“Gone Too Far, pt. 2” – FBC Morning Light (11/24/2023)

Well, good Friday morning. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving day yesterday, and that you're not too overstuffed this morning, just kind of lazing around because you have no energy because you ate too much yesterday.

I hope that's not the case. I hope you had a good day, and especially we're able to express some gratitude for some things. Today, in our Bible reading plan, we're reading Daniel chapters 5 and 6, and 1 John chapter 5, and one of the things I'm thankful for is brought out here in 1 John 5, when John says, this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.

In other words, this is how we love God, we keep his commandments. But then he says this, and his commandments are not burdensome. I'm grateful that my faith, my Christianity, my Christian faith, is a faith that has commands that are not a burden to obey, but instead, they are really a delight to obey, especially when I understand that they are for my good and for God's glory.

I think, for example, by way of contrast, some maybe cult religions that have a whole long list of do's and don'ts, and certain restrictions and requirements, and you have to eat this, and you can't eat that, and you can't have your picture taken, and you can't celebrate birthdays, and you can't do this, and you can't do that, and all this kind of stuff.

So much of those things are just...it's a burden to maintain the meticulous attention to all those details, and there doesn't really seem to be any real benefit to it all. But when you look back at God's commands, like the Ten Commandments, and particularly the second table of the law, if you will, those commandments that have to do with our relationship with other people, we could focus on the relationship with God, too, but the relationship with other people...honor your mother and your father, and that's attended with a promise that your days may be long upon the earth.

It is for your benefit and blessing to give honor and respect to your parents. Don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't commit murder, don't commit adultery, don't covet. If you think about that, obeying those commands are not a chore, they're not a pain, they're actually a delight, because we know if we obey, if we live according to those commands in the second part of the Decalogue, life will be so much better for everybody.

It's not burdensome to obey those things. Those are just a few examples of that. But what I want to do is go to our text in Daniel chapter 6. We read Daniel 5 and 6 for our Scripture reading today, because the reason I want to focus on this is because yesterday I mentioned that one of the ways government overreaches its authority is when it establishes religion and tells people whom they have to worship, what they have to worship, how to worship, when to worship, and so forth.

It can be any one of those aspects of it. In other words, the government may say, you can worship the God you choose, but you can only worship him on Mondays, or you can worship the God you choose, but you can't engage in any kind of public worship that is on display for all the world to see.

You can't do that, no. That was the problem with this statue, this golden statue that Nebuchadnezzar set up. He was telling people what to worship, when, how, and so forth. That's one example of government overreach.

He pointed out Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were justified, they were right, and served a good example to us to say no to that kind of government overreach. It's interesting that the two most famous stories in the book of Daniel have to do with this very subject, this very issue of the institution of government overstepping its authority.

The three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace is one example when the government tries to establish religion and tell you how you have to worship and whom. The other famous story is Daniel in the lion's den.

Here's another example of the institution of government overstepping its authority, but this time telling you that you can't worship in a certain way, prohibiting you from or restricting your worship.

The enemies of Daniel concocted this plan that they would get the king to establish a law that no one for the next month could pray to anybody, any god, other than the king. Appealed to the king's ego, signed off on that thing, and there was no turning around that law.

It's established. The problem is Daniel had this daily practice of worshiping the Lord by going up to his upper room, opening the windows, facing towards Jerusalem, and praying to the Lord. What's he going to do?

The government has issued a law that says you can't worship in this way. What's he going to do? He did the right thing. He went home, went up to his room, opened the windows just like he did every other day, and prayed.

The consequence of that action was to be thrown in a den of lions and to be killed. But he said, so be it. The government is not going to tell me how to worship. It's not going to prohibit me or restrict me in the worship that I believe God would have me to do.

That carries over into the 21st century. Governments all over this world are guilty of these two kinds of overreach, what we saw in chapter 3 and what we see here in chapter 6. There are governments that have absolutely outlawed Christianity altogether and prohibited them from even existing, prohibiting Christians from even really existing publicly or acknowledging that they're Christians.

You can't do it in some countries. We've experienced some of this in our own country in the last couple of years, with the whole COVID thing. Governments all over the United States were telling churches, you can't gather together in public places and worship.

You can't do this. You can worship in your own heart, you can worship in your own homes, and you can worship over television and all that kind of stuff, but you can't gather together. Some states said, you can gather together, but you have to wear masks and you can't sing.

You can't have any public singing, and so on and so forth. I know there's differences of opinion about this thing, but the reality is what the government was doing was overstepping its authority by telling religion, by telling churches and telling Christians how they could worship, and they were prohibiting certain kinds of worship.

It's not really any different from what the king issued, the decree that the king issued in Daniel chapter 6. You can't worship for 30 days. You can only pray to the king. You can't pray to anybody else.

You can't worship other than through this way, other than this particular way. Daniel did the right thing. He said, no, I'm going to maintain my practice of worship. Went up to the upper room, opened a window, prayed, ended up in the lion's den.

But in the end, God honored Daniel's faithfulness, just as he honored the faithfulness of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I think these are a couple of principles to keep in mind, that the government has its place, it is an institution ordained by God, and it has its role and responsibilities to fulfill.

But it is not, the government is not over the church. Likewise, the church is not over the government. These are two separate spheres of authority and responsibility on this planet. Those of us who are in the church, we obey God in the way he tells us to worship, he prescribes us to worship.

If the government comes in and says, no, you have to worship this way, we say, no. If the government comes in and says, you can't worship that way, we say, no, we're going to obey God rather than men.

Important principles, as we don't know what's coming down the road, do we? Father in heaven, we do thank you today. Thank you once again for your wonderful law that you have established that is for our thriving as human beings, and I pray that it would be our joy to obey.

We thank you for giving it to us. Father, we also thank you for these challenging principles from your word. Help us to obey you rather than a government that would tell us not to worship you, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Have a great rest of your Friday, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Do, of course, plan to gather with God's people on the Lord's Day, and worship the Lord together in the way that he has directed us to worship.

Good day. God bless.