Children of Obedience (1 Peter 1:14-16)

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Okay, can we, can we turn? Do you wish that you could see it all?

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Is all creation growing? Is a new creation coming?

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Is the glory of the Lord's a light we've been amiss?

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Is it good that we remind ourselves?

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Is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole?

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Is anyone able to break the seal? And open the scroll?

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The Lion of Judah conquered the...

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Just play?

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Let's do, yes, yes, and I do want to play, let's do play the start of that, just because I don't know if you can hear me.

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So right on 10? On 9. I'll play 9 and then you can go. It's so sweet to trust in Jesus.

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It's so sweet to trust in Jesus.

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It's so sweet to trust in Jesus.

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It's so sweet to trust in Jesus.

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Good morning. Welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adults Sunday School.

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We'll be back in the book of Daniel for two weeks and then starting in August, Jeff Miller will be taking us into the book of Haggai.

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I thought Habakkuk, which is, I usually improperly pronounce Habakkuk, but apparently he's going to be in the book of Haggai, and that will start in early, in the first week of, yeah, of October, of August.

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But this morning we'll be in Daniel, and so if you will with me, open in a word of prayer. Father, every part of your book is illuminating and exciting, and it's the same time difficult and wonderful.

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And so this morning as we look into chapter six of Daniel, we ask for your teaching, for your illumination, and that our hearts might be set to fully do those things you command us to do, whether they be explicit or implicit in the text, for it is the text that is most important.

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We thank you that your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is indeed the living word of God, and has given us life and godliness, and all the things that we need to live lives that will be pleasing to you.

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Might some of those things happen this morning. We look to you for that, in Jesus' name. So let's read chapter six of Daniel from about the beginning to about verse 27.

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28's the last, so let's just read the whole chapter. That'll give us good context, because I'm going to start with a continued introduction, some stuff that I like to have you think.

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I set this up, that I did a partial introduction, and did some things the last time

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I was here so that the rest of the introduction would be more flavored. What I did was I put the beginning of the chapter in the wrong place in my text.

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So now you know. He's an idiot, why is he teaching us? But Daniel chapter six.

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It seemed good to Darius to appoint 120 set traps over the kingdom, that they should be in charge of the whole kingdom.

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And over them three commissioners, of whom Daniel was one, that these set traps might be accountable to them and that the king might not suffer loss.

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Then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and set traps because he possessed an extraordinary spirit.

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And the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom. Then the commissioners and set traps began trying to find a ground of accusation against Daniel in regard to government affairs, government affairs, but they could find no ground of accusation or evidence of corruption in as much as he was faithful and no negligence or corruption was to be found in him.

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Would that we could have government officials like that today. Okay, but I digress.

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Then these men said, we shall not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of his

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God. Then these commissioners and set traps came by agreement to the king and spoke to him as follows. King Darius lived forever.

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All the commissioners of the kingdom, all the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects and set traps, the high officials and the governors have consulted together that the king should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who makes a petition to any

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God or man besides you, oh king, for 30 days shall be cast into the lion's den. Now, oh king, establish the injunction and sign the documents so that it may not be changed according to the law of the

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Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked. Therefore, King Darius signed the document that is the injunction.

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Now, when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house, now in his roof chamber, he had windows open towards Jerusalem and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his

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God as he had been doing previously. Then these men came by agreement and found

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Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. Then they approached and spoke before the king about the king's injunction.

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Did you not sign an injunction that any man who makes a petition to any God or man besides you, oh king, for 30 days is to be cast into the lion's den?

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The king answered and said, this statement is true according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.

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Then they answered and spoke before the king. Daniel, who was one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, oh king, or to the injunction which you signed, but keeps making his petition three times a day.

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Then, as soon as the king heard this statement, he was deeply distressed and set his mind on delivering

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Daniel. And even until sunset, he kept exerting himself to rescue him.

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Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, recognize, oh king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or statute which the king establishes may be changed.

