Collierville First Baptist Church

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Let's begin with the word of prayer.

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Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the book of Daniel.

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The book of Daniel is so rich.

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The book of Daniel has so much relevance for the time in which we live,

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especially what we're gonna study tonight, next week.

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And Lord, in the name of Jesus, I just pray that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, you would make the word of God come alive

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and you would make it come alive in our hearts.

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Lord, we love you. We thank you so much that every word in this book is inspired, God-breathed. It is truth without mixture of era.

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And Lord, we love the word of God. We love to study the word of God. And most importantly, Lord, we wanna let the word of God shape us to be the men and women you've called us to be. We love you in Jesus' name, amen.

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So tonight, I've titled this study Resolve, Resolve.

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And Jonathan Edwards was one of the greatest theologians America has ever produced.

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And he wrote down 70 resolutions

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that he wanted to live his life by. I'm gonna share a few of those with you. Resolved never to lose one moment of time,

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but improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

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Resolved to live with all my might while I do live.

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Resolved when I feel pain,

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to think of the pains of martyrdom and the pains of hell.

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Resolved never to do anything out of revenge.

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Resolved never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.

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Resolved never to speak evil of anyone

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so that it shall tend to his dishonor more or less upon no account except for some real good.

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Resolved to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

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So that's just a few of the resolutions that Jonathan Edwards lived by.

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And when I thought about resolve,

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I thought about a character in the New Testament. Of course, the character of Daniel, we'll go get to that in a moment, but also thought about Stephen in the New Testament.

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Stephen stood for Christ when the Jews were out to kill him.

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In fact, he preached the word of God. He preached the gospel to the Jews.

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And verse 54 of chapter eight says, now went of Acts said, now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick

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and they began gnashing their teeth at him.

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But being full of the Holy Spirit,

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he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

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And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened up

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and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

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But they cried out with a loud voice and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse.

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When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him.

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And the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man by the name of Saul.

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Who would Saul become?

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Paul.

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They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, listen to what Stephen said,

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Lord Jesus received my spirit.

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Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice,

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Lord do not hold this sin against them.

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And having said this, he fell asleep or died.

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That is resolve.

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And that's what Daniel had.

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Daniel had resolved, take your Bible, turn to Daniel chapter one.

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Now last week we did an introduction

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of the book of Daniel.

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And I'm sure Kathy can get that introduction for you if you ask her real kindly. Not right now, but later.

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So tonight we're gonna look at Daniel chapter one verses three to 13.

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Let's just pick up a little bit with what we talked about last time.

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Remember compromise was the order of the day as far as Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon was concerned.

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These young gifted Jewish teenagers,

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Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Daniel,

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they needed to be assimilated into the Babylonian culture.

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Nebuchadnezzar was not trying to get laborers for the economy. He was trying to get these young men, these gifted super intelligent young men

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to buy into the Babylonian culture.

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I want you to pay close attention

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to what was taking place then and see if there are any parallels for today. I can think of a few.

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The pressure to compromise with culture is just as powerful today as it was in Daniel's day.

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And here's the thing that Daniel would say to us tonight,

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resist any attempt to pressure you into violating God's will, God's word or God's way. You got to resist it. You got to be a Stephen.

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You got to be a Daniel, a Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego.

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Now we're gonna get over here in the book of Daniel a little bit and we'll see this resolve lived out in living technicolor.

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We will see Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego say to Nebuchadnezzar, we're not gonna bow down to your God. We're not gonna worship your God even if you throw us in the fiery furnace. Our God is able to deliver us if he so chooses but even if he doesn't, we're not gonna bow down to your God. That's resolved.

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That's the kind of resolve we got to have in our culture

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because the pressure in our culture to compromise

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is getting heavier and stronger every single day.

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Look at Daniel chapter one, verses one and two to sort of catch up.

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In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,

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I marked that word Babylon for you, you ought to circle that word Babylon.

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Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

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The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.

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Y'all to circle the word Judah

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along with some of the vessels of the house of God and he brought them to the land of Shinar, which is Babylon, to the house of his God and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his God. So get this now.

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There were holy vessels that God had ordered Moses and those who were helping him to make

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and they were designed for the worship of Jehovah, Jehovah God and they were to be kept in the temple itself

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and they were to be taken out for worship only.

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And here we see Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon coming and taking the holy vessels out of the temple of the one true God and transferring them all the way to Babylon into the temple of his God, his false God.

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Now remember, Babylon was a polytheistic culture. They didn't have just one God.

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They had multiple gods, okay? We're gonna see that in just a moment.

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Jehoiakim was the king of Judah and he led the Jews,

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Jehoiakim led the Jews to embrace false worship

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and fill Jerusalem with innocent blood.

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God's judgment was imminent upon the southern kingdom of Israel, Judah.

