Living for God in a Pagan Society

What Daniel Can Teach Us

James R. Coggins

• Publisher: Mill Lake Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780995198395
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

North American Christians are living in a society that is increasingly non-Christian and sometimes even anti-Christian. Accustomed to living in an at least nominally Christian society, many North American Christians are unprepared for the new reality. Where can they find a model for how to live for God in a God-defying culture? This book argues that the early chapters of the Bible book called Daniel offer just such a model. Living at a time when the people of God had suffered a crushing and shocking defeat at the hands of the pagan Babylonians, Daniel and his friends were immersed in a society where the state, the education system, the culture and religion were all thoroughly pagan. In this situation, Daniel and his friends committed themselves to a course of action that North American Christians can use as a pattern to guide their own lives. The book consists of an introduction and ten chapters. It concludes with study questions on each chapter and then a statement of commitment, which summarizes the teaching of the book and which the reader is invited to sign as an indication that he/she is committed to putting into practice the lessons of the book.

Living for God

in a

Pagan Society

What Daniel Can Teach Us

By

James R. Coggins

Mill Lake Books

Copyright © 2019 by James R. Coggins

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission, except for brief quotations in critical reviews.

Published by Mill Lake Books

Abbotsford, BC

Canada

Printed by Lightning Source, distributed by Ingram

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture verses are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture verses designated NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.

ISBN: 978-0-9951983-9-5

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Pagan Society? 7

Chapter 1: A Pagan Society (Daniel 1:1-7) 9

The City of God and the City of Babylon

Defeat

False Hope

Chapter 2: Moral Man in Immoral Society (Daniel 1:8-21) 17

Eat Your Vegetables

Everyone’s Doing It

No Excuses

Facing the Pressure

Chapter 3: Now is the Time to Worship (Daniel 2) 25

What’s It All About?

Pagan Religion

Responding to a Crisis

The God Who Answers

The Vision

The Purpose and Meaning of the Dream

It’s Our Turn

Chapter 4: Now is the Time to Worship, Part 2 (Daniel 3) 39

He Just Doesn’t Get It

The Wise Men

Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah

Nations and Peoples of Every Language

Modern Questions

Chapter 5: You Can Make a Difference (Daniel 4) 51

A Question to Ponder

The Form

The Same Old Story

The Message of God

God’s Purpose

The Fulfillment of God’s Purpose

Collateral Conversions

The Wise Men

The God of History

Dare to Be a Daniel

Chapter 6: Love Your Enemies (Jeremiah 29:1-23) 73

The Context

The Content

The Promise

How Do We Know Which Prophets Are Right Today?

The Commands

Chapter 7: Hanging in over the Long Haul (Daniel 5) 97

The New King

The Message

The Issues

Daniel’s End

Chapter 8: Standing in the Need of Prayer (Daniel 6) 109

The Setting

Office Politics

Blinded by Power

Daniel

The Outcome

The Point of It All

Bringing It Home

Chapter 9:

Where Can We Go to Learn about God? (Daniel 9:1-23) 125

The Context

Understanding from the Scriptures

Answered Prayer

Bringing It Home

Chapter 10: Doing Exploits (Daniel 7-12) 137

First Vision (Daniel 7)

Second Vision (Daniel 8)

Third Vision (Daniel 9)

Fourth Vision (Daniel 10-12)

Who Is in Control?

The People Who Know Their God

Study Guide 151

My Commitment 161

Introduction

A Pagan Society?

Do you ever feel confused or disappointed with what is going on in the world? Do you feel helpless before unwelcome trends in society that are beyond your control? Are you unsure of what you should do about it?

This is evidence that we are living in a pagan, God-defying society. Don’t believe it? Don’t want to believe it? The vast majority of North American cultural endeavors (movies, television, music and books) seem dedicated to the spread of violence, sexual immorality and selfishness. Evolution, atheism and moral relativism dominate intellectual discussion in our universities. In a survey, three-quarters of North Americans said they would cheat, steal and lie if it would be to their advantage. Sexual promiscuity is now considered the norm, and half of North American marriages end in divorce, even among evangelical Christians.

