Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 27, 2015 | Route 66 - Daniel

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September 27, 2015 | Route 66 - Daniel · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm on the board of a mission organization called Bibles for the World, and uh they're here this morning out in the lobby.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: You'll see a table, Bibles for the World.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: We distribute Bibles in needy places around the world, and also especially support, you know, we've started uh a number of schools and churches in India, uh, including a college and seminary.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I have uh I support.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how cheaply you can totally support someone overseas.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: I support a couple of seminary guys who are gonna become pastors.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: But Dottie, uh friend of mine, uh, will be out there after the service probably.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't see her out there now, so you may want to go chat with her.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: She's a good woman.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Route 66, if you're visiting, we're on a road trip to the Bible, 66 books of the Bible.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: We're at the 27th book this morning.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Hi, Don.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing, brother?
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Good to see you.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, nothing, just a really famous person is in our midst.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: So um, so we're at the 27th uh book of the Bible.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: It's the book of Daniel.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and since I didn't prepare a message this morning, we're just gonna sit here and read the whole thing.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So open your Bible.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: You laugh, you laugh.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: One of these years I'm gonna do that to you.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: So um, we'll actually get close to that.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: But this is the amazing.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: How many of you would say this is your favorite book of the Bible?
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Favorite book of the Bible?
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Anybody, Daniel?
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're so young at heart.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: This is a good, because this book, like the bottom, at the bottom I listed, the simplest outline is like the first half of it, first six chapters, stories.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Wow, what stories.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Anyone read the book this last week?
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Both of us.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And uh no, no, no, no.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, you know, though, wow.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: You read those stories, you've reread those stories before, but those are just amazing.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Then the last half of the book, I think, sort of reflects some of the message of the stories, but it's prophecy, it's visions.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: That's the bottom of your study sheet, which looks like this.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And um I mentioned the three critical messages of Daniel.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: That's at the bottom of the summary, right above it.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Babylonians, Persians, etc., will come and go, but God will establish his people forever.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen?
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Number two, God is the king of kings, he controls earth's rulers using their hostile acts to accomplish his own goals.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Third, God's people suffer under an ungodly earthly rule.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you do.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Being pressured to compromise with pagan society, yes, you are.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: When they resist, they are apparently defeated and crushed.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: But when all is lost, God snatches them to victory.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Flip it over.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: So that's my message title this morning is snatched from the jaws of defeat.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: All right?
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And when I think of that title, I think of as I put in your uh on the front of your bulletin something that happened this last week when the Kansas City Royals, may they live forever, um, were down and out in the ninth inning and somehow snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Though, frankly, I think a more um when people, I didn't get to see this game, but the people who saw this game a year ago on September 30th say it's one of the great sports events that they ever remember.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: It was when the the Royals snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and maybe the most important game in their history.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: It was a playoff game to determine who would get in the playoffs, and the Royals hadn't been in the playoffs since before you were born.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Let's just say it's it was a long time, okay?
3:42
SPEAKER_00: So, and they're playing Oakland, they were playing in Kansas City, September 30th, 2014.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: They were down seven to three with six outs to goes.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: They approached the eighth inning and somehow scored three runs, getting to the ninth inning, somehow eked out a run in the bottom of the ninth to tie it up, seven apiece, went to extra innings, the 10th, the 11th.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Oakland scores a run, the top of the 12th inning.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Somehow the Royals score two runs at the bottom of the 12th.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Perez hits a hits a game-winning hit, and everybody goes crazy, and as you know, since that time, it's just been onward and upward for us.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so and I know that some of the people listening to this, I happen to know that they are strong since they live in parts of the world that are representing teams that we play against in our division.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry, so sorry.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: So sorry for you in San Francisco, sorry for you in Toronto, sorry for you.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so um, so that snatching victory from the Joshua, or another thing, is anybody ever one of the YouTube videos I really like to watch, those National Geographic ones where people, you know, or whatever, they took videos when they were on safari and some, yes, yes, there this is an escape.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: That beautiful little animal gets away from the crocodile.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I mean, do you ever watch those videos like now?
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we'll be able to run one.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: There's one that's just 30, 45 seconds.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: I want I want to show you what I mean by this.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Jaws of death escape.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're talking about.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Daniel is full of that kind of stuff this morning.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Love this book.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Great book.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And if you flip it over on the back, I see this sort of commonality, this sort of thing that happens that you that that I want you to relate to on the backside.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: That is that in Daniel's day and today, chapters one through six, Daniel, his friends, and all of God's faithful, first, are foreigners in a hostile society.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Second, are pressured to compromise.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Third, are attacked when they stand firm.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, are apparently defeated and destroyed.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Fifth, are miraculously snatched to victory.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Question, are you a foreigner in a hostile society?