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And it was prophesied years earlier. It's not like God sprung this on them.

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The prophets had warned them over and over again, repent or God will judge the nation.

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In Isaiah chapter 39, verses five to seven, listen to what the prophet Isaiah wrote. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah who was a king in Judah, the southern kingdom, hear the word of the Lord of hosts.

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Behold, verse six, behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon.

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Now this was said to them years before it happened.

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They had ample opportunity to listen to God and to repent and to change their heart and their ways.

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And he said, nothing will be left, says the Lord.

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And some of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget will be taken away and they will become officials in the pallets of the king of Babylon.

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Guess who that prophecy is about? Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Bednego and some more of the young Jewish teenagers.

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Jeremiah prophesied also, Jeremiah 25, eight through 12.

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Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words.

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Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant. Notice this. Now, what is the theme of Daniel? Remember we talked about it last week. The theme is a sovereignty of God.

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God is sovereign over every nation, over every ruler on this planet today, and he's been sovereign over every ruler and every nation on the planet since he created the world.

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You need to understand that.

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So here's what God says.

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I will send to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant.

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Nebuchadnezzar is doing what God wanted him to do.

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He's bringing judgment on the covenant people because they refuse to obey God.

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What does that say to us?

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Here's what it should say to us. We better listen to God.

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Listen, when the Bible is taught, when it's preached, when it's taught in a connect group class, I'm telling you, we ought to pay attention to it.

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And we ought to obey it.

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And we'll bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against all these nations round about, and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing and an everlasting desolation.

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Moreover, I will take for them the voice of joy

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and the voice of gladness,

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the voice of the bridegroom,

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and the voice of the bride,

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the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole land will be a desolation and a horror.

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And these nations will serve the king of Babylon. And I notice it, it's very important. Now we talk about the sovereignty of God, right?

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And God says that Judah will serve Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar for 70 years.

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This was not an open-ended thing.

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It would be 70 years.

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And I'm gonna tell you what, this prophecy came true to a T.

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Then it will be when 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation declares the Lord for their iniquity and the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.

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If you don't learn anything else in our study,

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I want you to remember until your dying day that God is sovereign, the sovereignty of God.

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Now Nebuchadnezzar appears in this book a lot in the early parts.

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He plays a prominent role.

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Nebuchadnezzar was an arrogant man.

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He was very arrogant.

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And the conquests he made were understood by him to be proof of his superiority and the superiority of his gods. Every time he conquered a nation,

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Nebuchadnezzar viewed himself as being superior to any leader in that nation that he conquered and he viewed his gods as being superior to the gods in the nations that he conquered,

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including Jehovah God.

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Now remember, Babylon was polytheistic, many gods.

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Judah was monotheistic, that one God. Although through corrupt leadership, they had started worshiping other gods, that's what got them in trouble.

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It was in demonstration of this conviction that Nebuchadnezzar had that caused him to bring the gold and silver articles from the temple there in Jerusalem to Babylon and place them in the treasure house of his gods.

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It was an act of arrogance. It was an act of saying, "My gods are better than your God."

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I would advise you not to shake your fist in the face of the living God.

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Now these special young men were mentioned in two places, being in two places, Judah, the Southern Kingdom. Now the Southern Kingdom, remember there was a Northern Kingdom called Israel

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and Israel was carried into Assyrian captivity in 722 BC.

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They never had a good king.

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The Northern Kingdom denied a good king.

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But Judah and the Southern Kingdom had 19 kings who ruled them over a period of about three and a half centuries.

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Eight of those kings were good and 11 of them were bad.

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Daniel and his friends were raised in Jerusalem, the capital of the Southern Kingdom.

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Now the other place that's mentioned was Babylon.

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Now we talked about Babylon

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when we did the introduction last week.

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In the Bible, Babylon is always a symbol for evil and a pagan world system, always,

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with no exception.

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Now what started with the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, you trace it through the Bible.

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Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, all the way to Revelation 17 and 18 where it talks about Babylon

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and talks about the collapse of Babylon, the world system, the pagan world system,

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the pagan economy.

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And that will happen at the second coming of Christ.

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Now in Daniel's day,

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the Babylonian Empire ruled the world.

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I gave you a map in the introduction last week and it showed you how large the Babylonian kingdom was.

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But what was Nebuchadnezzar's plan?

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How was he going to assimilate

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and turn these godly spirit-filled Jewish teenagers, remember they were teenagers, maybe 15 to 17 years old.

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How was he gonna turn them into Babylon? How was he going to bring the Babylonian culture and inject it into them?

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He had really two strategies.

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The first was isolation. If he could isolate them,

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he would go a long way toward meeting his goal.