In Canada, where I live, it is generally a political advantage to be a practicing homosexual, and evangelical Christians are ridiculed as foolish or hateful—or both. Over half a century ago, between sixty and seventy percent of Canadians attended church every week; today only about twenty percent of Canadians do. Christians are slowly being squeezed out of government, the media, universities, and the teaching, medical and legal professions.

In the United States, the situation does not seem nearly as bad, but the same trends are in place. Church attendance has now dropped below forty percent and is continuing to drop.

If this analysis is right―and even if it is only partly right, it is clear that we face strong pressure from pagan, God-defying forces within our society―then what? Is the triumph of evil inevitable? Are we doomed to watch helplessly while the world collapses around us? What, if anything, can we do? How can we live for God in a God-defying society?

This book invites you to put yourself in Daniel’s place.

You may remember the story of Daniel and the lions’ den from Sunday school in your childhood. But Daniel’s problems started long before he was thrown into the lions’ den. Daniel was at risk of being thrown into the lions’ den because he was a member of the people of God who had been carried off into exile in a pagan society.

If you are a Christian living in North America, you are in Daniel’s place. You, a believer in the true God, are living in a pagan culture. This is why Daniel’s story is relevant to you.

Chapter 1

A Pagan Society

Daniel 1:1-7

The City of God and the City of Babylon

Jerusalem, the capital city of the people of God, was an impressive city with strong fortifications, magnificent palaces and a beautiful temple. Under King David and King Solomon a thousand years before Christ, it had been the capital of a great empire. At the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa, it had dominated the world. But, by Daniel’s time, the truth is that Jerusalem was an old and faded city. Its foundations were crumbling, and its defenders were few. The temple of God in Jerusalem had been a beautiful structure, lined with gold, when it had been built 400 years earlier, but it had been looted several times since, sometimes by enemies and sometimes by Jewish kings who had used the gold to buy off enemies or to worship other gods. It also was old and decaying.

In contrast, the city of Babylon, to which Daniel was carried into exile, was a far more impressive city. Jerusalem covered less than a square mile. Babylon was twenty to twenty-five times that size. It was protected by a massive double wall so wide that two chariots could travel on top of it side by side. Ancient accounts say the wall was 300 feet high, was 25 feet thick and extended 35 feet below ground. Inside that wall was another massive defensive wall. Entry through Babylon’s northern gate led to the great 1000-yard-long “Processional Way,” bounded on both sides by massive walls decorated with larger-than-life carvings of 120 lions, symbols of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, and 570 dragons and bulls, symbols of the Babylonian gods Marduk and Bel. While Jerusalem had an impressive temple, Babylon had at least fifty-three, some of them larger than the temple in Jerusalem and many of them filled with massive gold idols. There were at least two royal palaces in the city. Attached to one were the hanging gardens, one of the “seven wonders of the ancient world,” built upon a series of massive arches and columns to resemble the lush mountain homeland of Babylon’s foreign queen. The city was built in a fertile valley, watered by the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers and a series of carefully engineered canals.

Babylon was the capital city of the Babylonian Empire, a fabulously wealthy and powerful empire that stretched from India to Egypt. In comparison, the nation of Judah was small and powerless, the last remaining tribe of what had once been the twelve tribes of Israel, an outpost on the way to the riches of Egypt. What happened when Judah and Babylon collided is scarcely surprising: What happened when the Babylonian Empire and the people of God collided was that the people of God were soundly defeated.

