Isaac Thrasher
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Lucas: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Living for His Glory podcast. I'm your host, Lucas Barrett. As a college student studying pastoral ministry, spreading the word and making disciples of all nations. Is my one true mission. Sometimes I talk about scriptures and theologies on my own, but other times I bring in a guest from my vast network of people Who will share their life experiences and the things that they're passionate about that may help you with your own spiritual journey Whether you're a new christian a growing christian or someone who may not even believe in God.
This podcast is for you Let's get started
Welcome back to the Living For His Glory Podcast. I have a guest here with me today is named Isaac Thrasher. And I met you, this time last year. So it was last spring when we met and we met at, you do work with, Athletes In Action, you tell us about that starting out, but, basically it's an athletic, spiritual program.[00:01:00]
Basically what it is, if I'm not mistaken. And, I went there, met you there and we've just, hit it off and you've really helped me, just been a mentor for me. Really helped me. And we've gone, I've learned a lot of new things from you. We meet every week right now, going through Daniel, which what we're going to talk about.
We did that, weekly, or at least the weeks I remember last semester. And it was so good that I was like, you know what? We should talk about this. And we talked about for an hour every week. So I don't know how we're going to be able to condense everything, everything from my semester here, but we're going to do our best.
I really enjoyed that. And I think it's going to be really enlightening for whoever's listening or whoever could listen. It was an amazing, an amazing conversation made in semester. I learned a lot. And it's really played a positive influence in my life now and in my life last semester.
Just been really really formed by our time together. And so I really appreciate that I guarantee this is [00:02:00] probably not the last time that we're going to do something like this because You're you know that amazing of a guy and i've got you know, another two years here two years together at least so we can see what happens in the future, but for now, Yeah, how are you today?
Isaac: I'm good. I'm good. This is fun. It's exciting to record this with you and like you said talk about You Talk about all the things that we covered in the fall. Yeah. 100 percent or try to try to, yeah,
Lucas: try to cover, in the fall. So what, just, getting to know you right now, where are you in your life?
What are you doing? Like, you know, we mentioned your Athletes In Action right now. Like what, what's going on?
Isaac: Yeah. I worked for Athletes In Action, which as you said, it is a sports ministry, for college and pro athletes. So our goal is to create spiritual movements to the platform of sport. I'm hoping to one day see a Christ flower on every team and every sport and in every nation.
So AIA [00:03:00] has a presence on, 250 plus campuses across the country and in over a hundred countries. And there's different elements of of AIA. There's an international side of AIA. There's a campus side, which is kind of what our experience here and there's sports specific departments. There's a basketball department, soccer department, football department, and basically our goal is to, make disciples and make disciples and, trying to fulfill the Great Commission through sport.
And I love it because I was a college athlete and I know how formative that time was for me and my faith. It's really cool to be able to step into that season of life with other people, and to walk in those shoes with them. So yeah, it's, it's not something I ever thought I'd be doing. If you told me I'd be doing full-time ministry, even a few years ago, I would've said You're crazy.
But yeah, that's how God works. And, so yeah. Been here in Nashville for two and a half years and, this is my second year on full-time staff. A i, so I was part-time, first year coach basketball here at Trevecca. [00:04:00] Full time, I guess. Yeah. Last year. So, yeah,
Lucas: that's what you did mainly. I mean, that was your, that's what you played collegially, right?
Basketball is your jam. So you speak it. Remember when I say you got something, you know, basketball related on. I mean, I love the game. I mean, It's probably, one of my favorite games to watch right up there with football. I'm a golfer, but you know, who likes to watch ball? But, yeah, man, that's good.
I love it. You know, we said talking about Daniel, right. And I have questions, but if you have other things that, you may want to talk about, or just, get on that type of conversation and you're free to talk about it, but, first, just background, Daniel, like There's a lot of stray stories, popular one is, the lion's den we covered that last week.
That's a popular one. We've may have heard a thing or two about whatever dreams and Daniel interpretation, but I still think that the actual overall story of Daniel itself isn't very covered or explained when we went on about it, like, I'm a ministry major here. And when we started this, I was like, you know what?
I've never really read Daniel. [00:05:00] I know a couple of stories, but I don't know, like the whole overarching of view in depth chapter chapter. So. You know, what's that background? Like where, where does the story of Daniel start and what's going on here?
Isaac: Yeah. Well, you said it reminded me of that. I think I had a similar experience, even when we both studied it the first time we took it, I think we took the first day to kind of talk about the context of the background, because there's so much there that I had no idea until I studied it and we talk about all the time, people a lot smarter than us are the ones that are helping us see these things.
But yeah, some of that context is. is really important, because in thinking about the nation of Israel, the Assyrians conquer the Northern Kingdom. And so the Southern Kingdom is still, and this is around, I don't know, seven, seven something BC. Southern Kingdom is still present, but they're not walking in a way that's faithful to the Lord.
And God raises up the nation of Babylon, to [00:06:00] basically be an instrument of judgment to the Israelites. So kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar at the time, goes to Jerusalem, plunders it, conquers the southern kingdom, and Takes the best men, best young men from Israel and kind of deports them back to Babylon.
And so at this point in the story it's kind of like, okay, the northern kingdom has been conquered. The southern kingdom has been conquered. If you are an Israelite right now, you're thinking, okay, how in the world will God's promise to make this people, a fruitful nation to extend the line, to extend the seed of the woman from Genesis 3.