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So what did Nebuchadnezzar do? Well in 605 BC,

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he ripped these young men away from their families,

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ripped them away from their mom and dad,

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ripped them away from their siblings if they had siblings,

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ripped them away from temple worship,

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ripped them away from everything

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that was foundational for their lives.

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And then he transported them to a new land, Babylon,

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with a new language and a strange new religion. I'm gonna tell you, when you isolate young people or even old people, they become very vulnerable.

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They're vulnerable.

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They were separated from all that was familiar.

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So they were susceptible to new ideas.

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This Babylonian strategy would increase the likelihood

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of the deconstruction of their faith.

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Now look, if you pay attention to what's going on in our culture today, even in the church world today, you hear this word deconstruction a lot,

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about the deconstruction of somebody's faith.

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That means that evidently this person had somewhat of a faith, a legitimate faith,

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but this person has apostasized.

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I will tell you what, I've noticed on Facebook,

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former member of this church

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who is putting all kind of garbage out there,

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just garbage.

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And I asked myself, has this man apostasized?

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Has he turned his back on Christ and the word of God?

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Looking at his Facebook post,

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one would tend to think that's exactly what's happened.

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Now he hadn't been here in a long time.

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Nebuchadnezzar's goal was to get these boys to deconstruct their Jewish faith and convert them to the worldview of Babylon.

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Hey, let me ask you a question.

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You think Satan's still using this strategy today?

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Parents send their children off to a secular college or university.

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They're isolated from their mom and dad.

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They're isolated from their siblings, they're isolated from the church where they've gone, where they've heard the word of God priests and taught, where they've got a group of Christians around them.

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And they're now in a secular college or university.

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And they are quickly seduced by so-called intellectual elites.

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And many of them, many of them, not all of them, but many of them will end up walking away from Christ and from a biblical worldview.

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Satan doesn't do anything new.

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He's still pulling the same stuff he pulled in the Garden of Eden.

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He just repackages it. He makes it look new and fresh,

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but it's not new and fresh.

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It's just repackaged garbage.

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And our kids and our grandkids

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are exposed to this strategy. So I was coming out Sunday after the service

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and I saw two young moms talking.

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And I walked by them, they said something to me. I said, "What you got to talk about?"

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We're talking about how we can protect our kids.

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There's some kind of thing, I don't understand it.

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I don't.

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Call, pop something, what is it? Anybody know?

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But it's dealing with demons. And it's for little kids.

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It's for little kids.

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And these moms, boy, I'm telling them, they were fired up.

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They said, "Pastor, we cannot,

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we cannot ignore this kind of stuff. We've got to be careful, we've got to protect our kids.

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And it's coming from everywhere."

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So isolation was part of Nebuchadnezzar's strategy

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to hook Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel, and lure them and pull them into the Babylonian world system.

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But there was another phase, not only isolation,

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but indoctrination, indoctrination.

[01:25:26;48 - 01:25:29;36]
Now, the selection process for determining

[01:25:30;37 - 01:25:34;11]
which Jewish young men would become a part of the program was meticulous.

[01:25:36;23 - 01:25:41;39]
They had to be young, 14 to 17 years old.

[01:25:43;53 - 01:25:45;21]
They had to have no defects.

[01:25:47;12 - 01:25:55;28]
It's all right here in the scripture. Let me find it.

[01:25:58;54 - 01:26:09;27]
Yeah, right here. Verses three and four, look at this. Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel,

[01:26:10;32 - 01:26:14;33]
including some of the royal family. It's on page four.

[01:26:15;50 - 01:26:20;01]
And some of the nobles, youths in whom there was no defect.

[01:26:21;03 - 01:26:23;06]
I mean, he wanted the best of the best.

[01:26:24;55 - 01:26:27;29]
Youth in whom there was no defect,

[01:26:28;34 - 01:26:45;29]
who were good looking, showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom, endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge, and who had ability for serving in the king's court, and he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.

[01:26:48;57 - 01:26:50;28]
Do you know what the scripture says?

[01:26:51;49 - 01:26:55;11]
The scripture said Nebuchadnezzar's plan was for Ashpenaz

[01:26:56;34 - 01:27:02;24]
to put them into a three year indoctrination process. Three years.

[01:27:04;10 - 01:27:04;43]
Three years.

[01:27:07;53 - 01:27:10;55]
So they had to be young, 14 to 17 years old.

[01:27:12;04 - 01:27:21;17]
They had to have no defects. They had to be strong, healthy, and good looking. They had to be super smart, and they had to have great poise and social graces

[01:27:22;43 - 01:27:24;06]
to be in the king's presence.

[01:27:26;41 - 01:27:28;25]
Once the selection was made,

[01:27:29;37 - 01:27:32;38]
the process of indoctrination was kicked into high gear.

