Daniel 8 Dare to Lament

Theological Proposition/Focus: God allows suffering in the world

Homiletical Proposition/Application: We are conditioned to get through suffering as fast as we can but sometimes there is value in embracing the suffering and the lament.

Introduction: Memory verse 1 Peter 5:7

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Text: Daniel 8:1-26 maybe read by someone else before the sermon, then Daniel 8:27 read by me starting the sermon

I want to start the sermon today by reading to you from Daniel 8:27. As I read I want you to reflect on Daniel's state. When have you felt this way? What circumstances brought you to that spot? Do you feel this way now?

I, Daniel, was worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. Then I got up and went about the king’s business. I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding. Daniel 8:27

Preview: As Christians we are often reminded that we need to have joy and this is true. However, we must also balance this with the reality that there are times when the proper response is lament.

At the end of Today's sermon I am going to dig a little more into Daniel chapter 8. But before I do I want to talk about lament. I want us to make sure that we have the proper tools to truly embrace this concept called lament.

There are times when life is brutal. There are times when circumstances are terrible. There are times when hope seems distant and there are times when the burden seems endless. What I want you to see is that there is a tool for times like this, the tool is called lament.

If you look you will see a world filled with pain and strife. You will see times when we don't know what to do. You will see circumstances that can only be solved by the God of the universe but you may find yourself lost wondering, when will God act?

I can remember times in my life when things were not going well and people would tell me. "You just need to get over it, God is good so be happy." But in reality, those sorts of words were meaningless. In my mind, I know God is good, but my heart hurts. How do we possibly move from the pain of life to worship of God? The path, is called lament. The road from suffering to worship is called lament. for the Christian, suffering provides us an opportunity to identify with Christ in his suffering. However, the process through which we get there is called lament. The outcome of suffering should be intimacy with God. Lament is a narrative structure that helps us scaffold distress to deal with it well. Some argue that as many as 40% of the Psalms are psalms of lament. Lament is an important construct in the life of a Christian but we often ignore it. Lament moves from struggle to trust. From a focus on self to a focus on God. Suffering without lament turns religion into a relationship of blind obedience to a distant god. Lament brings genuine relationship to our faith.

So, what is this thing we call lament? Let's look at Psalm 13:1-6.

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? 3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, 4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall. 5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. 6 I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.

Body

Lament begins by addressing God (Psalm 13:1a).

I want to first suggest to you an important reality.

Relationship matters to God.

Think about this for just a second. Your level of honesty with a person is directly proportional to your relationship with that person. If a recent acquaintance asks you how you are doing you probably would say "good" no matter how you felt. If you deacon asks you how you are doing, you might give a little more detail. If your spouse asks you how you are doing you hopefully give a lot more details. You can measure a great deal about relationship by the measure of honesty and transparency. God desires relationship with us.

In John 15:15 Jesus tells his disciples "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." Relationship matters to God and so much so that tGod does not view us as a slave but as a friend. Hence, in our suffering we can be honest and transparent with God. So, what is the point. Be honest with God. In fact, you can be more honest with God than you can with anyone else. Why, because God already knows your heart. You are not going to reveal a big bad sin, attitude, disposition, habit, etc. that God does not know about. You will not offend God by telling him how you really feel. God is not going to be surprised. God want relationship and relationships requires two-way communication. Hence, Lament begins with an address to God.

God is our loving father.

Jesus, during his earthly ministry addressed God the Father as Abba in Mark 14:36. The word Abba is an Aramaic word and was the word used in simple family speech. In other words, this is the word that a young child would use to address a father. It is equivalent to our word "daddy."

In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul writes about life through the Spirit. What is the life of a Christ follower, and right in the middle Paul reminds us that we too can address God the Father as Abba.

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Here is what I want you to understand as you hurt, as you suffer, your are allowed to cry out, "Daddy, it hurts." "Daddy, my heart is breaking." "Daddy, hold me." God is our loving father and lament begins by addressing God.

Lament continues with complaint (Psalm 13:1b-2).

The reality is that our complaints are often directed at God.

If I were to ask you what is the difference between gossip and confrontation, most of you would quickly give me a good answer. Gossip occurs when you speak about someone behind their back. Confrontation occurs when you take your complaint directly to the person. One of these is sin, gossip, and the other is biblical, confrontation.

Similarly, there is a huge difference between grumbling and lament. Grumbling occurs when we complain about God to anyone other than God or to no-one at all. Lament occurs when we take our complaints directly to God. Again, one is sin, the other is biblical. Then about it, how many times did Israel grumble in the wilderness? But the Psalms are filled with examples of people taking their complaints to God. In fact, as many as 40% of the Psalms are laments. Just to be clear 40% of 150 is 60! That is a whole lot of taking complaints to God.

Really,

Biblical examples of complaints abound.

Within the psalms there are examples of people who lament because of disease and pain, disappointment, depression, their enemies, feeling abandoned, being betrayed, feeling ignored by God, and all sorts of others that bridge a variety of issues. the Bible is rich with examples.