15. Like, how long is that going to happen? Like, our nation's been conquered, we've been taken away from our home. Like, what is going on right now? And we talked about how when we hear the word Babylon, we don't usually think of it in a positive light, right? I [00:07:00] mean,
Lucas: we think, Tower of Babel, already, like, before even all this Daniel stuff, exile even happened.
They're already causing trouble. They're the reason that I, have to learn a bunch of different languages. I mean, shoot, I took a language class last semester and, in the middle of this, I'm thinking, you know what, I wouldn't have to do this or I would have already learned it if, the Babylonians didn't, get all high and mighty and screw everything up, I would have already, everyone would be speaking one language right now, if it wasn't for, for Babylon,
Isaac: right, right, exactly.
And, and so, we rightly think of Babylon. We think of Babylon. Babel, we think of Babylon in a negative light, generally,
Lucas: right?
Isaac: Well, again, something that somebody else may, much smarter than me, pointed out to me, that we talked about was, the prophet Jeremiah actually writes a letter to the exiles, In Babylon and the tune that he sings is a little bit different than we would maybe think [00:08:00] so in jeremiah 29, you know, we're we're familiar with verse 11 Right.
Lucas: Yeah You know the whole i'll plans to prosper you
Isaac: Exactly in the future exactly right and we sometimes we take that out of context We don't realize that past that verse is actually in a passage talking about exile. Yes Talking about really hard things, right? It's
Lucas: not just like, oh, I had a bad day. It's hey, like you got taken out of home Like you're a different country right now Whole different customs.
Yep, right and I mean if we look at that culture One of the people that were marginalized the most Was you know, if you're a foreigner You don't have a real ground in this country. Like you, you're going to be the most marginalized out of almost anybody.
Isaac: Absolutely. And so with that in mind, it's like, okay, why, like why?
What purpose do they have, right, as a marginalized people in a foreign nation? [00:09:00] What's their purpose? Well, Jeremiah in his letter to these exiles, he sings a different tune than we would think. He tells these exiles to build houses and live in them, plant gardens, eat their produce. Get married. He says in verse seven, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.
Verse 10 is kind of a, Jeremiah is a prophet. He's praying. He's prophesying here and letting Israelites know, hey, like, I want you to make your home in Babylon, even though it's not your home, because he doesn't, verse 7, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
And then the very next verse is verse 11, right? Another point to have, who declares the Lord, like, plans to prosper, all that stuff. And so, man, that's just a little different than we normally think of like, and Jeremiah's trying to get these exiles to [00:10:00] remember God's promise, which at the time doesn't seem like it's going to be there's any way it can be fulfilled.
So, that was really interesting to me to make that connection we remember we talked about it. Just how amazing that is how important it is to understand that we talked about the. Background of, Jeremiah or of, of Daniel.
Lucas: Yeah. We also went to a verse in Deuteronomy. Yes. If you remember which one that is.
It's, but it was Deuteronomy. He's like 28 or something. Yes. Like that. But,
Isaac: Deuteronomy 28. That's exactly it. Oh, that
Lucas: memory.
Isaac: Verse 64. Yeah. And so this is.
Sometimes I think in the Bible, we only look at God's good promises.
Lucas: Yeah. Yeah. We don't think about, right. We don't think about like, Hey, you know, God also said, if you mess up, if you break away from his covenant, bad things are going to happen. I mean, that's, that's just. That goes with any covenant, whether it be, God and [00:11:00] man, whether that be a suzerain vassal kind of deal between countries, whether it be in a marriage.
If you break your vows, if you break your covenant, bad things happen. Vassal messes up, suzerain, well, I mean, more powerful country is a suzerain. Wipe them out.
Isaac: Yeah,
Lucas: Same with God and us that suzerain vassal relationship, but even even more like a marriage It's more it's more of a symbiotic like or or equal
Isaac: Yeah, there's consequences.
Lucas: Yeah, there's consequences, I mean if you're a guy, maybe you sleep on a couch one night But even if you don't even as extreme of like if you break a vow so so Extremely or a real vow so bad like could lead to divorce. I mean there's serious consequences here God did not Like god did not make his covenant with us And just give us a lot of good if you do this you do this, If you'll obey me, good things will happen.
That's true. That's a good part of it That's not all of it, right? We [00:12:00] forget Like hey if we don't obey consequences happen. Yeah
Isaac: And he doesn't just say those things, like he, he does them and that's who God is if he says that he will do it.
Lucas: Just God.
Isaac: Right. And so that verse you mentioned, verse 64, Deuteronomy 28, And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other.
And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. And so that's, That's the promise that he fulfilled, right? He scattered the nation of Israel. Yes. They were conquered and they were sent off. And I think like, again, that word exile, we also think of in a negative light, right?
Taking people from one place, moving them to another place that's not their home. But Jeremiah also speaks of exile a little bit differently. And this is from chapter 24, so we're just in chapter 29. This is in chapter 24, verses 5 and 6. He says, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Like these good figs, [00:13:00] so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.
I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and I will not tear them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. For they shall return to me with their whole heart.
So again, it's easy to get caught up in Babylon exile, but we see, I think the most important thing in this background is like, God's up to something here. Yeah. It's probably not in the way that we would expect or plan, right? If we were in control, but we're not in control. He is. And he's up to something, which is kind of, you know, he gives us some insight as we go through the book of Daniel, but, so that was really helpful for me to understand that context when reading Daniel, because like you said, I mean, I read those stories a few times, but understanding kind of all of it together [00:14:00] within the grand scheme of God's plan.