[01:27:35;11 - 01:27:38;19]
We read about it there. I just read it to you in verses three and four.

[01:27:39;55 - 01:27:44;29]
Now remember, Nebuchadnezzar only had one goal in mind,

[01:27:45;56 - 01:27:58;00]
to take these guys and turn them into good Babylonians who worship false gods, who embraced a Babylonian worldview.

[01:27:59;15 - 01:28:00;16]
That was his goal.

[01:28:04;35 - 01:28:07;53]
Again, Satan's game plan hasn't changed much at all.

[01:28:09;08 - 01:28:31;34]
Look at Romans 12, one and two. It's the New Testament now. We've gone ahead several hundred years here. In Romans 12, one and two, Paul wrote, "Therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God "to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, "acceptable to God, "which is your spiritual service of worship."

[01:28:32;35 - 01:28:34;01]
Now look at verse two, very important.

[01:28:35;37 - 01:28:38;28]
"And do not be conformed to this world."

[01:28:41;56 - 01:28:47;11]
Hey, that's exactly what Nebuchadnezzar was trying to pull off.

[01:28:49;29 - 01:28:53;17]
He wanted to conform these boys

[01:28:54;54 - 01:28:57;08]
to the Babylonian way of life.

[01:28:59;50 - 01:29:09;53]
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable and perfect.

[01:29:13;16 - 01:29:21;43]
So this, remember the use of Babylon refers to an evil pagan system of thought and religion.

[01:29:25;13 - 01:29:30;27]
And in 1 John 2, 15 to 17, John wrote about too, he said, "Do not love the world,

[01:29:32;12 - 01:29:33;43]
"nor the things in the world."

[01:29:34;56 - 01:29:38;37]
If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.

[01:29:39;42 - 01:29:41;37]
For all that is in the world,

[01:29:43;34 - 01:29:49;06]
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the father,

[01:29:50;43 - 01:29:51;55]
but is from the world.

[01:29:54;01 - 01:29:58;22]
And John wrote, "The world is passing away." But by the way, can I tell you,

[01:29:59;52 - 01:30:02;18]
this world is passing away and it's passing away quickly.

[01:30:06;00 - 01:30:12;05]
Don't build all of your hopes and dreams on this world system.

[01:30:15;16 - 01:30:19;26]
The world is passing away and also it's lust.

[01:30:20;49 - 01:30:24;00]
Look at this, "But the one who does the will of God "lives forever."

[01:30:28;34 - 01:30:33;05]
It's sad to say it, but too many Christians

[01:30:34;35 - 01:30:37;18]
give in to Satan's pressure pack push

[01:30:38;44 - 01:30:42;03]
and lose their power, their joy and their testimony.

[01:30:44;58 - 01:30:53;11]
Let me tell you what Paul wrote to the Romans, it's something that ought to be on the top of our minds and hearts, "Do not be conformed to this world,

[01:30:55;18 - 01:30:57;44]
"but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

[01:30:59;12 - 01:31:03;40]
"that you may prove what the will of God, "that which is good, acceptable and perfect."

[01:31:07;19 - 01:31:19;54]
Nebuchadnezzar's diabolical plan to assimilate these young guys into the corrupt and godless Babylonian system also included, notice we read it earlier, teaching them the literature and the language.

[01:31:23;33 - 01:31:27;32]
The literature and the language.

[01:31:32;19 - 01:31:35;52]
Getting them used to his lavish lifestyle of food and drink,

[01:31:37;30 - 01:31:43;18]
changing their identity, giving them a new name. We're gonna talk about that in just a moment.

[01:31:46;13 - 01:32:01;37]
They didn't stay Daniel and Hennini, Michelle and Azariah. They didn't stay with those names. Their names were changed. And they were changed for a diabolical reason.

[01:32:03;00 - 01:32:15;56]
Look at verses five and six, "The king appointed for them a daily ration "from the king's choice food." Can you imagine the food that was put before those teenage boys?

[01:32:18;44 - 01:32:19;38]
Succulent food.

[01:32:21;37 - 01:32:25;39]
Food that smells so good, smells so good.

[01:32:28;40 - 01:32:35;16]
We, look, I believe that there were other Jewish young men who were also taken and they compromised.

[01:32:37;15 - 01:32:38;43]
These four guys didn't compromise.

[01:32:41;30 - 01:32:48;34]
"And the king appointed for them a daily ration "from the king's choice food "and from the wine which he drank

[01:32:49;59 - 01:32:53;26]
"and appointed that they should be educated three years."

[01:32:54;47 - 01:32:55;43]
There's that three year.

[01:32:56;56 - 01:33:07;01]
"Educated for three years, "learning the literature and the language "and the system of thought, the worldview of Babylon.

