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Who Were the Babylonians_ The Empire That DECLARED War on God · truthunedited

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  Speaker 1: There is one empire in the Bible that challenged the
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  Speaker 1: Almighty God, not once, not twice, three times, each time,
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  Speaker 1: with the same intention, to make themselves God. The first time,
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  Speaker 1: God scattered them across the face of the earth. The
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  Speaker 1: second time, God drove their most powerful king insane for
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  Speaker 1: seven years. The third time, God killed their king and
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  Speaker 1: destroyed their entire empire in a single night. Three challenges,
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  Speaker 1: three responses. each one more devastating than the last. And
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  Speaker 1: what they actually dared to do is worse than you think.
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  Speaker 1: Egypt enslaved God's people for 400 years. Assyria scattered the
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  Speaker 1: ten tribes. Rome crucified his son. But none of them
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  Speaker 1: did what this empire did. None of them tried to
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  Speaker 1: replace God himself. This is the story of Babylon. And
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  Speaker 1: by the end, you'll understand why God didn't just destroy them.
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  Speaker 1: He erased them. He made sure they could never rise again.
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  Speaker 1: After the flood, God gave Noah and his sons a
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  Speaker 1: direct command. Genesis chapter 9 verse 1. Be fruitful, multiply,
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  Speaker 1: and fill the earth. All humanity spoke one language, one people,
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  Speaker 1: one command. They did the opposite. They gathered in Shinar,
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  Speaker 1: modern Iraq, and stopped. But this gathering wasn't random. It
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  Speaker 1: had a leader. Genesis chapter 10 introduces a man named Nimrod.
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  Speaker 1: Scripture says he was the first mighty man on earth,
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  Speaker 1: a mighty hunter before the Lord, a phrase many scholars
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  Speaker 1: translate as in defiance of the Lord. He was the
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  Speaker 1: first man in the Bible to build a kingdom, and
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  Speaker 1: the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. Not one city,
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  Speaker 1: four cities, Babel, Erech, Akkad, and Kalneh, all in the
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  Speaker 1: land of Shinar. Before the tower was even planned, Nimrod
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  Speaker 1: was building an empire. Before Nimrod, humanity had families and tribes.
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  Speaker 1: After Nimrod, humanity had kings. And his motive was personal.
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  Speaker 1: Ancient Jewish tradition teaches that Nimrod was angry at God
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  Speaker 1: for the flood. Angry. that God had the power to
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  Speaker 1: destroy the entire world and there was nothing humanity could
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  Speaker 1: do about it. Nimrod looked at the God who drowned
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  Speaker 1: every living thing and said, never again. Not because he
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  Speaker 1: trusted God's promise, but because he refused to be at
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  Speaker 1: God's mercy. He didn't want God's protection. He wanted God's power.
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  Speaker 1: If God could destroy the world, Nimrod would build a
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  Speaker 1: world God couldn't touch. He said, We'll build so high
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  Speaker 1: that no flood can ever reach us again, and if
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  Speaker 1: God tries, we'll fight him. The builders shot arrows into
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  Speaker 1: the sky. When the arrows fell back down with blood
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  Speaker 1: on them, they celebrated. They believed they had wounded heaven itself.
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  Speaker 1: That is why he gathered humanity instead of scattering them.
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  Speaker 1: God said, Fill the earth. Nimrod said, Fill my kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: God said, Scatter. Nimrod said, Gather under my name. Every
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  Speaker 1: city he built was a direct reversal of what God
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  Speaker 1: commanded Noah. This was not ignorance. This was the first
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  Speaker 1: recorded act of outright disobedience against God's command after the flood.
