Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190001A
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00:01 Have you ever been in trouble?
00:02 Have you ever needed some help? 00:04 The world is facing a lot of trouble. 00:07 And it's going to need help from the fourth man. 00:33 Welcome to our series on, The Incomparable Jesus. 00:38 And we're going to look today at these great prophecies, 00:42 the revelation of Jesus Himself about Himself. 00:46 But we're going to start, actually, in the book of Daniel. 00:48 A story you know well. 00:50 Israel had gotten itself into a lot of trouble. 00:54 And for some reason it just kept resisting 00:57 and resisting the goodness of God, until finally 01:00 idolatry had taken over. 01:02 Idolatry is a terrible thing. 01:04 If you look at the history of idolatry, 01:06 you'll find they end up even sacrificing their own children. 01:09 Can you believe it? So terrible. 01:12 So finally, God called a heathen power; Nebuchadnezzar. 01:16 And Nebuchadnezzar came in with his army 01:19 and basically destroyed Jerusalem. 01:22 We won't get into all the details. 01:24 In that destruction, he took with him at lot of Israelites. 01:28 Four of them, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-Nego, 01:31 decided to be faithful to the God of heaven. 01:33 And it wasn't long before they were faced with a crisis. 01:36 And when the first meal came out, the first meal, 01:40 it was loaded with stuff they were not supposed to eat. 01:43 And so Daniel looked at the butler and he said, 01:46 "Look, we can't eat that." 01:49 And the Butler said, "What do you mean?" 01:51 He said, "Look, if you don't look good, 01:52 if I don't take good care of you, the king will have my neck 01:56 if you end up looking poor." 01:58 Because they had been enrolled now into 02:00 the university of Babylon. 02:02 And they were going to be in that for three years 02:04 and be educated to help the kingdom of Babylon. 02:08 But Daniel said, "Look, just test us for ten days, ten days." 02:12 And for those ten days they were tested with 02:16 just vegetables and water. 02:18 How about that for a diet? 02:19 Well, it must have been a very good diet, 02:22 because at the end of ten days they looked great. 02:26 And at the end of three years they were ten times smarter 02:31 than all the Chaldeans that went to school with them; 02:34 the magicians, the soothsayers, and those kinds of people. 02:40 But it wasn't long before another crisis came up. 02:43 A crisis that God Himself initiated. 02:46 A dream given to King Nebuchadnezzar. 02:49 No doubt he had been concerned about what would happen 02:52 when he passed away. 02:54 Because, you know, everybody dies at some point 02:57 if you live in this world. 02:59 Even kings are not exempt. 03:02 And so somewhere along the line God gave him a dream. 03:07 A dream that he couldn't remember all the details of. 03:11 Knew what the dream was, 03:12 but couldn't remember all the details. 03:15 And so he called in his soothsayers and his magicians. 03:19 You know, the kind of people that you see 03:20 on the television today. 03:22 And our world is just filled with witchcraft, 03:26 and astrology, and horoscopes. 03:28 These were the people that invented that kind of stuff. 03:32 So he calls them in. 03:34 And he says, "I had this terrible dream. 03:37 I've got to know the interpretation of it." 03:39 And they said, "Fine, king, just tell us the dream." 03:43 And he says, "No, no, no, no. 03:46 I want to find out if you guys are real. 03:48 I'm tired of all the spin doctoring that you give me. 03:51 You're spin doctoring. 03:53 And so I'll tell you what I really would like." 03:56 He says, "You tell me what I dreamed, 03:58 and then I'll know you can tell me the interpretation of it." 04:00 They were just flabbergasted. 04:02 They said, "No, nobody has ever done that before." 04:04 And he got angry. 04:06 He said, "Listen, if you've got connections with the gods..." 04:08 I'm paraphrasing here. 04:09 Putting a little bit of my own conjecture in it. 04:11 "If you know all these gods and these supernatural things 04:14 that you tell me you have connections with, 04:16 you ought to be able to come up with the dream 04:17 and tell me what I dreamed. 