[01:33:09;07 - 01:33:12;31]
"At the end of which they were to enter "the king's personal service."

[01:33:14;10 - 01:33:20;44]
Verse six, "Now among them from the sons of Judah "were Daniel, Hennini, Michelle and Azariah."

[01:33:22;02 - 01:33:25;38]
I like those Jewish names better than I do those Babylonian names.

[01:33:27;55 - 01:33:42;19]
"Then to the commander, "then the commander of the officials "assigned new names to them. "And to Daniel, he assigned the name Belchazzar "and to Hennini Shadrach and to Michelle Meshach "and to Azariah Abednego."

[01:33:48;50 - 01:33:55;44]
Now we may look at this and say, boy, these boys had some really good fortune to be able to eat from the king's table.

[01:33:57;39 - 01:34:00;11]
No, not really.

[01:34:01;48 - 01:34:12;52]
Because even what was served to them from the king's ration went against the dietary laws that God had laid out in Leviticus.

[01:34:15;41 - 01:34:17;32]
Would they compromise with their diet?

[01:34:21;06 - 01:34:22;54]
Would they compromise with their faith?

[01:34:29;02 - 01:34:34;22]
God had expressly forbidden the eating of meat sacrificed to idols among other things.

[01:34:36;03 - 01:34:41;00]
These boys must have experienced a crushing pressure to compromise.

[01:34:45;35 - 01:34:47;08]
You've experienced it.

[01:34:48;20 - 01:34:49;55]
You've experienced it in school.

[01:34:51;12 - 01:34:57;02]
You've experienced it in college. You've experienced it in different places.

[01:34:58;40 - 01:35:01;49]
You've had a group of friends before that weren't walking with the Lord.

[01:35:04;16 - 01:35:07;43]
And they were pressuring you to do things that you know were not right.

[01:35:11;14 - 01:35:15;09]
Would these young boys obey the Lord or compromise? That's the question.

[01:35:17;04 - 01:35:28;30]
Now to get at the heart of their identity, look, the first thing he did, we talked about the isolation. He was taking away their heritage.

[01:35:30;50 - 01:35:42;40]
But here with the name change and all that's going on, teaching them the language of the literature, he's taking away their identity, their identity.

[01:35:45;53 - 01:35:50;32]
So Daniel's name in Hebrew means God is my judge.

[01:35:52;35 - 01:35:54;43]
His name would change to Belt Shazar,

[01:35:55;51 - 01:36:02;06]
from the, which was, that name was after the Babylonian God, Bell.

[01:36:04;26 - 01:36:06;41]
And Hannoni's name meant God is gracious.

[01:36:08;11 - 01:36:12;29]
His name would change to Shadrach, which means illumined by the sun God.

[01:36:14;34 - 01:36:22;52]
Michelle's name meant who is like God. His name would change to Meshach, which means who is like Venus, the goddess of sensual love.

[01:36:24;02 - 01:36:26;35]
And Azariah's name meant the Lord is my helper.

[01:36:28;16 - 01:36:33;11]
His name would change to Abednego, meaning the servant of Nebo, the God of wisdom.

[01:36:34;54 - 01:36:36;13]
Do you see what's happening?

[01:36:38;17 - 01:36:41;35]
These boys had names associated with Jehovah God.

[01:36:43;50 - 01:36:53;24]
And Nebuchadnezzar changed their names so that their names, new names would be associated with the false gods of Babylon, taking away their identity.

[01:36:55;31 - 01:37:03;53]
Now look, today, for some, there are no real big deal about changing names.

[01:37:05;53 - 01:37:08;51]
But I can tell you in these boys' day,

[01:37:11;07 - 01:37:12;16]
your name meant everything.

[01:37:14;57 - 01:37:24;54]
One's name went to the heart of their identity and the core of who they were. And to change their name was a big deal.

[01:37:27;23 - 01:37:29;49]
Look at Daniel chapter one, verses eight through 10.

[01:37:31;22 - 01:37:36;36]
I love verse eight, the first few words of verse eight.

[01:37:37;40 - 01:37:56;21]
"But Daniel made up his mind "that he would not defile himself "with the king's choice food "or with the wine which he drank. "So he sought permission from the commander of the officials "that he might not defile himself."

[01:37:59;08 - 01:38:00;45]
I love that, Daniel made up his mind.

[01:38:03;17 - 01:38:05;00]
You know what you gotta decide tonight?

[01:38:06;49 - 01:38:10;10]
You know what you gotta help your kids and your grandkids decide?

[01:38:11;59 - 01:38:18;19]
You gotta help them to decide if they're gonna make up their mind and they're gonna walk with Christ or they're gonna walk in the world.

[01:38:22;17 - 01:38:32;24]
Look, I've got two grandkids that have cell phones, one's 20 and one's 17.