Lucas: It all works together. Like,
And ultimately God has ultimate control. Like how I, how I like to think about it is, you know, this makes up, you know, so that the everlasting debate of free will and predestination, we're never going to figure it out, never going to know it's, it's a dog chasing its own tail, but.
No matter what happens, I mean even in here we see in Deuteronomy, we see that the exile God knew, like God knew was gonna happen. God said that. What? Like we are gonna be scattered. And so even in the midst of what we see as bad and horrible and like the worst that there is, God still has a control God.
He doesn't have a level of control. He has absolute control. Yeah. Like God knows what's going. He knew about Babylon, he knew they were gonna come. He knew that they were gonna conquer. Like he knew his people were gonna move into exile, which means it fits into his plan. Like no matter what me and you do God god reigns absolute god's plan is going to happen
If [00:15:00] me and you let's say me and you didn't go down this path Say me and you say hey This call that we're feeling in the ministry and helping We're not we're gonna choose not to do we have every right to you know, we had every right to Yeah, well, you can make a debate about it, but I'm gonna, for argument's sake, I'm gonna say, Hey, I could have chosen not to do this.
I could have chosen not to do this podcast, whatever. It's like, okay, well, I'm willing to bet that somebody else would have. I'm willing to bet God would have called somebody else and they would have said yes. The thing about this big picture, if you look at all of time, all of God's plans, this big beautiful canvas, it's going, he painted it, it's going to go according to his plan, according to his way.
The thing about free will is we can change these minor things about the picture. Like we can change Not the over the [00:16:00] overarching story is is gods He created this masterpiece, but maybe if me and you decided not to do this not to do this whole ministry Maybe this small little pigment over here is not a it's not a gold.
It's like an orange that kind of thing of like it's a We can may change how it happens or how it can look or the events leading up to it But this story this plan is still Gods And if he needs something to happen, it's going to happen. He just may have to use somebody else,
but why wouldn't you want it to be used? Kind of where I'm going with it. It's like a, sure, somebody could replace me, but look at what I'm missing out as well. Like. If God uses somebody else, it means other people, are going to be impacted by them. But the people that I've impacted may have never been impacted because I decided to say no to God.
Somebody else never gets that chance. They never get a chance to say yes to God because [00:17:00] I never did. And that's, yeah, that's torturous to think about.
Isaac: And it's cool to think about, like you said, God ordains the ends. Right? Like that canvas, that big picture. And he also ordains the means by which he accomplishes those ends.
You know, so Ephesians 1. 11, he works all things according to the counsel of his will. Like, those choices that you mentioned that we make are not surprising to God. He's taken aback by those, right? He has ordained those as well. And it's cool to think about how he works all those little details together.
To accomplish his plan.
Lucas: Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, there's nothing that me and you can do or say to stop Christ coming back. But there is stuff that we can do to have his kingdom be a little bit bigger. Have it be expanded a little bit more. Just because we decided to do something.
Yeah. Because we did something about it, we can change, or we can impact, the size of his kingdom or how many [00:18:00] people get to know him and enjoy that eternal life with him. So yeah, like this again and again, I mean, I've mentioned this, before, but like, one of my biggest, my biggest fear is like, if I had this friend or a teammate, let's call it Find a teammate and They never, no one ever really called, no one ever invited them to church or a youth group or to talk about Jesus.
More than once, right? Because, people couldn't say no once, but like, eventually, who knows? Maybe they say yes. Maybe they're in a good mood or they just get annoyed and say yeah, whatever. My biggest fear is Jesus comes back. We're all standing before him, you know, to be judged.
And, you know, I'm saved, I'm going to heaven, right? I have a relationship with Christ, I'm going, but my buddy, or my teammate, I never told him about, like, I knew it was going to happen, I knew it was just going to come back, I knew how history [00:19:00] ends, but I never told my teammate, or invited him to anything, or tried to let him know, hey, this is how history ends, and him look at me before, he's eternally separated from God, and be like, you knew this was going to happen, You knew this is how history is.
You knew that this was the truth. You knew that in order for me to have eternal life, I had to have a relationship with Christ and accept him, and accept him as my Lord and Savior. You knew that and you didn't tell me. Never once did you say you didn't even invite me to church or talk about it. I barely even knew that you were a Christian.
That's a nightmare. Yeah, because if I had said something, maybe he would have that eternal life. Maybe
Isaac: it's a sobering thought.
Isaac: It's a good thing to all of us.
Lucas: Yes That's that's my thing and that's what I want people to really think sit and think about, Got a lot of passive christians Christians that won't speak about their [00:20:00] faith because they're afraid of, maybe my best friend may not like me anymore or my girlfriend may leave me or vice versa, right?
Maybe, if you're a girl, my boyfriend may leave me, whatever the case is, relationships with people will be broken. Well, I mean, what's more important? You having a relationship with people just for them to be eternally separated or hey, I broke this relationship, but I tried my best for them to see and have that relationship with Christ so that they may be transformed by him to have that eternal life.
And just the thought of like, whenever I'm preaching a sermon or even doing something like this, I'm like, if somebody out there, if somebody can listen and be like, Hey, maybe I should give this a thought, or maybe the Holy Spirit speaks me and speaks through me in some way. That somebody's like, maybe I should go to church.