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  Speaker 1: The world had barely dried. The rainbow was still new
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  Speaker 1: in the One man looked at the God who saved
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  Speaker 1: his ancestors and said, I will not obey you. I
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  Speaker 1: will do the opposite. I will become the authority. So
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  Speaker 1: when Genesis chapter 11 verse 4 records their declaration, let
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  Speaker 1: us build a tower, make a name for ourselves. This
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just ambition. This was revenge. A man who was
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  Speaker 1: angry at God, gathering humanity in direct defiance of God's command,
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  Speaker 1: building a kingdom to rival God's authority, and now constructing
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  Speaker 1: a tower to invade God's domain. Three defiances hidden in
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  Speaker 1: one verse. Make a name for ourselves means we don't
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  Speaker 1: need God's name. Tower to the heavens means we'll reach
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  Speaker 1: God's domain on our terms. Lest we be scattered means
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  Speaker 1: direct refusal of God's command. Babel means gate of God
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  Speaker 1: in Akkadian, but confusion in Hebrew. The name tells two stories.
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  Speaker 1: They weren't building a building. They were building a door
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  Speaker 1: into heaven, uninvited, led by a man who believed he
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  Speaker 1: could bleed the sky. That tower still echoes through history.
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  Speaker 1: It connects to Etemenanki, a real ziggurat in Babylon, archaeologically confirmed.
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  Speaker 1: Ziggurats were literal stairways to heaven. Babylonians believed gods descended
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  Speaker 1: through the top. Etemenanki wasn't just a tower. It was
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  Speaker 1: seven terraced levels rising over 300 feet into the sky.
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  Speaker 1: A staircase spiraled to the top where a shrine sat
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  Speaker 1: waiting for the gods. Priests climbed those steps believing they
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  Speaker 1: were ascending to meet Marduk himself, Babylon's chief god. The
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  Speaker 1: base alone covered the area of a modern football field.
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  Speaker 1: This was Marduk's throne on earth. The Babylonians didn't see
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  Speaker 1: this as rebellion. They saw it as an invitation. But
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  Speaker 1: God saw it differently. Genesis 11 verse 3 gives us
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  Speaker 1: the construction details, baked bricks and bitumen. This matches Mesopotamian
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  Speaker 1: archaeology exactly. God came down to see the tower they
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  Speaker 1: were building up. The irony is devastating. It was too
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  Speaker 1: small to see from heaven. Imagine you're one of the builders.
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  Speaker 1: One morning you turn to your brother, ask for mortar.
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  Speaker 1: He stares at you blankly. He can't understand you. You
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  Speaker 1: try speaking louder. Nothing. You grab his arm. He pulls away, confused, frightened,
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  Speaker 1: around you. Shouts, in languages you've never heard. Panic. Fighting.
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  Speaker 1: Families who worked side by side for years can no
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  Speaker 1: longer say each other's names. God didn't destroy the tower.
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  Speaker 1: He just made them unable to communicate. The most ambitious
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  Speaker 1: project in history didn't fall from destruction. It fell from confusion.
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  Speaker 1: They scattered exactly what God originally commanded. Babel is Babylon's DNA.
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  Speaker 1: Defiance of God is in their identity. It started with Nimrod,
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  Speaker 1: a man who gathered humanity to make a name for themselves,
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  Speaker 1: who believed he could bleed the sky. Every future Babylonian
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  Speaker 1: empire carried this same ambition. We can be God, the
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  Speaker 1: first declaration of war. But Babel was just the opening shot.
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  Speaker 1: Because 1500 years later, a king would rise who didn't
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  Speaker 1: just want to reach God's domain. He wanted to sit
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  Speaker 1: on God's throne. and when God didn't stop him fast enough,
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  Speaker 1: he burned God's house to the ground. For a thousand years,
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  Speaker 1: Babylon lay dormant under Akkadians, Kassites, Assyria. In 626 BC,
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  Speaker 1: Nabopolassar revolted. New dynasty. 612 BC, Nineveh, the Assyrian capital,
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  Speaker 1: was destroyed. His son, Nebuchadnezzar II, became the most powerful
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  Speaker 1: man on earth. The city he built was was stunning.
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  Speaker 1: The Ishtar Gate stood 38 feet high, covered in blue
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  Speaker 1: tiles and gold dragons, walls 85 feet thick, the hanging gardens.
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  Speaker 1: He rebuilt Etemenanki, population over 200,000, the largest city on earth.
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  Speaker 1: But the Ishtar Gate was just the entrance. Beyond it
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  Speaker 1: stretched the processional way, a half-mile-long avenue paved with limestone
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  Speaker 1: and flanked by 120 lion reliefs in glazed brick. Every
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  Speaker 1: new year, Marduk's statue was paraded down this road. The
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  Speaker 1: message was clear. This is the city of the gods.