[01:38:34;45 - 01:38:39;57]
And in my quiet time, I come across great verses of scripture

[01:38:41;14 - 01:38:42;16]
that mean a lot to me.

[01:38:43;16 - 01:38:47;49]
So I go to the Bible app and I copy those scriptures

[01:38:48;59 - 01:38:51;07]
and I text them to Kate and Ainslie.

[01:38:53;51 - 01:38:58;21]
I don't preach to them, but I text them the word of God.

[01:39:00;59 - 01:39:03;22]
Let me read you something I text them another day.

[01:39:13;18 - 01:39:21;35]
I text them the 2 Corinthians 5, 14 and 15, listen to what it says.

[01:39:22;49 - 01:39:24;00]
Didn't preach to them.

[01:39:25;37 - 01:39:26;57]
I text them the word of God.

[01:39:27;57 - 01:39:29;48]
Nothing's more powerful than the word of God.

[01:39:31;23 - 01:39:34;23]
Paul wrote, "For the love of Christ controls us.

[01:39:35;28 - 01:39:38;55]
"Having concluded this, that one died for all

[01:39:40;02 - 01:39:48;15]
"and he died for all so that they who live "might no longer live for themselves, "but for him who died and rose again on their behalf."

[01:39:50;53 - 01:40:00;27]
I'm telling you, we've gotta be creative. We've gotta be consistent. We've gotta get the word of God and the hearts of our kids and our grandkids.

[01:40:03;09 - 01:40:05;00]
And we gotta do it in a lot of different ways.

[01:40:22;12 - 01:40:23;36]
But Daniel made up his mind

[01:40:25;09 - 01:40:27;07]
that he would not defile himself

[01:40:28;38 - 01:40:30;44]
with the king's choice food

[01:40:31;52 - 01:40:33;28]
or with the wine which he drank.

[01:40:35;01 - 01:40:42;52]
So he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself. Now God granted Daniel favor. Look at that.

[01:40:44;20 - 01:40:48;19]
God granted Daniel favor. Now let me ask you a question.

[01:40:49;23 - 01:40:51;12]
Why do you think God granted Daniel favor?

[01:40:54;53 - 01:40:56;20]
Because he was committed to God.

[01:40:59;08 - 01:41:04;42]
Now just because God grants you favor doesn't mean you won't get sick or you won't die

[01:41:06;49 - 01:41:08;37]
or bad things won't happen to you.

[01:41:12;44 - 01:41:19;39]
I went to the hospice house of the day to a church member that's really suffering.

[01:41:21;04 - 01:41:21;52]
Bless her heart.

[01:41:23;24 - 01:41:27;35]
And I quoted to her Romans chapter eight, verse 18.

[01:41:30;39 - 01:41:34;10]
I just forgot it.

[01:41:38;10 - 01:41:39;02]
It's on the screen.

[01:41:42;28 - 01:41:42;36]
Huh?

[01:41:44;06 - 01:41:44;43]
Oh, there it is.

[01:41:45;43 - 01:41:47;37]
I just wanna see if y'all are paying attention.

[01:41:49;34 - 01:41:51;42]
(Congregation Laughing) For I consider, look at this.

[01:41:52;47 - 01:41:56;04]
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time

[01:41:57;46 - 01:42:01;09]
are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

[01:42:02;33 - 01:42:08;11]
I was asked to come to a man's house today to anoint him with oil and pray over him.

[01:42:10;16 - 01:42:11;26]
I share that verse with him.

[01:42:14;29 - 01:42:15;01]
It's real.

[01:42:17;34 - 01:42:18;46]
Let me tell you.

[01:42:20;49 - 01:42:25;17]
We may not get out of this world without going through some hard times.

[01:42:26;46 - 01:42:28;37]
But I'm telling you what's waiting on the other side

[01:42:30;22 - 01:42:33;14]
is more than worth it. Amen? Amen.

[01:42:34;33 - 01:42:34;57]
All right.

[01:42:36;57 - 01:42:42;58]
All right, so look at this now. Now God granted Daniel favor and compassion on the side of the commander of the officials.

[01:42:44;09 - 01:42:46;31]
And the commander of the official said to Daniel,

[01:42:48;09 - 01:42:51;55]
this is Ashmanes, I'm afraid of my Lord the King.

[01:42:52;57 - 01:42:54;18]
He's afraid of Nebuchadnezzar,

[01:42:55;25 - 01:43:10;20]
who has appointed your food and your drink, for why should he see your face is looking more haggard than the youths who are your own age? That's what tells me that not all these Jewish boys were as committed as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

[01:43:12;47 - 01:43:15;21]
Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king.

[01:43:18;22 - 01:43:20;50]
A lot of was on the line for Ashmanes,

[01:43:22;31 - 01:43:24;36]
but the time had come for a decision.