Defeat

Militarily, the Jewish army was no match for the Babylonian army. King Solomon had had 1200 chariots and 14,000 horses (1 Kings 10:26) and an army of hundreds of thousands. Four centuries later, the entire Jewish army numbered only 7,000 men (2 Kings 24:16). The Babylonian army, in contrast, probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands. In 605 BC, the Babylonian army overran the Egyptian army at Carchemish, far to the north of Judah near what is now the border between Syria and Turkey. The Babylonian army then marched south, passing virtually unopposed through the country of Judah, taking anything of value and shipping it back to Babylon. Also sent off to Babylon were the best and brightest among those who would have become Judah’s next generation of leaders, including Daniel and his friends. Politically, Judah, which had been subordinate to Egypt, became subordinate to Babylon, owing loyalty to the Babylonian Empire and paying annual tribute (taxes) to Babylon.

Religiously, in those days, the power of a god was thought to be linked to the power of the nation state which worshiped that god. Thus, the Babylonian gods were thought to have proven themselves more powerful than Judah’s God, Yahweh (translated as upper-case “LORD” in most English Bibles). As a symbol of this, gold articles were taken from the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem and placed in the temples of the Babylonian gods in Babylon. As Judah paid tribute to Babylon and recognized its superior power, so this action symbolized that Yahweh was paying tribute to the Babylonian gods, recognizing their superior power. But the situation was even worse than that. In fact, the name Yahweh does not even occur in the Book of Daniel until the ninth chapter. Even most of “the people of God” in Jerusalem had long since ceased to worship Yahweh, the true God, and were worshiping “gods” just like their pagan neighbors.

Culturally and intellectually, Babylonian fashions, styles and ideas influenced the nations Babylon had conquered. Daniel and his three friends, for instance, were to be trained in the language and literature of the Babylonians. Babylon very carefully controlled the educational system. The Babylonians took the elite people from the nations they conquered and indoctrinated them to think like Babylonians. The book of Daniel is unique among the books of the Old Testament part of the Bible. Except for parts of the book of Ezra and a few isolated verses in other books, the rest of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, the language of the Israelites. Much of Daniel (2:4-7:28) is written in Aramaic, the diplomatic language of the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonians even tried to force Daniel and his friends to eat Babylonian food the way the Babylonians ate it.

Economically, Babylon controlled trade and commerce and was fabulously wealthy. It was known as “a land of merchants” (Ezekiel 16:29). Revelation, the last book of the Bible, speaks of a mysterious “mark of the beast”; either the Roman Empire or some future evil anti-Christian empire (or both) would require people to accept this mark on their hands or foreheads as a sign of loyalty before they would be allowed to buy and sell (Revelation 13:16-17; 14:9-11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4). The idea is not new. Economics has long been used as a means of control. The powerful dominate trade, forbid their enemies to trade (via tariffs, boycotts, embargoes and blockades) and make sure that any trade that is carried on will primarily benefit them. Six hundred years before Christ, the Babylonian Empire controlled world trade.

Babylonian control extended even to individuals. Even today, if we were to ask who Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were, even most Christians would have no idea. They are Daniel’s three friends, yet today we know them not by their original Hebrew names but by the names the Babylonians gave them, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. This is no small thing because names are tied to identity and when you change someone’s name, you change that person’s identity. Hananiah (which means in Hebrew “Yahweh has been gracious”) was renamed Shadrach. Mishael (“Who is as God?”) was renamed Meshach (“Who is this?”)—perhaps a deliberate insult to Mishael or to Yahweh, suggesting that neither Mishael nor Mishael’s God had any real identity of their own, but only what the Babylonians gave them. Azariah (“Yahweh has helped”) was renamed Abednego (“servant of the god Nebo”). Daniel (“God is my judge”) also was renamed after a pagan god; his new name was Belteshazzar (“Bel, protect the king”). Daniel and his friends were not allowed to choose their own careers or place of residence. They were taken away from their homes into exile and conscripted into the civil service of the Babylonian Empire, becoming part of the structure which oppressed their own people. They were most likely castrated, so that they would have no families and would have no loyalties other than to serve Babylon. They remained in this position for the rest of their lives; there was no escape.