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  Speaker 1: No enemy can touch us. No power is greater. The
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  Speaker 1: Euphrates River ran directly through the city, an engineering marvel
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  Speaker 1: that gave Babylon fresh water, irrigation, and trade. But that
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  Speaker 1: same river would become the path of their destruction. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't just rebuild Babylon, he rebuilt the tower of Babel's promise.
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  Speaker 1: And when the most powerful man on earth turned his
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  Speaker 1: eyes toward Jerusalem, God's people had no idea what was coming.
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  Speaker 1: Before we see the horror, understand what Jerusalem meant. God
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  Speaker 1: chose Jerusalem as his dwelling place out of every city
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  Speaker 1: on earth. Solomon's temple was God's house. The Ark of
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  Speaker 1: the Covenant sat inside. God's physical presence dwelt there. Judah
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  Speaker 1: was small, weak, but it was God's kingdom, God's people,
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  Speaker 1: God's city. God warned Judah through prophets for decades. Jeremiah
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  Speaker 1: begged them. They ignored every warning. The first siege came
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  Speaker 1: in 605 BC. Judah became a vassal state. Daniel was
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  Speaker 1: taken hostage as a teenager. Daniel's story matters. because this teenager,
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  Speaker 1: ripped from his home, was renamed with a Babylonian name, Belteshazzar,
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  Speaker 1: which means bell protect his life. He was forced to
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  Speaker 1: serve the king who destroyed his people. Remember this name.
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  Speaker 1: He'll appear again at the very end of this story.
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  Speaker 1: The second siege, in 597 BC, saw King Jehoiakim deported, 10,000
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  Speaker 1: elite taken, temple treasures looted. Among those taken was Ezekiel,
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  Speaker 1: the prophet, who would receive visions of God's glory by
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  Speaker 1: the rivers of Babylon. God didn't abandon his people in exile.
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  Speaker 1: He sent prophets with them. The third siege, in 586 BC,
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  Speaker 1: brought total destruction. thirty-month siege. Think about that. Thirty months
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  Speaker 1: means two and a half years. No food shipments, no
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  Speaker 1: livestock left. The wealthy ate shoe leather, then insects, then worse.
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  Speaker 1: Jeremiah's lamentations records it. The tongue of the nursing infant
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  Speaker 1: sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst. The
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  Speaker 1: children beg for food, but no one gives to them.
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  Speaker 1: This was the city God chose, and this is what
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  Speaker 1: Babylon did to it. Lamentations chapter 4 verse 10 records
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  Speaker 1: mothers eating their own children. The walls were breached. King
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  Speaker 1: Zedekiah tried to flee. They caught him near Jericho, forced
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  Speaker 1: him to watch his sons executed. That was the last
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  Speaker 1: thing he ever saw. Then they put out his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: marched him blind to Babylon. solomon's temple burned to the
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  Speaker 1: ground sacred vessels looted gold cups silver basins lampstands hauled
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  Speaker 1: to babylon the ark of the covenant vanished never found
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  Speaker 1: to this day the remaining population marched 900 miles in
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  Speaker 1: chains psalm 137 records their lament by the rivers of
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  Speaker 1: babylon we sat and wept he burned god's house he
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  Speaker 1: stole god's vessels He blinded God's anointed king. He starved
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  Speaker 1: God's people until mothers ate their children, and he marched
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  Speaker 1: an entire nation into slavery. But that wasn't enough for him.
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  Speaker 1: He wanted something more. He wanted to be God. Daniel
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  Speaker 1: chapter 3 records the golden statue. Ninety feet tall on
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  Speaker 1: the plain of Dura, the decree went out. When music plays,
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  Speaker 1: everyone bows or dies in the furnace, heated seven times
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  Speaker 1: hotter than normal. The second declaration. Babel said, We'll reach God.