Maybe I should see this thing out. If I can, if I [00:21:00] can just, just that maybe, that potential, I can make an impact. And inspire somebody else to really pick up their cross and follow Jesus and, maybe be transformed by Him and gain that eternal life. That excites me. Like that sense of, I don't even, it doesn't have to be a guarantee.
It's a maybe, but that maybe's enough. It should be enough. We don't have power to save, but we have the power to inspire. Yeah. We have the capability of letting the Holy Spirit flow through us so that we can impact people. And really that's how we are how the message gets out.
Isaac: Yeah.
Yeah, make sure they have romans 10 No, how they believe they have not heard How will they hear if no one preaches to them?
Lucas: I mean somebody inspired me. I didn't just wake up, as a kid. I was 10 years I was like it was the year I turned 10. I was a couple months before I turned 10 when I was made that decision
and I didn't [00:22:00] just all of a sudden, wake up, almost 10 years old, like, you know what? God's a pretty cool guy. Maybe I should, give my life to him. No, somebody had to tell me. Somebody had to inspire me. Right? And, and like living their life the way that they did.
And the way that they helped me and touched me and mentored me made me want to to be like that and to follow that. Maybe, I was like, there's something to this. I want to be like him.
If I want to be like him, what does he do? What does he believe in? And then I saw that and then it transformed me in my heart. I was like, oh, it's pretty cool. So the thought of I can do something like that for somebody else. It's just, it's pretty cool.
Isaac: Yeah, the gospel met us on its way to someone else.
Lucas: Yes, it did. Yes, it did. It's it moves through people You got a little yeah, we got a little sidetrack from daniel there, but that's I think that's a good sidetrack
but you know, back to Daniel, there was a certain language in those first couple chapters that we really hung on [00:23:00] to. Yeah. And I loved, I gave a sermon back in, in October, if you remember. You were there. And I, I brought this up because it's such an important piece, not just for the situation that I was talking about or preaching about, but also just my daily life.
Like the good, the bad, the ugly, the external factors, like what language did we find in those first couple of chapters that can really, provide that, that knowledge?
Isaac: Yeah. Yeah. There are a couple of verses in chapter one that have really, really interesting language that you mentioned. There's three, three verses, verse two, verse nine to verse 17.
They all use some form of the phrase. God gave or the Lord gave.
Lucas: What's it giving?
Isaac: It's interesting because it's different things, right? Sometimes it's Seemingly contradictory things. Mm-hmm . Right. But the first one, verse two says, the Lord gave Johoiakim [00:24:00] King of Judah into his nebuchadnezzar's hand.
So mm-hmm .
Lucas: So Jo, it's like, so that Johoiakim was Judahs, Southern Israel of Israel, Southern tribe of Israel, Judah is what they call their last king.
Isaac: Yep.
Lucas: And the Nez King to Babylon that came in concrete.
Isaac: Yep. So you're like, wait a second. So you're telling me that.
Again, it goes back to that conversation, free will, kind of man's responsibility to God's, sovereignty. So, Nebuchadnezzar, in his power, made a choice to go invade Jerusalem, to, destroy the nation, bring people back. But then we remember in that verse in Deuteronomy, like, God promised he would scatter Israel, right?
He would scatter Israel, not Nebuchadnezzar would come in and scatter Israel. He would scatter Israel. So it is the Lord that gave, ultimately, yes, there was a battle, yes, there was conflict, there was a scattering, but ultimately it was God who [00:25:00] did that by His hand, right? So that's verse 2, that He gave joy and came into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.
But then we read that same phrase in verse 9, when God gives Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs. So this is after, in chapter one, the young men are brought over from Israel, the best of the best, right? And they are basically hoping to indoctrinate them in Babylon.
So that means they have a new name. They are kind of indoctrinated into the learning of the Babylonians. They eat the king's food, right? It wasn't kind of indoctrination by oppression. It was indoctrination by like, Hey, here's a really good life for you. And here's how we're going to kind of indoctrinate you, which I think would be a lot easier to get into if you or I were in that, in that spot.
But anyway, [00:26:00] Daniel says in verse eight, he resolved that he would not defile himself. So he said, no, I'm good. I'm not going to allow myself to be indoctrinated. And it says that God gave Daniel favor. So that's a really positive thing that God gave, right? Coming right after a really negative thing that God gave.
Lucas: It's, I think it's a little philosophical of Like we mentioned earlier free will I choose an action But a consequence is a pre death. It's like that's predestined like if you if I choose to rebel against god bad things are almost destined to happen like something on some level of like Israel disobeyed God, had bad kings that led them in bad ways.
Consequence was, hey, God gave them over to Nebuchadnezzar, gave them into, exile. But here we see Daniel, he's obeying God, he's standing with God, regardless of his circumstances, regardless of what his new king is telling him [00:27:00] to do. And now God is giving favor. Like, God gives it's like a, we're getting what we put out.
So Daniel's putting out, obedience with God and God is giving him back favor where, the entirety of Israel, chose to rebel against God, they put that bad stuff out there, in return, God gave them to exile.
Isaac: Yeah. And it makes you think like, I guess.
When you think about this idea of God gave and God's sovereignty, in the context of this passage or this chapter in Daniel 1 or even in the context of Daniel, like, okay, so the question is like, are you saying the same reason why the Israelites are in exile is the same reason why things are going really well for Daniel?