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Then the king gave orders and Daniel was brought in and cast into the lion's den. Then the king spoke and said to Daniel, your

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God, whom you constantly serve, will himself deliver you. And a stone was brought and laid over the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet rings of his nobles so that nothing might be changed in regard to Daniel.

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Then the king went off to his palace and spent the night fasting and no entertainment was brought before him and his sleep fled from him.

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Then the king arose with the dawn at the break of day and went in haste to the lion's den. And when he had come near the lion's den to Daniel, he cried out with a troubled voice.

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The king spoke and said to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?

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Then Daniel spoke to the king, O king, live forever. He probably went.

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My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths and they have not harmed me in as much as I was found innocent before him and also toward you,

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O king, I have committed no crime. Then the king was very pleased and gave orders for Daniel to be taken up out of the den.

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So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no injury whatever was found on him because he had trusted in his

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God. Then the king then gave orders and they brought those men who had maliciously accused Daniel and they cast them, their children and their wives into the lion's den and they had not reached the bottom of the den before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.

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Then Darius the king wrote to all the people's nations and men of every language who were living in all the land, may your peace abound.

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I make a decree that in all the dominion of my kingdom, men are to fear and tremble before the God of Daniel. For he is the living

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God and enduring forever and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed and his dominion will be forever.

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He delivers and rescues and performs signs and wonders in heaven and on earth who has also delivered

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Daniel from the power of the lions. So this Daniel enjoyed success in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the

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Persian. May God bless his reading, reading of his word. So we talked a little bit about the introduction to this book, this particular chapter.

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So we talked about the fact that it may very well be the most, possibly the most famous chapter in the

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Bible because it has the story of Daniel and the lions and many, many know of this story who haven't been in a church ever.

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It is a beloved chronicle of the protection by Jehovah of a man who has no peer in his day, had no peer in his day.

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And yet it is also a chapter in the Bible that has had its own share of controversy. Much has been made of the fact that the name

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Darius appears nowhere else in history and thus liberal scholars use this to again assail the accuracy of the book of Daniel.

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How many of you remember me when I did the introduction using the words Darius, Cyrus, Cyrus, Darius?

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That was on purpose, that was on purpose and we'll talk about that here in a minute. So the scholarship that has been put into either supporting or debunking

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Daniel based on this chapter is prodigious. It's just unbelievable how much writing has been done about this particular chapter.

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We will see in this chapter that Darius organized the kingdom of Babylon systematically so that 120 satraps or a type of governor would be in charge of the entire kingdom.

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They would each have their own province and would answer to the three commissioners, one of whom was Daniel. The Septuagint translates verse 28 of this chapter to read that Daniel enjoyed success in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the

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Persian. This seems to imply that a Median kingdom under Darius was followed by a

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Persian kingdom under Cyrus. Extra -biblical sources tell a different story. As we work our way through this, it must be remembered that the critics are building arguments upon silence.

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The simple fact is that the Bible has the only reference to Darius and that does not in itself make the

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Bible untrue, although secularists will hammer on that. It's the only reference and therefore it must be untrue.

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They will flock to a text that is 1 ,000 years removed and there are only five of them in existence to prove a point.

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When the scripture has prodigious documentation, whether it did or not, it's the word of God, but it has documentation and they will say that it's untrue.

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We will believe something that is 1 ,000 years removed and only has five sources before we will believe something that has tremendous documentation, but also is the word of God.

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I should have said that in reverse, is the word of God, but also has documentation. So even secular scholars often recognize that the

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Bible is a reliable record of ancient history, yet they are unwilling to give it any credence if they can't substantiate it with 7 ,000 other documents.

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And for some reason, the silence of other ancient texts is used as an indictment of the biblical record.

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They didn't say anything about this, therefore the Bible must be wrong. You can't win for losing.

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It is always improper to build a theory or a doctrine upon silence, whether it is sacred or secular.

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As John Walvoord notes in his commentary, he says, it must be emphasized that there is no established fact.