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it would have been harder to say 50 years ago, but you know, it is real, I'm sure historians will say that in 1950, 1960, America was a Christian nation.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Fully 80%, more than 80% of Americans declared themselves to be Christians.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And by that, most of them may have simply meant we're not communists or we go to church, but they declared themselves Christians.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, those numbers have fallen to such an extent that the New York Times can have an article, you know, that says Christianity is dying, quoting more recent, you know, polls in the last, the Pew research and so forth in the last three, four years, showing that the percentage of atheists has gone from 1% to 2% to 5% to now up to about 14%.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: That is people who say boldly and openly, I do not believe in the existence of a God.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And that, and I noticed they included a line, even in the Bible Belt, that would be us, even in the Bible Belt, the number of self-declared Christians has fallen greatly.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: My reply to that, by the way, would be it's interesting, the number of declared Christians has fallen, number of declared Christians has risen.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: I just believe there are more honest atheists today.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: You know?
7:56
SPEAKER_00: They never believed there was a God, they just played the game.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: And there may be more honest Christians because the number of evangelical Christians has not wavered one bit.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: The percentage of evangelical Christians was never 41%, which is the percentage of people who say they go to church each Sunday.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: The percentage was always between 15 and 20, 17 to 18 percent.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: That has not changed.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: It was the same five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: The number of people who say, I have trusted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: I am a born-again Christian who believes in absolute standards, the Bible, Jesus Christ, and so forth, right?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Still, about one out of six people.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: That hasn't moved.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
8:35
SPEAKER_00: So, but the fact of the matter is, society has moved, hasn't it?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you need look no further than the Supreme Court decision earlier this year.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Or the rise in divorce rates in the, you know, from 50 years ago, or what's happened, right, in the schools and what cannot be said in the schools that could be said before.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Or the fact that prayer was, you know, taken out and now other things and so forth.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, we live in in an, I mean, Christians who believe in absolute moral standards today are swimming.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Am I right here in a culture that does not believe in absolute moral standards, but basically believes if it feels good, then it's okay.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Christians who believe in uh in uh, you know, that instead of the state being the you know in charge of everything, that the state is a danger, according to the Bible, and that faith and family and small things are more important, we live in an alien society.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: We live in an alien culture.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Christians who who believe in sort of a uh an absolute moral ethic, a sexual morality, if you don't realize, we live in a complete the sexual revelation, revelation, the sexual, there's a sexual revelation and a revolution as well, and sexual revolution has continued and now seeped into gender and and marriage.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Someone has said if you look at the letters of pleasure, the real idea of society is practically limitless expression of any sexual urge by really everyone.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: And and and and it is this the sexual revolution completely taken over.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And if you buck the sexual revolution, you are in fact um uh uh the pressure to compromise, and that's the second point in the back, is is so strong.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: I notice in the Topeka Capital Journal, they interview two girls, two high school girls in town.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Trina answers, get this in the newspaper publicly.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I wanted to be a virgin, when I got married, and I never wanted to smoke, and I thought I'd never smoke pot.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: She giggles.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the last six months, I've done it all.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: The pressure to compromise is absolutely stifling, isn't it?
10:56
SPEAKER_00: And so as a result, the question is who's you know, who's gonna stand firm?
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Because the world is saying, stand down or we will run over you.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Do what we say or die.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: All right?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: So uh what I wanted to do is I want to walk through Daniel 1 through 6.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: I honestly just want to take you through these six stories.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: I'll draw a lesson at the end, but I want to remind you how great, how really amazing, how cool this book is.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Grab your Bible.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: The verses are not gonna be on the screen, okay?
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, a couple of them will, I lied.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: But there'll be pictures on the screen.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: So you need your Bible, open it to Daniel chapter 1.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you these six stories.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll try to go quickly, but I want you to see, you know, the snatching to victory from the jaws of defeat and so forth.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I start with a picture on the screen of Babylon is I still feel as though this is the greatest city that has ever been built.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: It still blows my mind.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: This was an amazing city.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: We're talking 600 BC, Nebuchadnezzar is in charge, the mighty river Euphrates flows around, and then through the city of Babylon.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And this is the city that has not only conquered Jerusalem, but it's 600 BC, has brought back the Krim Dilakrim, the people, kids like Daniel back there, because he's the sharpest.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, in the third year of the reign of what's his name, King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem, he besieged it.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: The Lord delivered him into his hand, he carried everything off to Babylonia.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, the king ordered his chief to bring in the Israelites from the royal families and nobility, young men without any physical defect.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6, among these were some from Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Imagine you're one of those four teenagers and you're going to this place.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is, I mean, you're just absolutely blown away.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: This at that time, for instance, was the greatest bridge in the world, 400 feet long, across the mighty Euphrates.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a moat, by the way, all the way around this city, 260 feet, but this bridge, 460, had was rested on seven stone pylons, each in the shape of a duck facing upstream.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And then you cross over this and you come into the, this is the great gate, Ishtar gate, which happens to be, they've recovered it, it's in the Bab uh Berlin Museum today.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: They had eight gates, and you go into these gates, and there's no Yahweh God.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Every one of these gates has the name of a different one of their gods over it.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: The moon god, the sun god, the sky god, the war god, the storm god, okay?