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  Speaker 1: Nebuchadnezzar said, Worship me instead. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused
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  Speaker 1: to bow. Nebuchadnezzar asked them, Who is the God who
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  Speaker 1: will deliver you from my hands? Their response is one
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  Speaker 1: of the most powerful speeches in Scripture. O Nebuchadnezzar, we
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  Speaker 1: have no need to answer you in this matter. If
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  Speaker 1: this be so, our God whom we serve is able
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  Speaker 1: to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he
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  Speaker 1: will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But
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  Speaker 1: if not, be it known to you, O king, that
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  Speaker 1: we will not serve your gods or worship the golden
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  Speaker 1: image that you have set up. But if not, Three
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  Speaker 1: words that meant even if God lets us die, we
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  Speaker 1: still won't bow. That's not bravery. That's faith that has
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  Speaker 1: already made peace with death. They were thrown in the furnace.
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  Speaker 1: The soldiers who threw them died from the heat. But
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  Speaker 1: inside the fire, four figures walked. The fourth looked like
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  Speaker 1: a son of the gods. They emerged. No burns. No
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  Speaker 1: singed hair. Not even the smell of smoke. He asked
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  Speaker 1: the wrong question. He said, who is the God? He
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  Speaker 1: was about to find out. Nebuchadnezzar saw God walk into
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  Speaker 1: his furnace. He watched three men survive fire that killed
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  Speaker 1: his own soldiers. And for a moment, he bowed. Daniel
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  Speaker 1: chapter 3 verse 28 records his response. Blessed be the
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  Speaker 1: God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He even issued a
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  Speaker 1: decree protecting anyone who worshipped their God. But humility didn't last.
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  Speaker 1: Twelve months. That's how long it took for the lesson
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  Speaker 1: to fade. Daniel chapter 4 records the dream. A great
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  Speaker 1: tree cut down. Daniel interpreted. The tree is you. The
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  Speaker 1: dream was a warning. Twelve months passed. Twelve months of
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  Speaker 1: watching Nebuchadnezzar return to his pride. Twelve months of God
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  Speaker 1: giving him space to repent. And what did Nebuchadnezzar accomplish
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  Speaker 1: in those 12 months? Everything. He expanded the empire from
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  Speaker 1: Egypt to Persia. He fortified the walls until they were
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  Speaker 1: the thickest on earth. He completed the hanging gardens, one
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  Speaker 1: of the seven wonders of the ancient world. He rebuilt Etemenanki,
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  Speaker 1: the tower of Babel itself, brick by brick. He transformed
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  Speaker 1: Babylon into a city so magnificent that that travelers came
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  Speaker 1: from across the known world just to see it. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't just rule an empire, he became the empire. Twelve
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  Speaker 1: months later, Nebuchadnezzar stood on the roof of his palace,
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  Speaker 1: looking over everything he built. Every wall, every gate, every garden,
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  Speaker 1: every tower. Daniel 4.30 records his words. Is not this
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  Speaker 1: great Babylon that I have built by my mighty power,
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  Speaker 1: and for my majesty, before the words left his mouth.
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  Speaker 1: A voice from heaven, the kingdom has departed from you.
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  Speaker 1: He was driven from human society, ate grass like an
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  Speaker 1: ox for seven years, hair like eagle feathers, nails like claws.
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  Speaker 1: What happened to the empire during those seven years? The
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  Speaker 1: most powerful kingdom on earth ran without its king. His
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  Speaker 1: court likely covered for him, a royal secret protected behind
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  Speaker 1: palace walls. But imagine the whispers. Where is the king?
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  Speaker 1: Why has no one seen him? The man who burned
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  Speaker 1: Solomon's temple and built the hanging gardens was crawling in
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  Speaker 1: a field, eating grass, and no one could say why.
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  Speaker 1: God didn't kill him. He did something worse. He let
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  Speaker 1: the most powerful man alive experience life without God's image,
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  Speaker 1: without reason, without dignity, without humanity. Then he gave it back,
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  Speaker 1: just so Nebuchadnezzar would know who really held the power.
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  Speaker 1: After seven years, he was restored. He looked up and
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  Speaker 1: praised God, humbled, broken, defeated. The first declaration of war,
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  Speaker 1: the second declaration of war. Jeremiah 25.11 prophesied the exile
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  Speaker 1: would last exactly 70 years. Psalm 137 captures the weeping
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  Speaker 1: by the rivers of Babylon. The temple lay in ruins.