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Let me get my clicker here and see if I can figure out how to work this. There is no established fact that contradicts a person by the name of Darius the

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Mede reigning over Babylon, if Darius is an alternate name for a known ruler. So the historian

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Wiseman, who has done a great deal of research, had done a great deal of research on this, based on his findings on the

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Nabonidus Chronicle. As you remember, Nabonidus was one of the kings who reigned in Babylon, and he actually left town because he was working on a temple in another city, and so Belshazzar ruled in Babylon.

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Am I getting that name? Yeah, Daniel says Belteshazzar. I always wonder if I got that name right. It's like,

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I'll leave that alone. So here is Wiseman's Chronicle about what happened with Nabonidus. Babylon was conquered by Ugbaru, the governor of Gutium, who led, let's see, let's get something going here, who led the army of Cyrus and entered the city of Babylon on the night of Belshazzar's feast.

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Nabonidus, who was Belshazzar's father, had fled Babylon the day before, only to be captured and later die in exile.

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When Babylon fell on October 12th, 539 BC, Cyrus himself had remained with other troops at Opus, and not until 18 days later,

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October 30th, 539 BC, did he arrive in Babylon. He then appointed a man named Gubaru, probably an alternate form of Ugbaru, to rule in Babylon.

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Eight days after Cyrus arrived, there's the entire kingdom.

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Eight days after Cyrus arrived, Ugbaru died. If this history of the events following Babylon's fall is correct, it is obvious that there is no room for Darius the

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Mede to rule over Babylon. Through time, here's how the problem has been distilled, down to three likely situations.

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The first view is that the Bible is in error, and whoever wrote it confused Darius the

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Mede with some other person. The second explanation is that Darius is the same as Gubaru, whom

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Cyrus appointed to rule in Babylon until he could take the throne. The third view is that Darius the

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Mede is just another name for Cyrus. This is based upon the translation of Daniel 6 .28 that reads,

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Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, even the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

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And it is this third view that is most widely accepted by conservative scholars, and it answers the question perfectly.

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It was common in the ancient world for rulers to have more than one name. It is proposed that Darius may have been a name of honor, and that it translates the ancient

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Aramaic word for bearer of the sword, or bearer of the scepter, which is king.

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It's the translation of a word that means king. This was replicated in the

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Roman Republic when rulers were given the name Caesar or Augustus along with their given name. So most, if not all, the following rulers of Rome had the name

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Caesar or Augustus. Julius Caesar, his name wasn't Caesar. He was the Caesar. He was the ruling elite, the ruling head of the

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Republic of Rome. The fact is the most robust information we have comes from the biblical record.

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Liberal scholars navigate a great scarcity of information in building their attacks on the Bible, mostly from the silence of history.

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Until there is compelling evidence pointing specifically to the fact that Darius never existed, it is appropriate and in keeping with proper scholarship to assume that the references in the book of Daniel to Darius the

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Mede are accurate. There is no reason to reject it unless you just don't like the fact that Daniel is a true book of scripture and predicts the future, which is what most liberal scholars are attacking.

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It can't be accurate. Nobody could be this prescient about the future. It had to be written in 166

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BC after these things happened. And that is their argument. It is based on foolishness and silence.

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The fact is the scriptural record is accurate. Darius the Mede existed and he most likely was a title, that was a title for Cyrus the

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Persian. They were the same person. And that is why I talked about Cyrus Darius, Darius Cyrus.

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That is the accepted biblical scholarship. The structure of the chapter is chiastic as the book of Daniel is.

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It describes a golden ray in his commentary. Someone was asking this morning about the commentaries

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I use, I'm using three main ones, but I'm studying a whole bunch of them because a lot of them refer to other commentaries of scholarship, like the scholarship of Wiseman, which occurred decades ago, where he really researched all the information about the

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Nabaninus Chronicle. So I use as much as I can to get to historical access.

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So A, introduction, Daniel's success, verses one through three. B, Darius signs an injunction and Daniel takes a stand.

