've told myself, you know, whether I'm chief pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at Boston Children's one day or I end up in a very like rural area, you know, doing work at a small hospital, maybe not even in surgery, maybe some other residency program that I would have never expected. Wherever God wants me, that's where I'll go. And I'll be grateful for every opportunity he's provided me. And also I think you're a very good associate pastor. Oh, well, thanks, kid. I love you. I love you too. And just so for our listeners out there who might not be familiar, I know most of our listeners are familiar with Fisher's United Methodist, but Savannah mentioned fire and water. That is our our youth ministry here at the church. And then she mentioned Troy and Liz multiple times and Troy is our senior high youth director and Liz is our junior high youth director and then they have their hands and a thousand other things at the church as well. Well, next week, Pastor Mark will be back and we're going to take a look at the prophet Haggai who encourages the people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. If you want to jump in deeper, I invite you now to go to our church's website fishers, UMC.org or the church app and click on the be God's light link that will take you to more elements in this year long study of the Old Testament, including daily Bible reading devotions, poems. Did I just say poems wrong? Poems poems. Yeah, I've got this issue. I'm from South Louisiana as folks. Okay. Yeah, I don't talk right. I get corrected at home all the time. Every time I say say it again. How do you say it? Poems poems, how it's spelled phonetically poems. Thanks. Yeah, it actually it hurts me to say it. Poems yet. It doesn't hurt you to say poems. No, because that like rolls off the tongue. Poems poems poems. Thank you. You can help me to enunciate. If you want to stay up to date with the be God's light podcast, we encourage you to follow and write wherever you get your podcast. Thanks again, Savannah. You have raised the IQ of our podcast today, as I'm sure our listeners can tell. And for all you listeners out there, God bless and we will see you next week. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Ben Greenbaum and his daughter Savannah discuss the persecution of believers in Daniel's time as well as in our modern day.