Resisting the Spirit of the Age - Tim Horman
Imagine being fifteen years old, watching your home city burned to the ground, your family scattered, and then being marched over a thousand kilometres away to serve the very empire that destroyed everything you loved. Now imagine being handed a new name, a new education, and the best food in the palace, all designed to make you forget who you were. Would you have the courage to resist?
That's the world Tim Horman opened up for us this week as we began a new series through the book of Daniel, called Resisting Babylon: Faithfulness in an Age of Decadence and Death, drawn from Daniel chapter 1. You can watch the full message in the video above, or listen to the audio version below.
When Everything You Knew Collapses
Tim began by naming something many of us have lived through in some form: the moment the world you knew seems to collapse overnight. Tragedy strikes, and the future you assumed would be yours disappears. You're left carrying losses you didn't cause, facing questions you never imagined, and asking, "Where is God in all of this? Has he abandoned me?"
That is exactly the world Daniel is thrown into in the opening verses of the book. Jerusalem is besieged, the temple is burned, the sacred vessels are carried off, and the brightest young people of Judah, Daniel among them, are forced from everything familiar: family, nation, language, culture, religion. On the surface, it looks like God's promises to Israel are finished.
And yet, Tim pointed out, the text insists otherwise. Babylon may have defeated Jerusalem, but it has not defeated God. Daniel may have been taken into exile, but God has not been exiled from Daniel. Tim was careful not to rush past the grief here. He pointed us to Psalm 137 and the book of Lamentations as raw, honest expressions of that grief, reminding us that just because something is within God's sovereign purposes doesn't mean it isn't devastating, or that we're not allowed to mourn it.
Seeing Before Doing
Here's where the sermon turned a corner. Tim argued that Daniel's resistance doesn't begin with what he does. It begins with what he sees.
"He chooses not to view Scripture through the eyes of his circumstances, but he chooses to view his circumstances through the eyes of Scripture."
Because Daniel had been steeped in the Scriptures since childhood, he understood that Judah's exile hadn't caught God by surprise. The prophets, Isaiah a century earlier and Jeremiah in Daniel's own lifetime, had warned that persistent idolatry and injustice would lead to judgment. But that judgment, Tim explained, wasn't about annihilation. It was the severe mercy of a covenant-keeping God determined to call his people back to their true identity, and ultimately to bring the Messiah through them.
This meant Daniel could hold two things together that we often struggle to hold together: real grief over real loss, and real trust that God's promises hadn't failed. He didn't interpret God based on what had happened to him. He interpreted what had happened to him based on who God had revealed himself to be.
Before They Tell You What to Do, They Tell You Who You Are
Tim then walked through Nebuchadnezzar's strategy for Daniel and his friends, and it wasn't cruelty. It was something more subtle. The boys weren't terrorised. They were immersed for three years in Babylon's best food, education, language, and culture, and given new names tied to Babylonian gods in place of names that had honoured the God of Israel.
"Before they tell you what to do, they first tell you who you are."
This, Tim said, is how every idolatrous system operates, not through overt persecution first, but through the steady suggestion that faith in God is intellectually embarrassing, morally restrictive, and socially out of step. That your meaning is whatever you decide it to be. That real freedom is the absence of limits. It's not so different from what a young person encounters today the moment they leave home for university, a workplace, or simply open their phone.
Importantly, Tim noted that Daniel's response wasn't to reject Babylonian culture wholesale, nor to disappear into it. He excelled in his education while staying alert to what the program was really asking of him. Daniel brought discernment, not culture war and not capitulation. That third way, Tim suggested, is something the church often struggles to model.
One Small Act at the Dining Table
The turning point in the chapter is small: Daniel resolves not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. Tim unpacked why this mattered so much. The food likely violated Jewish dietary law and was almost certainly linked to offerings made to Babylonian gods. But there was something deeper too: sharing a meal in the ancient world meant binding yourself to someone in relationship. To eat from the king's table was to hand over your allegiance.
"If he hadn't started here, I think then he would likely not have had the moral courage to resist later when the danger was exponentially worse."
Tim was clear that Daniel's resistance didn't begin at the fiery furnace or the lion's den. It began at the dining table, with what looked like a minor decision. Character, he said, is formed quietly through a thousand hidden moments of obedience: what we watch, how we speak, what we do with our money, our bodies, our phones, and whether we're faithful when no one is watching.
Vessels of God's Presence
Tim closed by drawing out an easy-to-miss detail. Nebuchadnezzar had the temple's sacred vessels carried into a Babylonian temple as a boast that his god had defeated Israel's God. But he was, in Tim's words, a fool who didn't realise what he'd actually done: he'd carried the presence and holiness of God right into the centre of his empire.
The real vessels of God's presence in this story were never the golden objects sitting in a treasury. They were Daniel and his three friends, ordinary teenagers who chose to set themselves apart for the Lord in the middle of overwhelming odds. Tim connected this directly to how Peter describes the church: a chosen people, a royal priesthood, God's special possession. We have something Daniel didn't have: the Spirit of God dwelling within us. And just as Daniel was called to faithfulness in the middle of Babylon, so are we, wherever our own Babylon shows up.
One way to live it out this week
Tim's challenge was simple: don't despise the small decision of faith. This week, choose one small, deliberate act of resistance, maybe less screen time, five minutes in the Word and in prayer before the day takes over, or a quiet act of forgiveness toward someone who's wronged you. It doesn't need to be dramatic. Daniel's resistance started with a plate of food, not a furnace. Pick one small thing, do it consistently, and let it be the quiet training ground for the courage you'll need when bigger tests come.
A short prayer
Lord, thank you for Daniel's example, and thank you that even when our lives feel small, they are never insignificant to you. Where we are grieving losses we didn't choose, meet us with your presence. Where we are tempted to let Babylon rename us, remind us whose we are. Give us the courage to make small, faithful choices today, trusting that you are forming something in us for tomorrow. Help us see our circumstances through the truth of your word, not your word through the fog of our circumstances. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Personal Reflection
Where in your life right now does it feel like "everything has been lost"? How might viewing that circumstance through the lens of Scripture, rather than the other way around, change how you carry it?
In what ways is your own "Babylon" trying to rename you, telling you who you are before it tells you what to do? What story is it offering about your identity, freedom, or meaning?
What is one small, private act of faithfulness (in what you watch, how you spend money, how you use your phone, whether you pray unseen) that you sense God inviting you into this week?
Small Group Discussion
What stood out to you most from this week's message, and why?
Tim said Daniel's resistance began with what he saw before what he did. Why does the order matter? What difference does it make to interpret circumstances through Scripture rather than interpreting Scripture through circumstances?
Read Psalm 137 together, or at least discuss its tone. Why is it important that Scripture makes room for raw grief, even when we trust God's sovereignty?
Tim described Babylon's strategy as first telling you who you are before telling you what to do. Can you think of examples from your own life, work, university, or media, where this pattern shows up?
Daniel neither rejected Babylonian culture outright nor assimilated into it. What might that "third way" of discernment look like practically in an area of your life right now?
Why do you think Daniel's decision about food mattered so much, given everything else that had been taken from him? What does this suggest about the connection between small and large acts of faithfulness?
Tim said the real vessels of God's presence in this story weren't golden objects but ordinary young people set apart for God. How does 1 Peter 2:9-11 shape how you see your own life and identity?
What is one small act of resistance or faithfulness you sense God calling you to this week? Take a moment to share it and pray for one another.