Man Talk

GET THE BOOK: Daniel: A Strong Man Is Faithful here https://amzn.to/3ToZqOk  Will you be faithful in unfaithful times? In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. — Daniel 1:1-2 As we begin, I want to highlight a few characters in this text because we need to know them to understand Daniel’s story of faithfulness. First, we have Jehoiakim. He is the 18th king of Judah. He was not appointed by God but by the Egyptian Pharoah, who, in some ways, controlled Judah at the time. Jehoiakim was 25 when he became ruler and ruled for 11 years. He is described by other biblical authors as a horrible king. Here is why. He had sex with his mother, daughter-in-law, and stepmother. He murdered men, raped their wives, and stole their property. He performed an epispasm (restored foreskin) to conceal the fact that he was a Jew. In addition, he ta