13:25
SPEAKER_00: The eight gates into the city.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And as you're passing through the gate into the city, you go, wow, this is like a tunnel, which it was because it last it the wall was eighty feet thick.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: 80 feet thick, 90 feet high.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: No battering ram in that day.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: It was anywhere near that high.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: A highway ran on the top of the wall since it was 80 feet thick, so that two chariots could pass each other.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: They always had them circling for defense.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Four horse chariots passing each other on top of the wall.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Hope you're driving carefully, dear friends, because you're up a long way.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: But that wall is so thick, it goes 35 feet below ground.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: And then as you walk into the city, you're on the great processional way, which is over 60 feet wide.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And if you're American, you're going, yeah, everything's red, white, and blue.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Because the road is solid white.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: It's out of solid stone, white limestone blocks over a yard on each side, each of them embossed with the name Nebuchadnezzar, okay?
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And the sidewalks are solid red, and the walls on either side of the processional way are blue, blue, white, red.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: So?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: And the first building you see on the right as you go in is the amazing palace of Nebuchadnezzar.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Walls over 130 feet thick, six football field square on four different levels.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and you go in one, two, three, five courts, and when you get to where Nebuchadnezzar is, that court is over half a football field long.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: You have to walk 60 yards, and Daniel had to do this, and his friends, once you get in the door, looking at the king of the hole, sixty yards you're walking towards him.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Don't fall down.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: You know how scared you were in graduation, you're just getting up the stairs.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
15:06
SPEAKER_00: This palace is unbelievable.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Then you walk a little farther, you come to one of the seven wonders of the world, the hanging gardens of Babylon, which are on four different levels, 80 feet high, with slaves and oxen, you know, pulling and water wheels pulling water from the Euphrates to water this amazing hanging gardens.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Then you start passing temples, 50 of them to fall to these other gods.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of this road, you come to the greatest temple of all, to their main god Marduk, which has an outer court like the Israeli temple, inner court, and a holy of holies with a huge golden statue of Marduk.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Herodotus said the holy of holies in that temple had 22 tons of gold used in it, 22 tons in that one temple.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: You walk back out and you're walking back down, and you go, Oh, I thought they knocked down the Tower of Babel.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: No, they built a new one.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: There's a Tower of Babel that's no less than 300 feet high called Etimanonki, which means where heaven and earth meet.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: And then the top of it is the temple to Ishtar, their great female god, 300 feet up.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine being a teenager going in here and you're going to try to stand for the things of God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what they do.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: They go in and they see the lions embossed on the walls.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: They see Nebuchadnezzar, actually, probably spelled Nebuchadnezzar, not Nebuchadnezzar, his name everywhere.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: And they're being told, you know what, you've got to go to higher education.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: We're going to put you in a three-year university program, and you're going to learn Babylon, you're going to learn all of our customs because you guys are sharp, you have high IQs, and then we're going to move you into government.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: And among the things you're going to do is you get the food from the king's table.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: How cool is that?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: You get the wine, you get the same food the king's eating.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And unbelievably, Daniel says, now we're in verse 8 if you have your Bible, Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And he asks the chief official for permission.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: He's so polite, by the way, in this whole book.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Very polite.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: He's not nasty at all.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And then he offers him an option, verse 12.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: He says, Test us for 10 days, give us nothing but vegetables and eat and water to drink.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: You may have heard of the Daniel diet.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, people go, well, the Daniel diet, you need to buy the Daniel diet, you know, from me because you shouldn't drink wine, you shouldn't eat rich food.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: You need to buy and I go you need to say, oh, excuse me, just veggies and water?
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Is that your diet?
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh no, we got some really special stuff for you.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I the real point here is not, since Daniel was a court official, basically, for 65 years and eventually was eating that food.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: It's just at this point early on, I take it he didn't want to def he wanted to take a stand somewhere.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: I agree with Ian Dugood's comment and his commentary on Daniel.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: If Satan can instill in us a sense of dependence upon the material comforts that make up our way of life, then he can far more effectively draw us away from the Lord.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Daniel's saying, you know what?
18:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to stand firm for God.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: These are some material comforts.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: We don't need these.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: We can be healthy without them.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And verse 15 says, at the end of the 10 days, they looked healthier and more nourished.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, notice, they passed their courses with straight A's.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: They aced their oral exams.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18, at the end of that time, verse 17, they got all kinds of knowledge and understanding.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the time, they were personally presented to Nebuchadnezzar himself.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: The king talked with them.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm at verse 19, chapter 1, and he found none equal to these four.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: And so they entered the king's service, and every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than everyone else.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I may talk about this later, but there is a certain move afoot because of some things that have happened in our culture.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: There are articles written by some well-meaning Christian editorialists saying, some of them say, we need to take up arms, we need to fight.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Most of them, though, say we need to just get out.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Don't vote next year, don't join, quit everything, and so forth.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Notice Daniel's example does not suggest doing that at all.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: Daniel was in politics for 65 years in an alien land.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Daniel went to a secular university, you could say, that was that was antithetical to things of God, and he succeeded.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: If you happen to be at such a place, what they believe about God and Jesus should not cause you to somehow give yourself an excuse for tubing out.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Become the very best student you can.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And it proved very helpful to Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar noticed that he was at the top of his class.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: It became very helpful in chapter two.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's chapter one.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Again, you have a situation where there was tension, where there was pressure to compromise, and in the end, God gave them victory.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Daniel chapter two is a really unique story about a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had that caused him trouble.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: He dreamed about a statue, but the moment he woke, it's like you or me sometimes.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: We can't remember the dream.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, you've probably never said to your husband or wife, tell me what I dreamed, and then tell me what it means.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: But Nebuchadnezzar did that with his wise men.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And they go, uh, excuse me?
20:28
SPEAKER_00: You tell us the dream, we'll tell you what it means.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Which was not a smart thing to say to a guy like Nebuchadnezzar, who is he was as cruel as Saddam Hussein, let's put it that way.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: He he could be really bloody.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: So they uh say in verse 4, tell us the dream.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, you tell me what the dream was, and you interpret it.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: And once more the reply, verse 7, no, you tell us the dream, then we interpret it.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: He says, You're stalling.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna kill you unless you tell me the dream.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And uh and they go, verse 10, no, we can't do that.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can do that.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: No one, only God can do that, and he's not right down here right now.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: So this made the king so angry, verse 12, that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Who do you and I know who's part of the wise men of Babylon?
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Right, Daniel and his three friends.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: So the decree is issued, and men are sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: So Daniel calls his friends together, he says, We gotta have, you guys have gotta pray.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: We have got to pray really hard, and I'm gonna ask God to tell me the dream, which he does.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: God tells him the dream, Daniel very politely goes to the representer of the king and says, Go tell Neb that I can tell him the dream.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, because he and so you have this amazing story of how um of how Daniel gets ushered into the presence of the greatest man in the world.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Most powerful man of the world, and starts telling in the dream.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, it doesn't tell you this in the Bible, but as I was reading this this week, I thought, I mean, I don't you think Nebuchadnezzar, as he would say things, as Daniel would say things, he goes, Yeah, yeah.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: I watched, I watched uh Melody and I watched an old NCIS show this week.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh she keeps going, we've seen this before.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Tell me you've seen this before, I've seen this before.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I think maybe I have, but I only remember it once the scene, you know, is up in front of me, once it happens.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, have you ever had that happen where you only remember something at the time?
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that happened and Melody says, We just watched it last night.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: My short-term memory is not that bad.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: But but you know, I and that I just I have this, I just uh, you know, he's telling him and he's and he's saying, listen, Nebiganers, you dreamed about this huge statue, and the statue had this head of gold.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: And then then it had this torso of silver.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
22:58
SPEAKER_00: And then it had uh, you know, it's the stomach and and uh loins of bronze.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's getting less and less valuable the farther you go down.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I really like what Marvin Alaski, the editor of World Magazine, points out.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: He was reading this and he said, listen, progressives love to talk of biological and social evolution.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: That means things getting better, but but devolution is much more frequent.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: That is kingdoms that think things go downhill rather than uphill, and that's that's the illustration here that that that that Daniel's saying, you are that head of gold.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Babylon is gold.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: You are precious, you are priceless.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: But after you there is going to come a kingdom that is Medo-Persian.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: It won't be as strong, it won't be as wealthy, it'll be silver.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: And then it'll come a bronze kingdom, the Greek Empire.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: That would be Alexander the Great, 333 BC.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And finally there'll be a Roman Empire.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: That's iron.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And down at the bottom is going to be the weakest part of all, iron and clay mix.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this is all picked up in the prophetic section in the second half, especially in chapter 7.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but anyway, says eventually a rock, the rock that is Jesus Christ, will come and it will absolutely topple all the human kingdoms, and they will all fall down, and then that rock will grow and it will fill the whole earth, and finally the kingdom of Christ will rule over the earth, and no other kingdoms will be around.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a wonderful story, isn't it?
24:22
SPEAKER_00: And what amazing thing happens is Nebuchadnezzar himself gets out of his throne and he falls prostrate.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: He bows down before Daniel.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Daniel, of course, has always given credit through this chapter, not to himself, but to God, and he goes, listen, God's just wanted you to know it.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm only the channel.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Don't give me any credit at all.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: But that's story number two.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Again, a story near death, near, you know, jaws of death are shutting around Daniel and his friends.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: And God spares him, brings him to victory.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Chapter three, famous story.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it says the image of gold in the fiery furnace at the top of your Bible as well.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold 90 feet high and nine feet wide.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Those of you that know construction, God, it's way too skinny, way too tall.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: This thing couldn't even stand up.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: What is the deal?