04:19 And if you do that, I'll know that the interpretation 04:21 is not just a spin." 04:25 Of course, they were in trouble. 04:27 Got mad, decided that he would just destroy them. 04:31 "They're just a bunch of fakes." 04:33 And so he sent out his soldiers. 04:34 They began killing the wise men. 04:37 And they showed up to Daniel and his three friends. 04:41 Of course, Daniel's three friends didn't believe in 04:43 magic, and they didn't believe in witchcraft. 04:45 They believed in the God of heaven. 04:47 He was their source of wisdom and He was the one they trusted. 04:51 Daniel went into the king and he says, "Look, give me, 04:53 just give me some time." 04:56 So the king gave him one night. 04:58 They had quite a prayer meeting that night. 04:59 Before it was over God showed Daniel the dream. 05:03 A dream that showed a great image. 05:06 It's simple, and yet profound. 05:09 And it's still being fulfilled today, believe it or not. 05:13 We've lived through the history of it for the past 2000 years. 05:15 Actually 2600 years. 05:19 A head of gold on this big image, 05:21 arms and chest of silver, 05:23 and of course thighs of brass, legs of iron, 05:28 feet of iron and part of clay. 05:30 And then astoundingly, astoundingly, 05:35 a huge rock is cut out without hands. 05:38 Which tells you it's supernatural. 05:40 It doesn't come from earth. 05:43 And it strikes the image, grinds it to powder, 05:48 and blows it away. 05:50 And then this rock fills the earth. 05:52 Daniel, as he explains the dream to the king, says, 05:55 "This dream, or this rock, is the kingdom of God 06:01 that's going to be set up. 06:03 And it will never, ever pass away." 06:09 The king was astounded. 06:11 He got down, actually got down in front of Daniel 06:15 and paid him respect, and said, "Your God, 06:21 your God is the God of gods, 06:25 because He has done this marvelous, marvelous thing of 06:29 telling you what my dream was." 06:33 Well, it would be nice if the story ended there 06:37 and Nebuchadnezzar just accepted it. 06:41 But you know, it didn't end there. 06:44 The Chaldeans, well you can guess. 06:48 They were jealous. 06:49 They weren't just a little bit jealous. 06:51 And they had something on their mind. 06:54 They had another weapon. 06:56 And they went to the king and they said, 06:57 "King, you can't just make this proclamation about 07:00 Daniel and his three friends." 07:01 By the way, they gained in influence. 07:03 "You can't just make that proclamation about these guys." 07:06 They said, "Look, you have to understand something. 07:10 The dream has your kingdom ending. 07:17 Do you really... Oh king, live forever." 07:19 You can hear them flattering the king. 07:21 "Do you really want your kingdom to end? 07:25 Besides, king, you know, they may set up, 07:30 they may set up insurrection." 07:32 Now this isn't actually said in the Scriptures, 07:34 but you can certainly understand the conjecture of that. 07:37 "They might set up an insurrection, 07:40 based on this dream, against you. 07:42 We can't have that, king. We've got to do something." 07:44 "Well what should we do?" 07:46 I can just image King Nebuchadnezzar asking 07:49 these Chaldeans that he had depended on so much 07:52 but had not been able to produce the dream. 07:56 And they said, "Well, we have a fix for it." 07:59 And I think they must have inspired the king to this idea 08:03 of a great image. 08:05 And it's pretty brilliant what they did. 08:08 Now this image was like he saw in the dream, no doubt. 08:11 And it didn't have four metals, it had one metal. 08:16 Gold from head to toe. 08:20 Because Daniel had said in his dream, "Oh King Nebuchadnezzar, 08:23 you are the head of gold. 08:25 Or your kingdom is the head of gold." 08:27 But this was from head to foot gold. 08:31 And then he called in all the leadership from all over 08:34 the world, and they gathered. 08:36 This was a big deal. 08:37 This was not a small thing. 08:38 They gathered there. This was pretty simple. 08:40 Everybody had heard about the dream of Daniel, 08:43 but this was the counteraction to it. 08:45 And King Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldean friends 08:48 were going to send a message to the whole empire 08:51 that nobody was going to rebel against this king. 08:53 So he said, "I want to know that you're loyal. 