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This is the chiastic overview of the chapter. C, Daniel's colleagues plan his death.

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D, Darius hopes for Daniel's deliverance. Now back down the chiasm. D, Darius witnesses

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Daniel's deliverance. C, Daniel's colleagues meet their death. They plan Daniel's death, they meet their death.

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B, Darius signs a decree and takes his stand. And A, the conclusion, Daniel's success.

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That's how the chapter is structured. So in this chapter, the 80 -plus -year -old

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Daniel, as a result of his stellar performance in his life previous to the Medo -Persian takeover of Babylon, is placed in another significant position of importance and responsibility.

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This immediately results in jealousy among the political appointees of the king, of the empire.

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Scurrilous men, I talked about this last time, form a dark plan and they decide how they're going to kill

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Daniel. They're gonna take him over, they're gonna ruin him, they're gonna have him destroyed. Obviously, this man of principle is standing in the way of their machinations, of their attempts to ingratiate themselves to king, to rise in prominence, to rise in power.

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That's what they want to do. Daniel wanted to serve the king. He wanted to be a good political ambassador to the sections of the provinces that he was supposed to be responsible to.

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He wanted to take care of his duties and he wanted to be honest. And they couldn't find anything against him.

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Remember what it said in the scripture. Very few people enter politics and remain unscathed.

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It's very difficult to do, to enter politics and remain unscathed. Daniel not only remained unscathed, he was innocent.

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He was pure in this particular area. That is not to say Daniel never sinned. Every man who ever lived, every woman who ever lived needs the death of the

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Lord Jesus Christ to pay for their sins, including Daniel. But in this particular part of his life where he was a commissioner over who knows how many satraps, he was innocent, he was pure, he was righteous.

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And they were gonna remove him whatever it took. So last time we were together, we made it all the way through,

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I believe, chapter six, verse nine.

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And what we finished up with was just before him being cast into the lion's den.

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Therefore King Darius signed the document that is the injunction that the commission.

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Now remember, the ones that came to Darius in his chamber, in his room, in his throne room, they kind of tumbled in over each other and they made it look like an emergency.

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That's the translation of that Persian word for to enter an agreement. And they had to make it look like an emergency because tyrants need emergencies to subject their minions to control.

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And so here was an emergency. Darius, we want a 30 -day injunction against anybody praying to anybody but you.

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And it's important. And who knows what else was said during that meeting. But Darius fell for it and he signed the injunction.

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And it's gonna come back to bite him and he's gonna realize it too late. He didn't ask questions, he didn't pay attention.

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He assumed all of his commissioners and satraps had the best interests of the kingdom in mind.

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And plus, we talked about the fact that no way all of them got together, all the satraps, all the provincials, all the governors, all the, they were probably most, look how big that empire is.

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Some of them were over here, not over here.

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Some of them were over here. And they didn't have Wi -Fi or email.

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What they had was horses and camels. It would take, it could take months to travel across that kingdom.

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Information would not get to the capital from the farthest flung parts of the kingdom, possibly for weeks or months.

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Actually, the battle, as an example, the song, the Battle of New Orleans, how many of you are familiar with that?

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Originally it was called January 8th. On January 8th, that battle was fought after the war was over, the

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Revolutionary War was over because word didn't get to Jackson. So, and that was in the 1700s.

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Imagine what it was like back then. So therefore, verse nine, King Darius signed the document, that is the injunction.

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Now we're looking at verse 10. So now Daniel knows the document's signed. What do you think he did?

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I better not pray, they'll kill me. That's what probably

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I would have done. I'm a chicken, I hope I wouldn't. But you know, you never really know what you're gonna do until your skin is on the line.

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Daniel, when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house. Now, in his roof chamber, he had windows open towards Jerusalem.

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Shut the window, Daniel. Just shut the window. He didn't do that because his normal course of life in following the

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God whom he loved was to pray three times a day through an open window towards Jerusalem.