[01:43:26;38 - 01:43:37;53]
Pressure mounted from Ashmanes and for the other Hebrew young people who were willing to compromise. What would Daniel and his three friends do?

[01:43:39;48 - 01:43:44;02]
The dietary laws established in Leviticus were very clear.

[01:43:45;37 - 01:43:48;25]
But what's the value of these laws when one is in Babylon?

[01:43:49;41 - 01:43:51;48]
When in Babylon, do as the Babylonians.

[01:43:53;08 - 01:43:54;25]
Not so for these four.

[01:43:56;16 - 01:44:02;23]
Their hearts were fully devoted to the one true God, whether they were in Israel or Babylon. Let me ask you a question.

[01:44:07;12 - 01:44:09;15]
Are you as committed to Jesus

[01:44:12;33 - 01:44:16;33]
in other places as you are here?

[01:44:19;51 - 01:44:24;53]
Darlene and I, to celebrate our 50th anniversary, went on a Viking River cruise.

[01:44:27;00 - 01:44:29;13]
And I learned something about Viking River cruise.

[01:44:30;14 - 01:44:32;39]
I think about half their cargo is alcohol.

[01:44:35;51 - 01:44:39;15]
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, you know.

[01:44:41;31 - 01:44:43;52]
And it was constantly put in our face.

[01:44:46;51 - 01:44:52;55]
We made a commitment. I'm not knocking anybody up, but I'm telling you, we made a commitment a long time ago

[01:44:54;50 - 01:44:57;50]
that we were not going to have alcohol in our home.

[01:45:01;21 - 01:45:02;34]
We're not gonna do it.

[01:45:05;04 - 01:45:06;10]
My dad was an alcoholic.

[01:45:09;40 - 01:45:26;49]
And I didn't want my kids, and I don't want my grandkids look in my refrigerator and see stuff that could end up harming them. Hey, we got a group of guys in this church. We're ministering to them.

[01:45:30;14 - 01:45:30;54]
They're addicted.

[01:45:34;08 - 01:45:37;06]
You don't know if you're gonna be addicted or not.

[01:45:39;01 - 01:45:42;21]
To me, the smart thing to do is stay away from it.

[01:45:45;10 - 01:45:48;49]
Now, I believe that with all my heart.

[01:45:50;24 - 01:45:57;31]
So we spent all week turning stuff down. I said, I'll have a glass of unsweet tea with lemon and sweet and low.

[01:46:00;17 - 01:46:03;08]
(Audience Laughing)

[01:46:04;16 - 01:46:10;40]
Now, there's two things I want you to notice about Daniel Shadrach, Meeshek, and Abednego.

[01:46:12;50 - 01:46:23;06]
How were they able to not compromise when it was so pressure-packed?

[01:46:24;56 - 01:46:28;19]
Well, they were committed, number one. They were committed.

[01:46:32;28 - 01:46:34;57]
To their credit, these young men set their jaw.

[01:46:37;12 - 01:46:39;56]
They put their foot in the ground, and they dared to be different.

[01:46:43;12 - 01:46:46;15]
I remember when I got saved at Mississippi State,

[01:46:47;56 - 01:46:52;51]
I put my foot in the ground, I said, I'm not doing the stuff I used to do.

[01:46:55;29 - 01:46:57;28]
And some of my friends did not understand it.

[01:47:03;02 - 01:47:08;50]
They're resolved to honor the Lord and obey Him, serves as a sterling example for every believer.

[01:47:10;42 - 01:47:12;01]
Are you committed to the Lord?

[01:47:18;03 - 01:47:22;21]
Do you, as a way of life, deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Christ?

[01:47:27;08 - 01:47:35;49]
I love what Robert Moorehead wrote about, he said, "My face is set, my gate is fast,

[01:47:37;02 - 01:47:47;06]
"my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, "my way is rough, my companions are few, "my guide is reliable, my mission is clear.

[01:47:48;14 - 01:48:07;17]
"I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, "lured away, turned back, deluded, or delighted, "I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, "hesitate in the presence of adversity, "negotiate at the table of the enemy,

[01:48:08;29 - 01:48:21;56]
"ponder at the pool of popularity, "or meander in a maze of mediocrity. "I won't give up, shut up, let up, or slow up "till I've preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up, "and stayed up for Christ."

[01:48:23;46 - 01:48:24;23]
I like that.

[01:48:27;05 - 01:48:28;19]
That's the way I wanna be.

[01:48:29;43 - 01:48:35;06]
Look, I'm at that age, you know what I think about more than anything, it's finishing well.

[01:48:37;08 - 01:48:38;33]
Finishing well.