Because the answer would be, well, we just talked about like God gave.
The reason [00:28:00] that everything is going well for Daniel and his friends right now is the same reason that they're in exile, which is just mind boggling, right? And that doesn't make us feel great all the time, right? Because it, when things are going well for us, we can easily attribute that to God, right?
Like, when things are going poorly for us. It really makes us question God, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? How's this fit into your plan for me? Right? Which is what they were probably thinking, but they remain faithful, even in the midst of all that. And it just goes to show that the God is in control, right?
We are ultimately in control of nothing. God is in control and he is painting this, this picture that you talked about that they have no idea about at this moment, but that doesn't prevent them from being faithful. It doesn't take their focus away from the Lord, and they continue to obey, and they continue to trust, right?
They trust that God is painting this picture. They don't know what it looks like yet, [00:29:00] but they're faithful to obey. And so that was really, that stuck out to me that, the same reason why everything was going really well for them after they decided to obey in chapter one is the same reason why they were in exile in the first place.
Yeah.
Lucas: I really liked, you touched on, I think is the core principle of Daniel, faith. So that faithfulness, especially coming from Daniel, but also from his three friends, Shadrach, I can't remember how to pronounce their names.
Isaac: Yeah, Meshach.
Lucas: Yeah, Meshach, and I don't know how to pronounce Abednego.
Yeah,
Isaac: he's the fun one.
Lucas: Yeah, he's, yeah, he's the fun one to say. But with Daniel starting out, Hey, I'm not going to eat your food because I have such faith in being as the God, the three friends, Hey, I have such faith in God, I'm willing to be thrown into the hottest furnace for him, like the guards that threw them in.
The fire was so blazing that the soldiers that threw him into the fire are close enough that they got swallowed up by the flames. We had the three [00:30:00] friends. were fine. Like they didn't even come out smelling like smoke.
Yeah. Like, the angel of the Lord was, right there with them in the fire, kept them safe, they're fine. Where even just outside of the fire itself, people were getting burned, swallowed in the fire. It's amazing. Yeah. And then again, later on, lion's den.
It's like such faith in God, he kept the mouths of the lion shut. Through the night. And he survived. And I mean, this was at the course of, decades of, Daniel's what his early twenties when he was in exile and at first with the food, and we talked about this last week, the lion's den, then he was in his eighties mm-hmm
Which I, that blew my mind that Daniel was still in his eighties when, when the lion's den happened. Throughout his entire life and throughout this entire book, there's a level of faith here with interpreting the dreams and Daniel staying faithful to God in the midst of such adversity is what granted him such favor, [00:31:00] such protection from the circumstances he was in.
He won in Babylon success and the kingdom, eventually bleeding into Persian too, like where the country that he existed, he wanted their success because well, he lived there. You ever watched guardians of the galaxy and you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a rocket.
It's like, the universe is there nothing but bad and you cruel. Like, why would you want to save it? And then, you know, Peter Quill goes, cause I'm one of the idiots who lives in it. Right. Cause I'm here. I'm right here. It's like I'm like I live in it. Of course, I wanted to be safe.
So, of course, Daniel should want to succeed. He should want to prosper. He lives there. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if it's erased, then his entire home is, it's gone. He is no better than when he was first conquered.
Isaac: Yeah. And that. That one, like you said, a lot of themes in daily can take away God's sovereignty.
We kind talked about that one. Mm-hmm . Prayer is another one we see [00:32:00] in a few examples. Yeah. But hone in on that one of faith and faithfulness, specifically in chapter one, chapter three and chapter six, we kind of see this pattern or this kind of thread of, okay, God's promise that that always is on the forefront of Daniel's mind.
Mm-hmm . God's promise. Daniel's faith, his faithful obedience. And then like a supernatural blessing, right? So in chapter one, right, we talked about it and they're trying to indoctrinate them. And, they're forced to eat the king's food, which was unclean, right? And so it would be a sin for Daniel to eat the king's food.
And he remained faithful, which we talked about, could be easy for him not to, well, God's plan is not going to happen, and no one will even know, like, no, all the people that know me are back in Israel, like, they, they won't even know that I'm eating this food, right? What's the harm, right? But he [00:33:00] knew it was wrong, so he didn't do it, right?
And then, so we see his faith in the Lord and his promise, he obeys. And then it says in chapter one, in verse 15, at the end of 10 days, so this was Daniel only eating, we talked about the Daniel diet or whatever, only vegetables, right? After the end of 10 days, it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh.
And everyone who ate the king's food that there's nothing natural about there's nothing
Lucas: saying no. I mean, I think of, I got a friend that, he's done the carnivore diet a little bit. Right. And I also, I've known people and seen people that are on a vegetarian diet.
I'm like, My buddy looks way healthier. He, I mean, he's, pretty built kind of guy. Vegetarians are a little, lean. Yeah, we'll call it.
Isaac: That's good.
Lucas: And yeah, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm a more protein meat kind of guy myself.
Isaac: [00:34:00] It's not, it's not going to be fat or flush.
Lucas: Yeah, no, I'm definitely not going to gain, to get gains by just eating my vegetables after a workout.
Isaac: They're supposed to be great.
Lucas: They're supposed to be great, absolutely. I mean, I'm trying to lose weight right now, so I can use some vegetables. But if I'm trying to appear better and look better, I'm going to think about getting my protein in even before my vegetables. But right here,
Isaac: supernatural is the only explanation for it.