25:10
SPEAKER_00: This thing didn't really exist.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: They always say, oh, the Bible's such a brilliant book, but once in a while it sure does make a bonehead comment.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, those of you that have seen the Egyptian obelisk or whatever out there on 29th Street, or have ever been to Egypt, or at least seen some of these statues, know that very commonly you have very narrow statues, very narrow obelisks and so forth that go up high.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, this one went up 90 feet and it had a base.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And what had happened, we know, this isn't in the Bible, but we know there had been a plot, a coup against the government in the first decade of the 500s BC, about 598 BC.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: And so this is sort of a uh this is a loyalty sort of a thing.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar is saying, I want to make sure everybody's loyal to me.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Here's my statue.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Guess who he got the idea from?
26:01
SPEAKER_00: The statue idea?
26:03
SPEAKER_00: You're going, Nebuchadnezzar, that really wasn't the point of Daniel chapter 2.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Your hermeneutics is really bad here.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you dreamed a statue.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Daniel said you're the head of gold.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you're supposed to build one.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: But he did it.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: And um, so he sets it up as a sort of a loyalty test.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: When the music starts playing, everybody bow down.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: So it happens.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Daniel seems to be out of town.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: His three buddies, who are now called Me Shack, or My Shack, Your Shack, and a bungalow, something like that, whatever.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh they uh they stand, they won't kneel.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Which really makes Nebuchadnezzar mad.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Somebody told on him, you know, they're competitors in the government.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, they were running for office, maybe, and uh they said, they didn't bow down.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: So Nebuchadnezzar, really angry, says, You bow down or you burn?
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Don't you love one of the great lines of faith in this chapter?
27:01
SPEAKER_00: We're in Daniel chapter 3, verse 13, furious with rage, he summons them, and he says at the end of verse 15, if you don't worship this, you're gonna be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I love these next words.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Then what God will be able to rescue you from my hand?
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, hmm, three choices.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, that's what we call in literature foreshadowing.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: So I love their answer.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: And they reply to the king, listen, Nebuchadnezzar, if we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: You've heard uh he is able to deliver you, he is able to deliver you.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: So, and he will rescue us, word of faith, from your hand, O King.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: But even if he does not, isn't that the greatest line in the world?
27:49
SPEAKER_00: That phrase, that clause, even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: So, what does he do?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: He throws them in.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 24, he leaps to his feet.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: He says, Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, O King.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Your counting is good.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: He says, Look, I see four walking around, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Hmm, close.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Who is that?
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's the one who we know is comfortable with fire because he was in the burning bush, right?
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Poor Moses.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: He's the one, you know, who says, a hundred years before through Isaiah, when you are in the fire, when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: So they're in the fire and they're protected.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: So he tells them, Nebuchadnezzar tells them to come out, they come out.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: The three of them come out, and then he ends up by issuing a decree.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Any one of my people, nation language, who says, anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, will be torn limb from limb and his house made a garbage dump.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: In that order.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: For there is no other God who's able to deliver like this.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: There you are.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: There you are again.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: For alien society, danger, confrontation, call for compromise.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: They stand up and refuse.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: As a result, the jaws of death close around them, and then they are snatched to victory.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar has another dream.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Big tree in the middle of the land that grows, becomes strong, its top reaches to heaven, it's visible to the end of the earth.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: We're in Daniel chapter 4 now, which is uh the story of Nebuchadnezzar.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: This is Nebuchadnezzar's bonehead play here.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And uh this tree is amazing.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Its leaves and fruit feed the whole earth, all the animals of the earth run around under it.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: It's just this incredible tree.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: And then he dreams that all of a sudden there's this voice from heaven that says, Cut down that tree.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: So, like an angel comes, slices down the tree, all the animals leave, and iron bands are put around the trunk and so forth.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean?
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, he called in Daniel, and Daniel does not like it.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19, Daniel also called Belteshazzar, his thoughts terrified him.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Why did his thoughts terrify him?
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Because of what he has to say.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: And he finally gets.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Pride has grown in your heart like lard on a pig.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say that, but that's what happened.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, it happened.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: 12 months later, verse 29, chapter 4.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: The king's walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: He said, Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: By my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I think John Piper says, that's the lub dub of human pride in your heart.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Lub dub.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Lub by my power, dub for my glory.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: I did it, and it's for me.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: And that really is pride, isn't it?
31:16
SPEAKER_00: That's when you go, it's me.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I am the I control things.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: I am the reason I've been so successful.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And why do I do it?