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Remember, we talked about that probably, maybe we didn't talk about that. Yeah, we'll talk about that this morning. When it started, he entered his house and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his

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God as he had been doing previously. Now, think about what he did changed because his method of life in his obedience and his love towards his

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God was to pray three times a day, open window towards Jerusalem. And he continued to do that, fearlessly.

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That is remarkable, I mean, that is remarkable. Do you know what he knew about lions? The kings, they would gather these lions and they would use them for this kind of thing.

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They would fight them so they could write chronicles about how brave they were. Usually, they would send in another warrior to kill it and then they would stand over the dead body and photo op, you know.

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So, what would be the harm of Daniel simply putting off praying for 30 days? Really, I mean, he still loves

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God, right? The only people that would be upset would be the political enemies that tried to trap him.

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Daniel could have avoided the conflict with the king and it most likely wouldn't have affected his responsibilities much.

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Yeah, yeah, once we change the way we normally are, if it's a biblical way, to appease somebody, it changes something about us in a remarkable and devastating way.

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Daniel didn't do that. But the simple fact is it was a part of his character to be obedient to God and to pray.

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So, in fact, putting off praying would have had a huge effect on Daniel himself. Those who were used to seeing him do exactly what was right every time would soon begin to doubt who he said he was.

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That would have been the least of the difficulties that would have occurred. Well, he always did it this way and then when there was an injunction signed, he stopped doing it.

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Maybe it's okay to stop doing stuff like that. Maybe it's not a big deal. It was a big deal and Daniel knew it.

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But I think, honestly, I mean, if I get a chance to, in glory,

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I'm gonna ask him, I think he did it because this is who he was. And he loved his

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God and this is how he showed his love and he just continued doing it, come what may. Daniel didn't cease praying even one time.

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He had been following this process, most likely, since he was very young. The idea of praying three times a day towards Jerusalem, it probably originated with Solomon.

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Whoops, I'd already gone there. Now, we see if he can undo it.

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Yeah, there we go. It probably originated with Solomon. We don't know for sure, but most likely.

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So in 2 Chronicles 6, 21, listen to the supplications of your servant and of your people

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Israel when they pray toward this place, Jerusalem, and hear from your dwelling place, from heaven, and forgive.

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Now, do you have to pray towards a particular place in order for your prayers to be answered or heard?

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Of course not. This was an act of devotion. And in that sense, it was fine.

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It was fine. As long as it was an act of devotion. 2 Chronicles 6, 34 through 39.

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When your people go out to battle against their enemies, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to you towards this city which you have chosen, and the house which

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I have built for your name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their supplication and maintain their cause. When they sin against you, for there is no man who does not sin, and you are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy so that they take them away captive to a land far off or near.

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If they take thought in the land where they are taken captive and repent and make supplication to you in the land of their captivity, saying, we have sinned, we have committed iniquity, and we have acted wickedly.

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If they return to you with all their heart, there's the key, and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been taken captive and pray toward their land which you have given to their fathers and the city which you have chosen and toward the house which

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I have built for your name, then hear from heaven, from your dwelling place, their prayer and supplications and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you.

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So there's probably the foundation, the basis for why in this time of captivity, the faithful Israelites would pray towards Jerusalem.

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It may have dated to David, Psalm 55, 16 through 18. As for me,

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I will call upon God and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur and he will hear my voice.

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He will redeem my soul in peace from the battle which is against me, for there are many who strive with me. By the way, it's okay to complain and murmur when you're praying, but you probably should finish it with Thanksgiving.

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But God knows we live in this moral coil that is subject to many things and we have many things coming against us today and they're difficult, but he is a

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God who answers prayer. Sometimes his answer is no. Are you good with that? Daniel would have been good with that.

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If Daniel had been eaten by those lions, he would have died a hero, but God shows a different way.

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I'm wrecking the story. The fact that Daniel continued to pray even though he knew he stood a chance of dying a horrible, painful death evidenced the character that he had and the love that he had for Yahweh, for Jehovah.