Yes. It's that,
Lucas: it's that God giving his favor.
Isaac: Amen. Yep. So chapter one, chapter three, similar, right? This is not Daniel, but it's three friends. They have such faith in God that when Nebuchadnezzar Issues a decree and says if you do not bow down to, to the statue that I've erected of myself, then you will be thrown into fire first, as you mentioned.
Yep. Again, you could use the logic. Well, this is a dumb statue. Like we know it's not actually, [00:35:00] and like, it's not actually God. We're not actually bowing down. Again, people that know us, they won't know this, that we did this. If we do this, then we'll stay alive.
And God wants it to be useful to him, right? And how can we be useful to God if we're dead? Right? All those And we have these thoughts every day. When we rationalize our sin, come up with reasons for doing it. That's really easy. Would have been really easy for them to say. But no, they said this would be wrong to bow down to a statue that is not the Lord.
And so we're not going to do it even if that means Hey, we're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace and obviously as you mentioned they were saved So you see the theme of trusting in god's promise obedience and supernatural you know blessing or favor. Yeah, obviously being safe from fires. It's supernatural Yeah, there's no no explanation for that but supernatural.
Yeah and then real quick in chapter six, you also mentioned it kind of similar thing. Now, this is a different king. This is [00:36:00] Belshazzar, similar kind of idea is, he issues a decree, that says if you pray to any god other than me for 30 days, then you'll be thrown into the lion's den.
So similar kind of thing. Now this is, this is back to Daniel, right? Daniel's in this situation again. And like you said, he's in his old age and he's just doing his thing, right? But he trusts God, right? He trusts God's promise. It says in chapter six that he went up to his house. where windows were open toward Jerusalem, and he got on his knees and prayed three times a day, as he had done previously.
He knew this edict had come down, he knew that people were looking for him, right? Think about the rationalizations he could have made. Well, maybe I'll close my windows, or yeah, maybe I'll still pray three times a day, but I'll go to a
Once 30 days like I can just take a break, and I'll get back to it, you know again He doesn't he knows it is He had a consistent pattern of prayer. [00:37:00] That was an example of his faith and trust in the Lord and he wasn't gonna stop Mm hmm And so he didn't didn't care what the consequence or he knew that either God would deliver him from the lion's den or deliver him through lion's den
mm hmm. And so we see trust faithful obedience and You Supernatural blessing that God saves Daniel from the lens. And we talked about, maybe when he was in his twenties, we could have given him a shot to maybe, fight for himself a little bit and get out of there in his own strength. But the dude's an old man now, so that's not, no, he's not an explanation.
No, he's not. So, so, yeah, like you said, the theme of faith and faithfulness. We see that pattern consistently, and there's other examples of it throughout Daniel as well, but Chapter 1, Chapter 3, and Chapter 6, we see trust in God's promise, even though God's promise at the time does not look like it's going to be fulfilled in any way.
Daniel still trusts in it, right? And as a result, he obeys God, and then there's a [00:38:00] supernatural blessing, or favor, or rescue that God, that God gives. So, it's just Pretty cool.
Lucas: Mm
Isaac: hmm. Pretty cool. So, yeah, those themes, suck God's hammer and chalice, like we talked about. Prayer is another one, but faith, faithfulness is a big one too.
Lucas: Absolutely. Yeah. That's really that reoccurring theme about Daniel's life. That obedience and that faith. And at any moment, God, I mean, God doesn't have to do anything. Let's be real. Yeah. God doesn't have to do anything. He's not obligated to. You know, whether it be with the furnace thing, whether it be with the lions den, God doesn't have to save you, right?
He doesn't have to. I mean, He did. Grateful that He did. But we also know that God, I can't think of a better word for this, but God obeys his own covenant.
Isaac: Yeah.
Lucas: His nature is his nature. This nature of God. It's, I will reward you if you're faithful. He [00:39:00] chooses to do that because it's in this nature. But theoretically, there's plenty of people out there who has such, who had that kind of faith and weren't so lucky. We see it all the time in the New Testament, martyrs. You know, we had the first martyr was a guy named Stephan.
And we see that almost each of the twelve disciples were killed in some way, murdered. I think the best that one got was an exile to a remote island. That was the best case scenario. Peter got crucified upside down, and so that level of like this, it's a crazy faith. And, you know, Daniel and his friends, when they were faithful, God, we're lucky enough to be saved, but Peter and the disciples and, you know, Stefan and a bunch of other people, even in the world today, in a foreign country, they don't get that, they don't get that same treatment.
You think, why? Like, why did God think you changed? Like, no, it must've been better for the plan. In some way, and I don't know how, like, I really don't, if it was up to me, I'd been like, Hey, if you have that [00:40:00] kind of deep faith mm-hmm . That kind of deep like obedience to me, I'll save you.
Yeah. Like, I'll help you out. I'll send an angel, I'll do something, but there's also a reason I'm not God. Mm-hmm . There's a good reason Right. Whatever his reasoning is for that. It's beyond my reasoning and, I'm probably the better for it. Yeah. The world's probably the better for it.
Isaac: Yeah, that is a great point because I think the Bible is very, very clear and it's, and it's consistent throughout that God does bless obedience and faithfulness. However, that doesn't always look like Maybe how we would want it to be, right? His definition of blessing or his definition of good for us is not always our definition of blessing or what is good.