31:26
SPEAKER_00: It's for me.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Immediately he hears a voice.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: He's here looking at this, he hears a voice.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Prophecy coming true, prophecy coming true.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: You're done for, tree getting cut down, and sure enough, he turns mad.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: He turns as mad as King George.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: King George, you know, the king of England at the time of the American Revolution, at the end of his life, he just turns wacko, he starts calling himself God.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: It's like the North Korean, you know, guy today who is announced the sun rises at his command and so forth.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: And and Nebuchadnezzar gets cut down.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: He he's he he's a dribbling idiot, and he starts eating grass like a cow, it says, and that's the prediction.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And um and he's absolutely redo- I love, by the way, the drawing by William Blake in 1800.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: William Blake, the poet and artist in 1800, where it's just this famous painting where you're at the level of this great king.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: As he's on his hands and knees, he's turned into an animal.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: And the prediction that his hair would grow as long as eagle's wings and that his nails would curl like animals' fingernails and toenails has come true.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: And the madness that you see in his eyes is reflects the madness that exists in him.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: He is he's crazy, he's mad.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: And and then all of a sudden, and he's going into his cave here, it's just a wonderful picture of Nebuchadnezzar being humbled.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: But then God turns everything around, his mind comes back to him, and at the end of the story, Nebuchadnezzar issues a decree so that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom he wishes.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And the best lines in this book are spoken by pagan kings.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but he does, here it comes, he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that?
33:28
SPEAKER_00: He does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: An amazing, amazing story.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: And Nebuchadnezzar closes the chapter by saying, Now I Neb, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just, and those who walk in pride, he is able to humble.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: And he is, isn't he?
33:51
SPEAKER_00: I would suggest there's at least one of the Republican candidates for president.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: That is known unfortunately for pride.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: I can't help think of Muhammad Ali flying on the airplane.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: You've heard the story before, I'm sure, where he refused to.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I hate to I hate to fasten my seatbelt on a plane.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: It seems so stupid.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: But you know you do it.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And so finally the flight attendant comes by and says, Muhammad Ali, you need to fasten your seatbelt.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: He says, Superman don't need no seatbelt.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: She rears back and she says, Superman don't need no plane.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Buckle up, please.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Which is true.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's just something inside each of us that tends to feel, have that love dub of, you know, I'm the one who has brought myself this far, and all of this stuff is really for me.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: And I really like the poster labeled humility.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: God is always going to be more powerful than you.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: You'll regret making him prove it.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
34:54
SPEAKER_00: All right, uh finally, we uh then we get chapter five.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: This is the handwriting in the wall where Nebuchadnezzar makes this big mistake in verses one and two.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: He gives this great or this isn't Neb, this is Belshazzar.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: So this is years later, so like 35 years later, so Daniel's older now, and Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar's son, gives this banker for a thousand nobles, and they're gonna have a drinking party.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's a wine tasting, it's a drinking party, he says.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: And then verse two, he gives orders, big mistake coming.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: He gives orders to get all of the golden and silver vessels that were taken from the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem and to drink out of them.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, come on.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Use the old vessels.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: You've got nice cups and glasses.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: Why do you have to try to stick a fork in the eye of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
35:40
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna regret it.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And he does.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: So they're drinking all of a sudden.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: He sees a hand, they all see a handwriting on the wall.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Four Hebrew words, mini, mini, tekel, eupharson, and we read the king watched the hand as it wrote, verse 6, his face turned pale, and he was so frightened, and his knees knocked together, that his knees knocked together, and his legs gave way.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's not really legs.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: This is uh, yeah, it's an area of the legs, and it has to, he soiled himself.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: He just, he was so scared that he just lost it completely.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: The Rembrandt painting is too nice to show that.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, this is what happened.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: He he totally is reduced by by shock, by these, what turns out to be four accounting words.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Nobody understands why these why these words that have to do with numbers are put up there, and so he calls out, nobody knows the answer.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: The queen says, Listen, there's this old guy that used to interpret stuff for your dad.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Call him in.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: So he calls Daniel in.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Daniel points at this mini, mini tekal eupharson.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: He says, and I gotta tell you, this is not good news.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Because mini means uh the word numbered.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: God has numbered your kingdom and he's finished it.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Tekl, weighed.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: You've been wear balances, you've been weighed in the balances and found wanting.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Eupharcin, you means and farsen, divided, your kingdom's been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: As far as we know, Belshazzar kept on drinking.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: But we read down at the bottom, that very night, verse 30.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Med took over the kingdom.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Hold it.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
37:27
SPEAKER_00: We've seen how great Babylon is.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: You can't knock over its walls, old Darius the Meed.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: We're told, diverted the waters of the Euphrates, the great Euphrates River that night, and marched his army underneath the walls and slaughtered all of them.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: And that's how it happened.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, in the old days, back when people knew what the Bible meant, in the well-known Eastern magazine, you had this cartoon where eating Chinese food.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Many, many Tekle Eupharson, says the businessman, what kind of a cookie is this?
38:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's the kind of a cookie that tells you that like Belshazzar, you may have been weighed and found wanting.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: That to live your life, no matter who you are, then or today, as if God is unimportant, and to live it for yourself in pride is the way to disaster.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's chapter five, and we get finally to chapter six, the most famous story of Daniel in the lion's den.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful story.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: We'll go through it quickly because you know it.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: We read in verses one through three now that Darius has appointed all these rulers.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: He's a Persian.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And one of the rulers is old Daniel.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 3, he realizes, he says, that Daniel is so distinguished that he's going to set him over the whole kingdom, like Pharaoh did with Joseph.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: And the other 119 are super jealous, and they say, How can we get rid of them?
38:52
SPEAKER_00: And someone comes up with a bright idea that lions might be a good option.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Because there is a pit of lions that just seems to be kept around the capital for them to, you know, throw people into the pit of lions if they've really been bad and they can get torn up.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I just, I thought, you know, we're so used to the story, we forget that lions eat things like zebras, and they get bloody faces, and they're really scary creatures.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: All right?
39:21
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what this story is about.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about jaws of death here.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: And so they go, he's Daniel's a man of integrity.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: We can't nail him for anything that he does other than what he does religiously.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: What does he do religiously?
39:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, he prays three times a day toward Jerusalem, and he never doesn't do that.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: So they come up with this plot.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: They go to Nebuchadnezzar, they say, listen, uh, we need another loyalty oath.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: We think there might be a coup coming.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And so let's let's let's say that anybody who makes a request of anybody for anything for the next 30 days other than you, he gets thrown into the lion's den.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing Nebuchadnezzar goes, that's weird, but sure.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: So he signs it.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: It's the law of the Medes and the Persians.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: So obviously they go.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: Daniel's heard of it, but he says, you know, I'm gonna pray anyway, and they find him.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: He knows this is deliberate.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: So they find him, they go to the king.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar says, I'm not Nebuchadnezzar, but Darius says, he's my right, he's my favorite guy.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: They say, You signed it into law.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: And so sure enough, they have to throw him into the den of lions.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: They get to.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Darius is not happy.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Darius says, Please pray.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: I hate to see you go.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: He should have uh realized there's some contracts that are not worth being honored.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: And so in the morning, not being able to sleep, he runs out there, and of course he doesn't go look.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have gone and looked either, but he stops, it says, before the cave entrance, the den entrance, and he calls out, Are you in there, please?
40:52
SPEAKER_00: And he, to his outer shock, he hears this voice back saying, Yeah, I'm here, I survive.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Really?
41:00
SPEAKER_00: said Nebuchadnezzar.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
41:02
SPEAKER_00: He says, God sent an angel and he shut the lion's mouth.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, it doesn't take Darius long to realize that, you know, those lions have been smelling red meat all night, and they need to be fed, so he immediately throws in all of the guys who accuse Daniel, and it says they get chomped up before they hit the ground.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: So, amazing story, and he ends it ends by him issuing a decree that in all my royal dominion, he says, people must tremble in fear before the God of Daniel, who's the living God, endures forever, his kingdom will never be destroyed, his dominion has no end, he rescues and delivers.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: There you are again.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: An alien foreign society, a command to compromise, standing firm, jaws of death, saved to victory.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: This is the only verse I'll share in the last half of the book, but a prediction that in the final days, these prophecies, great tribulation, time of distress, this is the first verse of the last chapter, such as has never occurred, but at that time all your people who are found written in the book of life will escape.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: So that's the message today.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand it?
42:13
SPEAKER_00: It's a message that we live in an alien society that pressures us to fit in.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: And we're told that unless we compromise, we will be crushed.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: Stand down, or you'll be run over.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: Now the question is, will we have the courage to stand up?
42:28
SPEAKER_00: I want to end with a little short three-minute message on courage, and I'm gonna have Jeremiah and the gang come out in a few minutes and play a song about that.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: But I want to challenge you to a certain kind of courage.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: We have worn bracelets that are a little confusing, W W J D, what would Jesus do?
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Because half of the time you're trying to guess.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not really clear, and it's not really a biblical bracelet, trying to figure out what Jesus would do.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe better we should wear bracelets W D D D.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: What did Daniel do?
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is that Daniel didn't do what some people have suggested we do.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Within 24 hours of the gay marriage decision, we had good Christian, you know, commentators sort of suggesting that we run away, that we give in, that we yield.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: And I have people telling me, well, I, you know, you don't want to offend people, maybe you should be willing to do a gay marriage, maybe you should be willing to do that kind of stuff.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
43:22
SPEAKER_00: So we have these issues today.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: And in my view, the fact that Daniel stayed in the society and he was a politician for 65 years and he didn't run away, stayed in that secular university and succeeded really well.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: That to me is a lesson that you and I should vote next year.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: You and I should stay involved in this.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: We need to stand up and we need to be courageous when God tells us to stand up and be courageous.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Because you really only, in my view, have two choices.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm a shallow guy on the surface.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: And I grew up with Spaniels, and I thought of really you have two choices.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: You can either be a Spaniel or a Daniel, all right?
