Sermons

This sermon deals with the flow of history in which the world's empires — Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome — rise and fall one after another. In particular, through the fact that King Cyrus is recorded as a messiah in Isaiah's prophecy, and the story of Alexander the Great reading the inscription on Cyrus's tomb and honoring it, it shows that human power too is under God's plan. It also links the interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Daniel's deliverance from the lions' den and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, stressing that God is the ruler of history.

The sermon points out that believers should see the events of the world not as mere chance or the work of human ability, but as the process of God at work. Just as even Gentile kings like Cyrus and Alexander moved within God's prophecy and providence, it explains that the lives of believers too, from birth until they meet God, are within God's plan. So it urges believers not to cling only to visible circumstances or their own abilities, but to live relying on God's unchanging plan.

The sermon asks whether believers, in suffering or hardship, are showing the pride of forgetting God and thinking first of worldly matters or their own abilities. It also leads them to reflect on whether the time to repent and turn back through the opportunity God has given is still going on, or whether this is the last chance. It raises the question of how believers will live through the currents of the world, and whether they can believe that the path God leads them on does not change, and walk it.

This passage deals with the story of Daniel, taken captive to Babylon, who served several kings as prime minister in the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires. In particular, it shows God's sovereign work through two opposite outcomes: Belshazzar, king of Babylon, who proudly defied God, dies under a sudden judgment, while King Darius, who lived carefully, rescues Daniel from the lions' den.

The sermon points out that the kings' fates were decided by their attitudes. God gave Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar warnings and opportunities, but they were absorbed in their power and pleasures and did not repent. Daniel, on the other hand, prayed and trusted God with unchanging faith, however harsh his circumstances. His faith revealed God's greatness to the powerful of the world, King Darius and King Cyrus, and in the end it became the occasion that gave the people of Israel their return and hope.

It asks whether we are looking at the fast-changing world and the international situation in the news with spiritual eyes, and responding sensitively to God's warning signals. Please think together about what changes take place when we do our best in our own place while not giving in to the temptations of the world, and live in the fear of God.