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  Speaker 1: The ark was gone. God seemed silent. Nebuchadnezzar learned his lesson.
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  Speaker 1: But his grandson didn't. And the night he forgot, a
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  Speaker 1: hand appeared on the wall. After Nebuchadnezzar, the empire rotted.
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  Speaker 1: Four kings in 23 years. Assassinations. Coups. Belshazzar learned nothing
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  Speaker 1: from his grandfather. The Persian army was already at the gates.
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  Speaker 1: Belshazzar didn't care. The third and final declaration was coming,
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  Speaker 1: the worst of all. Daniel chapter 5 records the feast.
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  Speaker 1: One thousand nobles, lavish banquet. Then Belshazzar gave the order,
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  Speaker 1: bring out the sacred temple vessels, the gold cups Nebuchadnezzar
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  Speaker 1: stole from God's house. They drank wine from God's holy
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  Speaker 1: cups and toasted Babylon's gods, Marduk, Ishtar, Nabu. Think about
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  Speaker 1: the timeline. These vessels sat in Babylonian storage for nearly
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  Speaker 1: 50 years, through multiple kings. None of them touched them.
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  Speaker 1: Not even Nebuchadnezzar dared use them after what God did
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  Speaker 1: to him. Belshazzar didn't just disrespect God. He did what
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  Speaker 1: four kings before him were too afraid to do. Nebuchadnezzar
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  Speaker 1: burned God's house. Belshazzar did something worse. He took the
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  Speaker 1: cups that once held offerings to the Almighty and raised
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  Speaker 1: them to gods that couldn't see, hear, or speak. The
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  Speaker 1: third declaration. Babel said, We'll reach God. Nebuchadnezzar said, I
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  Speaker 1: am God. Belshazzar said, God is finished. He's so irrelevant
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  Speaker 1: we can drink from his cups and laugh about it.
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  Speaker 1: In the middle of the feast a human hand appeared,
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  Speaker 1: just a hand, no body. It wrote on the plaster wall.
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  Speaker 1: The room went silent. One thousand nobles staring at a wall.
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  Speaker 1: The music stopped. The laughter stopped. The only sound was
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  Speaker 1: the scraping of fingers on plaster, and Belshazzar, the man
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  Speaker 1: who just mocked God with his own cups, could not stand.
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  Speaker 1: The ruler of the known world was on the floor, shaking.
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  Speaker 1: Belshazzar's face went white. His knees knocked together. His legs
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  Speaker 1: gave way. The wise men were summoned. None could read
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  Speaker 1: the writing. The Queen Mother remembered Daniel, now an old man,
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  Speaker 1: decades in exile. Daniel entered the room. An old man now.
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  Speaker 1: He was taken from Jerusalem as a teenager. He watched
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  Speaker 1: his city burn. He served under the king who destroyed
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  Speaker 1: everything he loved. He outlived that king. He outlived his son.
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  Speaker 1: He outlived the empire's glory. And now he stood before
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  Speaker 1: its last king, a man holding a cup that once
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  Speaker 1: sat on the altar of God, and he delivered the verdict.
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  Speaker 1: He refused the gifts. Let your gifts be for yourself.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't want position in a kingdom that was already dead.
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  Speaker 1: Daniel's verdict was crushing. You knew what happened to your grandfather.
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  Speaker 1: You watched him eat grass for seven years, and you
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  Speaker 1: still took God's vessels and toasted idols. Mene, mene, tekel, uphasin.
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  Speaker 1: Mene means numbered. God has numbered your kingdom and ended it.
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  Speaker 1: Tekel means weighed. You have been weighed and found wanting.
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  Speaker 1: Uphasin means divided. Your kingdom is given to Medes and Persians.
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  Speaker 1: Three words. That's all God needed. Not an army, not
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  Speaker 1: a flood, not fire, just three words on a wall,
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  Speaker 1: and the most powerful empire on earth was already dead.
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  Speaker 1: Daniel 5.30 records it plainly. That very night, Belshazzar was killed.