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Because Just okay, just I know it's funny.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: It's stupid.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's stupid and it's shallow.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: But all I had to do is yell at Tiny.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: That was the name of my first cocker.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: And Tiny would just lay down like, you know, helpless.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Anything you want to do.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, Tiny was not the dog you took when you were facing a pit bull.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Because Tiny was yield, yield, yield.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: And I really think we have to be careful.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to fight, take up arms, but neither do we yield.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: God's calling us to be bold, to take our stand at times and say, no, I won't.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: No, I can't do that.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'll take the punishment you give me, but you know what?
44:38
SPEAKER_00: God can deliver me from that.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Because God's in the business of delivering courageous people.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: God is in the business of snatching to victory out of the jaws of defeat.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: His people who stand firm for him.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: You know how I love Lord of the Rings, but maybe one of the most stirring messages ever by Aragorn in front of the gates of doom is when he's challenging them in the face of death.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: He says, Stand firm, stand firm.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: A day may come when the courage of men fails, but it is not this day.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: And it should not be this day for you, and it should not be this day for me that somehow we lose our courage.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I challenge us on the basis of this book, which promises us that God will eventually and finally snatch us to victory out of the jaws of defeat, that we stand courageous.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: And for me, when I think of courage today, you know what I think?
45:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think of my brother who I spent half a day with us last week.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: He flew over from Sudan.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he's had to leave Sudan because of the threat of death.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Not just to him.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: He stayed there when the death threats came against him.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: But when the death threats started extending to bombing the hospital, Samaritan Spurs said, You've got to go.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: We can't risk everybody's life.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: So this summer, he's out of Sudan.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Trying to find something else.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: Or I think of the woman who died this year in Sudan.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: She was called the peace singer, singer of peace.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: 49 years old, mother of six, who Christian woman who wrote songs about peace and forgiveness and reconciliation.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: That was the title of her last of her last record album.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Dead now.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: I think of her when I think of church.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: I think of Sudan.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: I think of what happened this last week in Sudan.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: I've spoken to pastors a year or two ago, spoke to 100 pastors in Sudan, was trying to teach them the gospel of John.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: This last week, two of those Christian churches, Sudan, one of the fastest growing Christian countries in the world, maybe 10% Christian today from like zero to 20 years ago.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: But two of those churches were blown up with bombs.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: This is just this past week.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, the third church, the bomb didn't go off.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: I think of those churches as being courageous churches.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: I think of the guy who went home this week in Egypt, who's been in jail for three weeks in Egypt simply for handing out a Bible downtown in Egypt.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: And he faces maybe three years of jail time for distributing Bibles downtown.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: That's who I think of when I think of courage.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: I think of my fringe and Jews for Jesus, who these last two weeks have been witnessing on the streets of Ashkelon in Israel, and have been spat on and slugged by Orthodox Jews who don't want them to talk about the fact that the Messiah has come.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: There's courage there.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: But there's courage here as well.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: When you stand up for Jesus Christ, when you speak out, I mean even, you know, when you're scared.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: I think of Richard, a guy named Richard, I know a Topeka country club, who shines shoes, who refuses to let any of the big wigs of this town walk by him without a word of witness to Jesus Christ.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: Now there's courage.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: And I believe God calls us to dare to be a Daniel.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: I think he says you were made to be.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: I designed you not to be Spaniels.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: But Daniel.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: I made you to be courageous.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Again, come on out and sing that song for us, will you please?
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometime during the song, I'd like us all to stand up with him.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: Not at the beginning, but at some time during the song, alright?
48:00
SPEAKER_00: As a sign of the fact that you're standing with Daniel to be courageous.
48:09
SPEAKER_02: We were made to be courageous.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: We were made to lead the way.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: We could be the generation that finally breaks the chains.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: We were made to be courageous.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: We were made to be courageous.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: We were warriors on the front line, standing unafraid.
48:37
SPEAKER_02: Now we're watchers on the sidelines.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: While the family slip away.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: Where are you, men of courage?
48:46
SPEAKER_02: You were maybe so much more.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: Let the pounding of our hearts cry.
48:52
SPEAKER_02: We were starting the law.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: We were making be courageous, and we'll take it back the fight.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: We would make you be courageous, and it's got with us tonight.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: The only way we understand is the honey to let them and make us correct.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: The Lord make us correct us.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: Our answer to the call.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: We will love our wise children.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: We refuse to let them fall.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: We will recognize the passion that we bury deep inside.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: May the watchers become warriors, let the men of God arrive.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: We will make you be courageous, and we'll take you back the fight.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: We will make you be courageous, and it starts with us tonight.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: The only way we understand is that I need to lift the hand.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: Make us the red job.
50:45
SPEAKER_02: And the battle of the hand.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: We would make you be courageous, and we'll take me back the bite.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: We would make you be courageous, and start with us tonight.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: The only way we ever stand to start is the hands make us correct.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: The Lord make us correct.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: The Lord make us correct.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: The Lord make us correct.