And you mentioned those examples also in Hebrews chapter 11, which is the hall of faith, kind of commending all these people for their faith. At the end, there's a bunch of verses talking about, Kind of all [00:41:00] these people doing these amazing supernatural things with God's strength, and then the very next passage Talks about all these people that were were killed and tortured and slaughtered Like wait, wait a second.
Like I thought this is the chapter talking about like how great faith these people have it is right?
Lucas: Mm
Isaac: hmm, but it makes me think about how yes. God does bless obedience and bless faith But sometimes the blessing is he's going to take that person home to be with him. Yeah, yeah. You know, like Philippians 1, Paul says to live as Christ, die as gain.
Yes. Which is a crazy statement. Like, I wish I could get to that point where I have enough faith that if I die right now, lose everything in this life that I love and probably hold on to too much. And I can't face the face of Christ. Yeah. Can I look at him and say gain? Like, yeah, like this is this, what I am, what I'm experiencing right now in your presence is gain is better than the life that I had on earth.
And that's what Paul said. He said, it'd be [00:42:00] better for him to die. Like
Lucas: he'll wipe away every tear.
Isaac: Yeah. Right. Right. Every like, you talk about a blessing. Yeah. I'll talk about a reward for obedience. Like that is greater than any earthly kind of reward or prosperity that we could experience here. Yes.
And so I think that's really important to remember. Like Sometimes that's how God defines blessing is by, Hey, I'm going to take my servant, my faithful servant home and rescue him from all of the pain and suffering and affliction that this world
Lucas: is in this world. Yeah. He has given us enough evidence.
And, Daniel and that this story is part of that evidence. He's given us enough evidence to like, Hey, this is a real, like, this is real stuff right here. I'm real. I'm here. This is what I'm about. Right. But. He doesn't need everyone to be evidence because I mean, again, through this book, we have so much and through even just beyond this book in history, we have so much evidence, but you [00:43:00] know, like you said, Hey, if somebody doesn't need to be evidence that they have something better.
They get to never feel that pain again. They get to, have that happiness and that true fulfillment that we can't fully have here. Whatever contentment, fulfillment that we have here through doing whatever, like, whatever machines in life. Our happiest day, our happiest moment on earth, through our entire lives.
Is nothing in comparison to the worst moment you'll experience in heaven once you once you get to heaven It's peak all the time, right that kind of deal so really it is like You think, man, they died so horribly, think about what they're going with right now.
I mean, better than any of us, I'll tell you that much. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like it's way better. I remember reading that for the first time, several years ago. My classmates didn't, you know, didn't understand, right? I was trying to tell them about it and they're like, are you suicidal? Like, do we need to check in on you?
I'm like, no, I like, I love [00:44:00] life. I enjoy it. I'm glad I'm here. I'm still glad I'm here. I'm really glad I'm here. But if all of a sudden God was like, you know what? I want you to come home. I'm cool with that. I'm all right. Like, when I think about it, I'm like, yeah, I'm, I miss my mom, my girlfriend, my dad, whatever.
I'm like, wait, I mean, maybe, but if God wipes away tear, maybe, maybe not. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm gonna see him again one day, even if I do feel that. So, this feeling of like, I'm gonna miss you. It's, it's very worldly. feeling. We can't imagine being away from somebody and not like from somebody that you're that close with and not missing them.
We can't imagine that, but there it's, that's, that's the reality of the situation. Right. That's really good.
Isaac: Yeah. Sometimes I,
You know, Lord, Lord, come please quickly, but wait, but wait until I do this or get this experience or get to this point in my life, then it'll be good. Then you can come, you know, yeah,
Lucas: no, [00:45:00] I hear you there. I mean, I'm 20. I have a lot more life to live. There's a lot. There's a lot of other things I would like to do before that day comes.
Sometimes you on the golf course and have a bad day. Hey, are you here? Sometimes I have a bad day. I'm like, Hey, are you here yet? But there's just a mix of that. No matter which point of view you look at it from there, there's always a lot of gray, you know, that's good and bad.
You're both grateful. That's not here yet and wondering at the same time. Yeah. So it's a lot of a lot, but. As we wrap up, title of this podcast, Living For His Glory. That's what we're trying to do here. There's so much information, knowledge out there, and I'm learning about it on a firsthand basis, the college experience, formal education, but what we really want to do is like, you know, this is a, we're living life here.
We're not learning about how to do something. We're trying to do it. We're trying to apply this. We want our lives to be like this, like something it's cool to [00:46:00] learn about Daniel and think about all these different intricate things, theologies and philosophies and whatever else. But what we really want to do here, target is how do we live?
Like, how do we do that? What kind of things and what kind of mentalities do we have to adopt and what, even what actions, I don't know. We're not saved by works, but our works are a reflection of our faith. So what kind of things do we need to do or think about or implement into our belief systems and core values that can really take all the good I'm talking about right now and live our lives through that.
Yeah. So in short, that's my question. How do we take everything we talked about this last, almost hour and implement that in our lives.
Isaac: Yep. Yeah, it's a great question. And I think One thing that we talked about when looking at Daniel was this phrase that we hear a lot is dare to be a Daniel, right, like, look at the way [00:47:00] that he obeyed, the way he prayed, the way that he trusted God, like, dare to be Daniel.
Lucas: His fearlessness.