08:56 I want to know that you think that this kingdom 08:58 is going to last forever." 09:00 This earthly kingdom. 09:01 By the way, that's what the world wants. 09:04 An earthly kingdom. 09:07 An earthly kingdom. 09:11 So he says, "You guys are 09:14 going to demonstrate your loyalty here. 09:15 And so you bow down before this golden image 09:21 and I'll know that you're going to be loyal to me." 09:24 Well of course, when the music played, 09:25 there were three that didn't. 09:27 And there were some Chaldeans there. 09:29 Chaldeans who said to King Nebuchadnezzar, 09:34 "King Nebuchadnezzar, there are certain Jews 09:39 certain Jews..." 09:42 Daniel 3:12, I'm going to read it. 09:44 "There are certain Jews whom you have set over the affairs 09:48 of the province of Babylon." 09:50 Certain Jews. 09:52 And then they went on to say, "O king, they have not 09:55 paid due regard to you. 09:58 They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image 10:03 that you have set up." 10:07 "What!" I can hear the king say. 10:10 "What! 10:11 You mean they haven't, they haven't gone along with me? 10:16 You mean they had the audacity to stand there 10:19 when the music played and everybody is 10:21 suppose to go along?" 10:23 By the way, I think there were a lot of Jews 10:26 who bowed down to that image. 10:29 These men were certain Jews. 10:33 They were faithful Jews. 10:35 They were faithful because they trusted 10:38 the Lord with their life. 10:40 And they believed the dream. 10:42 The believed that this world is not going to last forever. 10:47 They believed that the God of heaven was going to 10:50 set up a kingdom someday that would go into all eternity. 10:55 And that's what they really looked forward to, 10:59 was a kingdom that would never, ever end. 11:04 Now it's very interesting what these Chaldeans said 11:07 to our young friends. 11:09 Or two the king about our young friends. 11:12 He said, "They do not serve your gods 11:15 nor worship the golden image that you have set up." 11:19 Let me just say this. 11:21 They got this right. 11:23 Worship and service goes together. 11:26 A lot of people take the name of Jesus on their lips. 11:30 They praise Jesus. And they should praise Jesus. 11:32 Everybody should praise Jesus. 11:34 He's the incomparable Jesus. 11:36 There's no one like Him. 11:39 But they don't understand something very crucial. 11:45 Jesus doesn't want just your praise. 11:49 He wants your service. 11:51 Worship and service go together. 11:54 You can give all the lip praise you want to God, 11:56 but if you serve somebody else, you haven't worshiped God. 12:01 So worship and service go together. 12:04 They got that right. They understood it well. 12:08 And by the way, when you get to the book of Revelation, 12:10 Jesus reveals Himself, this is the thing that He wants. 12:13 He wants not only your worship, He also wants your service. 12:20 Your loyalty to Him. 12:22 Loyalty means so much to Jesus. 12:24 It means so very much. 12:26 So they said, "They do not serve your gods 12:28 nor worship the golden image that you have set up." 12:32 Now these pagan gods, no doubt, 12:35 were backed up by satanic powers. 12:37 I don't have any doubt that these Chaldeans, 12:39 and soothsayers, and magicians, and so forth, 12:43 they were getting communication from supernatural powers. 12:48 But what were these supernatural powers saying? 12:51 They were appealing to the carnal nature of man, 12:53 to the selfish nature of man. 12:55 To the nature of man that says, "I want all power. 12:57 I want my kingdom to last forever." 12:59 But Daniel's dream goes against the selfish nature of man 13:02 and says that God is going to do away with this world 13:05 and set up a kingdom, a kingdom, that will last forever. 13:12 A kingdom in which God will not only be worshiped, 13:16 but He will be served. 13:18 When we come back in a few moments, 13:20 we're going to pick up our story. 13:22 Because this ends very fascinatingly 13:26 as we watch the fourth Man as He moves 13:30 to save His three faithful servants. 13:34 Servants who not only worship Him with their lips, 13:38 but they worship Him with their hearts, 13:42 and with their obedience, and with their actions. 13:46 We'll be right back. |
Revised 2019-05-28