False Hope

What does this sad history have to do with us? If we are Christians living in North America, the fact is that we also have been defeated by powerful pagan forces which now dominate our society. When I wrote the first draft of this book and suggested the title Living for God in a Pagan Society, my agent protested, “The book will never sell in the US. American Christians are convinced that theirs is a Christian nation. They won’t believe that they are living in a pagan society.” Yet the fact remains that, by and large, we have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of North Americans, and the government, the media, the education system and the economic system have been taken over by others.

This may not be obvious to us, but it was not obvious to the Jews in Daniel’s time either. When Nebuchadnezzar took possession of Judah, he did not destroy it. Instead, he left the Jewish King Jehoiakim on the throne and demanded that the Jews pay annual tribute (money and goods, taxes) to Babylon. He did not want to destroy the people of God so much as to make the people of God his servants.

This situation fooled the Jews for a long time. In 597, eight years after Daniel and his friends went into exile, the next Jewish king, Jehoiachin, rebelled against Babylon. The Babylonian army simply marched in again, replaced Jehoiachin with his uncle, Mattaniah (renamed Zedekiah), and took more people and goods to Babylon. But Jerusalem was still standing, Yahweh was still being worshiped in the temple, and a Jewish king was on the throne. Moreover, many of the Jews saw Babylonian domination as only a temporary aberration. Indeed, some of their prophets told the Jews that God would soon deliver the Jews from the Babylonians as He had delivered them from previous enemies and that the people of God would soon be able to drive the pagan invaders from the Promised Land once again. (See the false prophecy of Hananiah―a different man than Daniel’s friend―in Jeremiah 28.)

But this was all an illusion. The war had been lost. Pagan Babylon was firmly in control. The situation endured for almost twenty years, from 605 BC, when Daniel and his friends were taken into exile, to 587 BC. About 589 BC King Zedekiah, believing the optimistic predictions of his prophets, refused to pay any more tribute and rebelled against Babylon. But the people of God were weak. In many ways, they were as pagan, immoral and faithless as the Babylonians and the other pagan peoples around them. The rebellion was hopeless. Babylon’s response was predictable. Nebuchadnezzar sent his army. This time, Jerusalem was overrun after a brutal two-year siege, Yahweh’s temple was destroyed, Jerusalem’s fortifications were leveled, the city was burned, many Jews were slaughtered, and most of the rest were shipped off into exile. (The whole sad history is told in 2 Kings 24-25, 2 Chronicles 36 and Jeremiah 39.)

So it is with us. Many North American Christians still have the illusion of influence and power and godliness. We still have national prayer breakfasts and national slogans that mention God. But these are largely empty symbols. The reality is much different. With the media, education, culture and the courts all dominated by pagans, a bleak and terrifying future seems inevitable.

Maybe our Jerusalem will not fall, but it is still true that we live in a society in which the power of pagans seems greater than the power of God’s people. Hollywood can produce seductive movies for $100 million or $500 million or more, while Christians mostly have to make do with $1 million “films.” If a major Christian movie is made, it is celebrated as a rare and gratifying event. Atheists dominate state universities with massive funding and tens of thousands of students while Christians struggle to maintain smaller, less adequately funded colleges. Billion-dollar radio and television networks bombard us with anti-Christian, self-centered and pleasure-seeking messages while smaller Christian stations struggle to stay on the air. It is easy to feel intimidated.

The question remains. Given the current situation, what can we do? Is it possible at all to resist the powers of evil? Can we really live for God in a God-defying society?

The remaining chapters in this book present some clear and practical things that we can do.

Chapter 2

Moral Man in

Immoral Society

Daniel 1:8-21

Eat Your Vegetables

We are probably so familiar with this story that we don’t realize how remarkable it is. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah refused to eat the royal “food” and “wine” and instead asked for “vegetables” and “water.” The words for “food” and “wine” (pathbag and yayin) specifically refer to “meat” and fermented “wine” (pathbag is a Persian word). “Water” is the usual H...