[01:48:40;46 - 01:48:48;00]
Bringing honor to Christ, crossing the finish line out of breath because I'm running after Jesus.

[01:48:51;12 - 01:48:52;14]
You gotta decide.

[01:48:53;23 - 01:48:55;54]
Daniel and his three friends had to decide.

[01:48:57;12 - 01:48:59;03]
They had to make up their minds.

[01:49:01;36 - 01:49:03;10]
And you can make up your mind tonight.

[01:49:06;09 - 01:49:10;57]
You can help your kids and grandkids make up their minds. Now you can't force them,

[01:49:13;57 - 01:49:16;34]
but you can put them in your own education camp.

[01:49:18;43 - 01:49:22;21]
You can send them scripture like I send my grandkids.

[01:49:26;45 - 01:49:29;59]
So they were committed, but they also had convictions.

[01:49:33;05 - 01:49:39;42]
Josh McDowell wrote, "A conviction goes beyond "having a personal preference about something.

[01:49:41;08 - 01:49:43;46]
"It goes deeper than a subjective opinion.

[01:49:44;47 - 01:49:53;28]
"Having conviction is being so thoroughly convinced "that something is absolutely true "that you take a stand for it regardless of the consequences."

[01:49:54;57 - 01:49:55;37]
That's a conviction.

[01:49:58;14 - 01:50:06;32]
Daniel and his three buddies had deep convictions about what was right and what was wrong, what was true and what was false.

[01:50:09;21 - 01:50:25;54]
In verses 11 to 13, "But Daniel said to the overseer "whom the commander of the officials had appointed "over Daniel," so he went down the rung of the ladder here, not to Ashburnaz, but he went a level below Ashburnaz and talked to this guy.

[01:50:28;51 - 01:50:34;34]
And he said, "Please test your service for 10 days. "Just test us for 10 days.

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"Let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink.

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"Then let our appearance be observed in your presence

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"and the appearance of the youths "who are eating the king's choice food "and deal with your servants according to what you see."

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Daniel exhibits a wisdom far beyond his years here. It appeared that there was only two options.

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Option number one, they defile themselves. Option number two, Ashburnaz loses his head.

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But Daniel came up with a third solution.

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"Hey, test us."

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Now, essentially, what Daniel is asking for is to give God a test.

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Hey, just give us vegetables and water

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and let's see what God would do.

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Now, you're not gonna find out what happened until next week, so you gotta come back next week.

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He believed, Daniel really believed

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that God would honor them for their convictions and their commitment.

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Chuck Swindoll wrote this,

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"In a world filled with people who rebel "against the divine king, it is inevitable

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"that believers of all ages will face situations "in which their convictions will be challenged."

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I want you, what time is it now?

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So I want you to think just a moment about a time when your conviction and your commitment was challenged.

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It could have been at work, it could have been at school, it could have been at a family reunion, it could have been a lot of different places.

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I want you to think of one time that your conviction and your commitment was challenged.

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How did you handle it?

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Now, listen, if you fail the test,

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don't beat yourself up.

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You know what Romans 8.1 says?

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"There is therefore now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus."

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Listen, nobody used to beat me up more than me

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because I hated to disappoint the Lord.

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And I had to memorize Romans chapter eight verse one. Sometimes, listen, sometimes instead of listening to yourself, you gotta talk to yourself.

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And when you talk to yourself, talk scripture, talk truth.

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So he goes on to say, "We who are parents "need to prepare our children for those occasions "by both teaching them God's truth and modeling integrity.

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"And all of us who are Christians "need to personally commit ourselves to live in God's way "regardless of the temptations to live otherwise." (Soft Music) Hey, I want you to listen to this hymn.

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(Music)

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I am the soul no longer to linger, drawn by the world's delight.

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Things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have lured my sight.

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I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad I'm free.

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Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee. (Music) I am the soul to go to the Savior, give Him my sins and strife.

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He is the true world, He is the just one, He has the works of life.

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I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad I'm free.

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Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee. (Music)

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I then resolve to follow the Savior, faithful than truth each day.

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Hold to His word and seek out His will, He is the living way.

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I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad I'm free.

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Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee. I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad I'm free.

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Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee. For I will listen to Him, hasten so glad I'm free.

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Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee.

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I pray that everybody in this room will be resolved with Daniel's resolve, with Stephen's resolve.

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Let's pray.

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Father, help us to be resolved to not compromise with this world system.

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Help us to be resolved to dig into the Word of God, to go to Jesus every day, to go to Jesus every day, to go to Jesus every day, to go to Jesus every day, to live for Him and to honor Him with our lips and our lives.

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Well, we love you, in Jesus' name, amen. Hey, listen, next week, we'll pick up with where we left off and we'll find out how this little test came out, okay? All right, thank you for being here.