A Generation of Tragedy

Posted on April 22, 2007

Daniel 1:1-6, 17-21

NATIONAL TRAGEDIES… 

• April 19, 1993, Waco, Texas – On February 28, 1993, a 51-day siege by the FBI ended on April 19 when fire completely consumed the complex, killing 79 people.
• April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols carried out their plot to bomb the Federal Courthouse, killing 168.
• Dec. 1, 1997, West Paducah, Kentucky - Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.
• March 24, 1998, Jonesboro, Arkansas - Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods.
• April 20, 1999, Littleton, Colorado - 14 students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation’s deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.
• March 5, 2001, Santee, California - Two killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a bathroom at Santana High School.
• September 11, 2001, America – Planes crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, another into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and still another into a field in Pennsylvania. This act of terrorism not only killed over 3,000 people, but changed the face of America forever.
• August 29, 2005, the Gulf Coast of America – Hurricane Katrina made landfall as one of the strongest hurricanes on record for the Gulf of Mexico. Over 1,800 people died and the devastation remains today.
• Oct. 3, 2006, Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania - 32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.
• April 16, 2007, Blacksburg, Virginia - A 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm, then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.
  

This is a limited selection of major tragedies that have unfolded on major news networks. This list omits the tragedy of lives lost in war as well as international tragedies such as the tsunami that killed over 200,000 people just a few years ago.

Is this generation the generation of tragedy? It may be that every era of human history has produced it’s massive tragedies, but this is the first generation in which the world, and even our children, watch such tragedies unfold before our very eyes. 

Yet a phenomenal thing is occurring in our present up-and-coming generation. At last year’s SOAR (Sold Out and Radical), the BMAA’s annual youth conference, a plea was made for students who wished to go on short-term mission trips and endure boot camp over the summer. The leaders, who had prepared for about 75 students, were overwhelmed with almost 400! Another plea was made for students who would risk their lives to study in China as undercover missionaries. Thirty showed up! They had to turn kids away.

When judgment is falling and humanity is at its worst, teenagers and college students today can easily be labeled the “extreme challenge generation.” What makes the difference for those who risk all? 

DANIEL’S LIFE…

Daniel was born in 625 b.c. of royal descent (Dan. 1:3), the very same year that the Babylonian empire was established. Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar and viceroy over the Babylonian region of the Assyrian empire, rebelled against the weakly king Ashurbanipal in the first year of his reign. Daniel’s life began with the Babylonian empire and extended just past its demise. 

Daniel saw the demise of Nineveh as the Assyrian capital in 612 b.c. I was about Daniel’s age when I came home from school one day and saw on television the images of Baghdad, Iraq being bombed at the beginning of the first Gulf War. It was a life-altering day for me, as it was for Daniel as he heard of the destruction of one of the world’s most powerful cities.

Daniel also saw national revival under King Josiah. Josiah had begun to rule over Judah at age 8 and committed his heart to the Lord at about 15 or 16. He commanded the re-building of Israel’s temple, which produced the discovery of the ancient scrolls containing the Law of God. From the discovery and re-publishing of God’s Word came one of the greatest national revivals in history. 

Daniel would have been about 16 when Josiah died at the hands of Pharaoh-Necho, who was on his way to assist the Assyrians in battle. Josiah’s major mistake of interfering with God’s plans cost him his life and the nation quickly disintegrated spiritually into gross idolatry and immorality. Daniel’s spiritual convictions and fortitude were formed under Josiah’s reign. He grew up in an essentially Christian home and carried his faith to Babylon, along with Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah.

In 605 b.c., the first deportation of Israelites to Babylon took place. Then in 598 a second deportation took place which included King Jehoiachin and the prophet Ezekiel. Finally, in 587, a one and a half year siege against Jerusalem ended when the Babylonians broke through the walls of the city of Jerusalem. They murdered masses of people and destroyed the wall, the temple, and all of the buildings and houses of the land. Jeremiah was allowed to remain as the prophet to the poverty-stricken people of Jerusalem, but Daniel and his three friends were deported. Daniel was approximately 38 when this took place. 

FACING AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE WITH BOLD CONFIDENCE…

Living at the center of God’s will. 

Daniel’s generation was not only a tragedy generation, it was a revival generation. In the midst of sieges and captivities was the reign of Josiah, the re-elevation of the Law of God, the reinstitution of Temple worship and the abolishing of idolatry, if but for a short time. Daniel and the three Hebrew children lived at the center of God’s will. They took multiple stands that sent the message, “I’d rather die in the center of God’s will than live anywhere else!”

Living in pursuit of the presence and glory of God. 

Verse 17 is telling. It speaks of the worship-life of Daniel, who constantly saw visions and revelations from God. His book is a parallel to the revelation. Daniel was given insight into God’s mind and plan for all of the Gentile nations for all of future history. But more than mere predictive prophecy, Daniel wrote a book about worship and about the glory of God. Death for the true worshipper merely becomes a final step into His eternal presence and glory!

Living for an eternal and heavenly purpose. 

Death is often meaningless. Sometimes it isn’t the fact that people died that upsets us, rather that their deaths seem so vain and senseless. But a revival generation lives for the purpose of pursuing the lost and bringing them into the enjoyment of the glory of God. Our deaths can mean something only when we have lived to the end for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Your willingness to die for Christ is most likely not at stake this morning. But are you willing to live for Him? Can you “carry about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus?” And are you ready for death? Can you face it with certainty through a relationship with Jesus Christ?