Isaac: Yeah, right, many attributes that we see. But there's only, there's a problem with that, unfortunately, and that is that there's only one reason that Daniel exemplified those things. Right. It was because he had a faith in his God, the God of Daniel, the God of Abraham Musk and Jacob, our God.
Right? And so I think for us, when we think about how to apply this to our life, we don't want to think, dare to be a Daniel. We want to think dare to have the same faith in the same guy that Daniel did. Because I think the danger in that thinking is. We read the Book of Daniel, and we try to put ourselves in Daniel's shoes, or we try to kind of, we relate to Daniel.
Whereas, if we actually are honest with ourselves when we read the Book of Daniel, we probably relate to some of the other characters a lot more. When you look at [00:48:00] Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, kings that are full of Pride. Yeah. And kings that are putting, you know, for his glory, they're trying to put their own worth and beauty on display, their own glory, right?
Not, not God's glory. And they're living in a way that, again, even when we think about not compromising the ways that Daniel and his friends didn't compromise, or we talked about how much we rationalize our sin. If we really were honest with ourselves. Like, I would like to hope that I would not eat the king's food, like, I would really like to hope that I wouldn't bow down or pray, to Belshazzar or whatever.
But I know how, in my flesh, like, if I'm not living by the spirit, I'm not abiding in him, like, that's what I do. And that's the danger of saying there to be a Daniel. Because, When we're honest with ourselves, we probably actually relate more to some other characters in the story. Yeah. And so, it's there to have the big faith that Daniel had in [00:49:00] the same God.
And so, practically, like, what does that look like? Well, there's a lot of, there are a lot of principles that we can kind of take away to think about. We talked about God's sovereignty, right? Well, in your life, we are obviously going to walk through things that are really hard, and that seem confusing.
It seems like God is distant, or he's abandoned his promise, or he's abandoned us. But if God says it, he will do it. And so, no matter what your circumstances in life are, no matter what season you're walking through, no matter what you're experiencing, like, trust God. Yeah. Trust God that he, Has you right exactly where he wants you.
That he's up to something in your life. Chances are you're probably not going to see what it is. Maybe you never will. Maybe you will. Maybe you can look back in a few years, but you may never be able to do that.
Lucas: I don't believe we ever fully see the full benefits of what we saw. I don't, I don't think we, there's somebody out there.
That in some way was impacted by me and i'll never know and like there's probably [00:50:00] more than just the one.
Isaac: Yeah and it's I mean, we're finite in that way. We can't see what god is doing but We can trust in what he has done for us in the past. We can look back when we're tempted to despair when we're tempted to not trust god not obey just look back on your life Look back on how god's been faithful to read god's word and see how he's been faithful to his people for generations And let that be the motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other and do the next right thing to trust God.
And if you do that, I believe that you will see blessing in your life. And again, that may not look like how you would want it to, but God's going to, he's doing something. Yeah. And you mentioned Daniel's, Daniel's faith in his action, like true faith, true obedience. Like it, there's an element of action to it, right?
It's not just. Kind of, kind of hope and pray and sit back on the couch and wait like he took action and it led to a faithful obedience, right? So what are the things that God is calling you [00:51:00] to obey Him in? What are the things that He, in His Word, is laying out for us, asking us to do, and are we being obedient to that?
And Yeah, I think, practically, as we wrap up, like the biggest thing that I take away from Daniel is just God is sovereign over everything. And how does that affect my life? Well, I can trust in him in moments of confusion, moments of pain and hurt and suffering. Knowing that he's got me, he sees me and he's doing something far more abundantly than all I could ask or imagine.
And he's asking me to trust him and to obey him. You know that old hymn, trust and obey, for there is no other way, right? No other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. And it's true. There's joy in obedience. There's joy in peace and obedience. And so, again, I just go back to that theme that we see throughout Daniel.
I trust in the faith in God's promise that leads to obedience and faithfulness. [00:52:00] And the result of that is a supernatural, supernatural blessing. Understanding that that blessing is how God defines it, right? So, there's a lot, again, a podcast and one episode of a podcast, not enough to go through all the themes and Daniel on, and there are many more that we can talk about, but, as a whole, it's cool to see how this story fits into God's redemptive story for his people, when it looked like things were bleak and God was not going to fulfill his promise.
He did because that's who God is. And if he says that he will do it. So, yeah. God is sovereign. And, you talked about how we practically apply this. I love, I heard this recently, a line that says, who God is and what he has done informs us about who we are and what we are to do.
Absolutely. So yeah. Okay, Daniels, I encourage you to read and jump in.
Lucas: It's a really good one. It's a really good one.
Well, Isaac, I really appreciate you coming on. We had a [00:53:00] great conversation. Just as great as our normal conversations. Yeah, when the camera isn't on. Yeah, there's really nothing different.
That's my favorite thing about the podcast. It's like, I'm not, I'm not putting on a show. I mean, you're not putting on a show. We're just talking. It's a conversation. There just happens to be a camera and a microphone. Right. That's it. Right. That's the only difference. I mean, like an athlete, you're doing the same thing, whether it's by yourself or in front of millions.
But, yeah, really appreciate you coming on and being here and, hope to have you again someday, you know, someday in the future, but in terms of me and you, we're going to keep doing our thing weekly and keep growing together.
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Living for His Glory podcast. I hope you gained some terrific insights and knowledge about God's character and how we can live for his glory. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you can get every new episode as we continue to make deep dives as to how to live [00:54:00] for his glory.
Thank you. And I hope you have an amazing day.