Ok, at this point, you may have a natural question. "wouldn't it be sin for me to complain to God?" You know, at first that seems like a great question but in reality I think it is answered by a better question. If you have something to say to God that might be sinful isn't it likely that the sin has already occurred in your heart and in realty you ned to confess that to God? I really think the answer is that sin begins in the heart and so it is more important to bring it before God than to try to ignore it. We need to bring it to God!

Implicit in lament is a request (Psalm 13:3-4)

The request begins to acknowledge God's sovereignty.

This is really important and I want you to see what is happening. At first God is addressed. Then complained is given. Now we have a request. The move from complaint to explicit request is actually a heart change. Really it is.

If you are ever mediating a situation or dealing with someone distraught one of the most important things you can do is move them from complaint to request. Questions like: "Ok, I hear all the bad things that you have experienced, but now I want to ask you what would make this better?" are incredibly powerful because they begin to bring the focus onto hope. The further begin to bring the emphasis onto God. Circumstances change but God does not. When we begin to emphasize our God instead of our circumstances we can begin the process of moving suffering into worship.

The request helps to restore hope.

Have you ever felt like nothing will ever get better? I have. The problem is sometimes we let feelings of "nothing will ever get better" keep us from hope. We can bring requests to God because we know that Gos is in the business of redeeming that which is broken. The act of making a request begins the process of restoring hope.

Lament finishes with an expression of confidence in God (Psalm 13:5-6).

Lament is the road from suffering to worship.

Verse 5 begins with the most significant insignificant word, "but." Lament is the process of moving from suffering to worship and that is exactly what happens. After addressing God, complaining, making request, David reaches the point of hope.

This hope leads to worship and that is the key.

Psychologists time and time again find that hope matters. Hope transforms a person and hope is central to the message of Christ.

In Job 1:20-21 Job cries out

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

That kind of worship in the midst of suffering comes through the process of lament.

Action Step: When appropriate embrace the opportunity to lament.

There are times when the evil seem to prosper (Daniel 8:1-4).

Here we have a vision and in this vision Daniel sees a ram. The ram is symbolic of a leader or ruler and the horn of the ram is symbolic of power. The text tells us that no animal could stand against this ram and it did as it pleased. I think the picture we are supposed to see here is one of power and conflict. In the kingdom of animals Daniel sees on rise to the top, a bully if you will. What we will see throughout Daniel 8 is this theme of power and conflict. We live in a world that is marked by power and conflict.

Power and conflict are dominant themes in our world (Daniel 8:5-8).

The swift goat who comes to displace the ram does so quickly and magnifies himself. Again, we see the world is marked by power and conflict. We could try and figure out if these animals represent specific kings or something like that but I don't want to dig too deep into that.

Power and conflict even come to effect the ability of God's people to worship God (Daniel 8:9-14).

It is sometimes easy for us to acknowledge the evils of the world when they leave us alone. But the reality is that the evils of the world can impact the worship of even God's people. Daniel's vision previewed this for Daniel and history told the tale.

After the death of Alexander the Great the greek empire was divided among his four generals. But what about the smaller how that came up?

Antiochus IV Epiphanes was a prominent figure in ancient history, particularly known for his reign as the Seleucid king from 175 to 164 BCE. He was born around 215 BCE and was the son of Antiochus III the Great. The epithet "Epiphanes" means "God Manifest" or "Illustrious," a title he assumed for himself, suggesting a divine status or manifestation.

Antiochus IV is infamous for his policies regarding Judaism and his attempts to Hellenize Judea, which led to significant unrest and rebellion. He sought to impose Greek culture and religion on the Jewish population, leading to the Maccabean Revolt, one of the most significant events in Jewish history.

During his reign, Antiochus IV took control of Jerusalem, looted its temple, and desecrated it by sacrificing a pig on the altar, an act deeply offensive to Jewish religious sensibilities. This event is often referred to as the "Abomination of Desolation."

Antiochus’ desecration of the temple was to last 2,300 evenings and mornings before its cleansing (8:14). Some take the 2,300 evenings and mornings to mean 2,300 days, that is, a little more than six years. In this interpretation, the six years were from Antiochus’ first incursion into Jerusalem (170 B.C.) to the refurbishing and restoring of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in late 164. A second interpretation seems preferable. Rather than each evening and each morning representing a day, the reference may be to evening and morning sacrifices, which were interrupted by Antiochus’ desecration (cf. “the daily sacrifice,” vv. 11–21). With two sacrifices made daily, the 2,300 offerings would cover 1,150 days or three years (of 360 days each) plus 70 days. This is the time from Antiochus’ desecration of the temple (December 16, 167 B.C.) to the refurbishing and restoring of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in late 164 and on into 163 B.C. when all the Jewish sacrifices were fully restored and religious independence gained for Judah. Whichever interpretation it is that one accepts, the figure of 2,300 was a literal one and so the time period was literally fulfilled.

God is in control but that doesn't mean bad things won't happen (Daniel 8:15-26).

God provided Gabriel for Daniel to interpret the dream and tell him the details. The details themselves as we have seen were pretty bad news. Daniel, bad things are going to happen, really bad things. God's people are going to suffer even after you are gone.