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  Speaker 1: Cyrus diverted the Euphrates. His soldiers marched under the walls
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  Speaker 1: through the dry riverbed, walls 85 feet thick, conquered without
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  Speaker 1: a battle in a single night. The Cyrus Cylinder, an
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  Speaker 1: archaeological artifact found in 1879, now sits in the British Museum.
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  Speaker 1: It records Cyrus' conquest of Babylon from the Persian perspective.
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  Speaker 1: It confirms the biblical account. Cyrus described entering Babylon without
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  Speaker 1: battle and without fighting. Archaeology doesn't just support this story.
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  Speaker 1: It echoes it word for word. Isaiah prophesied this 150
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  Speaker 1: years earlier, named Cyrus by name. Jeremiah's 70 years fulfilled exactly. 6.05 B.C.
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  Speaker 1: to 5.38 B.C. Cyrus decreed the Jews could return and
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  Speaker 1: rebuild the temple. God doesn't go through walls. He goes
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  Speaker 1: under them, through the very river that gave the city life.
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  Speaker 1: He sent the army that ended it. The first declaration
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  Speaker 1: of war, the second declaration of war, the third and
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  Speaker 1: final declaration of war. Scattered, humbled, destroyed. The three sins
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  Speaker 1: of Babylon show up in modern life, and they follow
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  Speaker 1: the same pattern we just witnessed. Nimrod's sin was replacing God.
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  Speaker 1: He gathered humanity and said, We don't need him. We'll
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  Speaker 1: build our own way to heaven. We'll make our own name.
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  Speaker 1: His question was simple. Why do we need God at all?
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  Speaker 1: So ask yourself, are you building your life without asking God?
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  Speaker 1: Have you stopped praying before decisions, stopped seeking his direction?
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  Speaker 1: Are you living like he's optional? Nebuchadnezzar's sin was taking
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  Speaker 1: credit for what God built. Is not this great Babylon
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  Speaker 1: that I built? He looked at what God gave him
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  Speaker 1: and claimed it as his own. What in your life
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  Speaker 1: are you taking credit for that God actually gave you?
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  Speaker 1: Your career, your talent, your family, your health, the breath
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  Speaker 1: in your lungs right now. Belshazzar's sin was treating sacred
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: things as common. He took what was holy and treated
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: it like a party favor. What has God set apart
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: in your life that you've been treating casually? Your marriage,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: your calling, your time, your body. The Bible sitting on
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: your shelf. The pattern is hearing God's warning and ignoring it.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Nimrod saw the flood and built a tower anyway. Nebuchadnezzar
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: had the dream and kept boasting anyway. Belshazzar knew. He
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: watched his grandfather crawl in the dirt for seven years
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: and he still defied God. What warning has God already
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: given you that you're choosing to ignore? What lesson have
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: you watched someone else learn the hard way? and you're
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: heading down the same road. Babylon didn't fall because they
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: were cruel. They fell because they were warned and chose
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: pride anyway. Nebuchadnezzar watched God humble him for seven years.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Belshazzar watched Nebuchadnezzar, and he still reached for the cup.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Babylon's story is not ancient history. It's a mirror, and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the question is the same one Daniel asked Belshazzar. You
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: know all this. So why haven't you humbled your heart?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Every empire that declared war on God followed the same pattern.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: They rose, they built, they conquered, they defied, and they fell.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: But none fell the way Babylon fell. Egypt crumbled over centuries.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Assyria bled out across decades. Rome fractured into pieces. But Babylon,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: one night, three words, while the king was still holding
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the cup. Because when you don't just oppress God's people,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: when you replace God himself, judgment doesn't wait for history.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It comes before sunrise. The sand remembers. Babylon's story isn't
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: just ancient history. It's a warning. And if you think
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: this spirit died with Belshazzar, the book of Revelation says otherwise.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Which moment hit hardest? The Tower of Babel. the burning temple,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: or the hand on the wall? Tell me what you
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: learned from this in the comments. Subscribe and turn on notifications.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Every week, empires, mysteries, and judgments they never taught you
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: in Sunday school. Share this with someone who needs to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: hear it.