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His co -workers knew, now get this, his co -workers knew they could count on him to do the right thing.

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All we gotta do is get this king to sign an injunction that'll put him in danger of violating some devotion to Jehovah and we've got him.

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Would to God that we would be that kind of faithful people that co -workers would know that we're going to do the right thing.

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It was that very character quality that they were counting on to bring him down. Daniel's robust prayer life and his relationship with Jehovah had protected him from the corrupting influences of Babylon.

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Now it seemed that his devotion and his prayer to Jehovah would be to his death. That's what it seemed like.

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Finally, Daniel did have a copy of the book of Jeremiah and in that book in chapter 29, the exiles were instructed to pray for the city of Jerusalem and their prayer would be heard by Jehovah.

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Jeremiah 29 one, seven and 10. Now these are the words, these are the words of the letter which

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Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets and all the people whom

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Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Verse seven, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the

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Lord on its behalf for in its welfare, you will have welfare. Pray for Babylon. Verse 10, for thus says the

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Lord, when 70 years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you to bring you back to this place.

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It was a promise of Jehovah. So Daniel, true to his character, refused to knuckle under, even though he knew it may mean his death.

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A horrible death. I mean, you know, it's, I just, I can't think about what it would be like to be ripped to shreds by big lions.

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It probably would be somewhat painful. You know, I don't think it would be a fun death.

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Oh, I'm gonna be eaten by lions. Verse 11, then these men came by agreement and found

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Daniel making supplication, petition and supplication before his God. So the word agreement here is the same as in verse six, and it indicates an assembly that was chaotic and disorderly.

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They descended upon Daniel in this manner, most likely to communicate disrespect. They were haughty and probably just a little bit excited about the fact that they were gonna clear the way for their personal gain.

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It's just about done. We're gonna take care of this jerk. We're gonna get rid of him, and then we can start getting political favors and money and power again, like we used to.

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They expected to find Daniel praying, and they found him doing just that. In their minds, he had played right into their hand.

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The fact was, who's sovereign in all of this? Jehovah is sovereign over everything.

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Jehovah was, again, orchestrating a demonstration of his sovereignty. It was a beautiful thing. Well, any questions or comments about 10 and 11?

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I got kinda carried away there. Verse 12. Then they approached and spoke before the king about the king's injunction.

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And I can just hear him. Did you not sign an injunction? That's probably how they said it. And say that any man who makes a petition to any

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God or man beside you, O king, for 30 days is to be cast into the lion's den. The king replied,

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I can picture Darius Cyrus going, well, the statement is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.

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Why are they saying this to me? The group gathered before the king and questioned him about the injunction. The question was not to determine whether it was done or not.

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It was rather to remind the king that it was done in the manner of the Medes and Persians and could not be changed or revoked.

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It was also done to remind the king of the penalty. The king confirms the question, stating that the injunction was enacted and that it was irrevocable.

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They positioned the king so that he would have no choice but to issue a decree of death against Daniel when they revealed

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Daniel's disobedience of the injunction. What do you think about these guys' devotion to the king? They put him in a corner that he couldn't get out of.

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It was pretty tricky. You gotta give it to him. They had this really well figured out very, very well.

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They knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't anticipate that they might become pureen of lion food themselves.

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They didn't anticipate that. Then they answered and spoke before the king. Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, that's how they said it, pays no attention to you,

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O king, or to the injunction which you signed, but keeps making his petition three times a day. Daniel does this,

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Daniel does that. Any parents have experience with that?

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I thought so. My kids were all angels. My son's in here, he's a dad.

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You're gonna die. Now they act like the tattletales they are. They don't even use

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Daniel's official title, but they rather contemptuously refer to him as one of the exiles.

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He ain't one of us. As a representative of the gods, Darius would have to enforce the injunction.

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Remember we talked about how this came to be, that if the king was either deity or representation of deity, anything that he created a law about had to be done because if he changed it, well then that means the gods were wrong.

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The gods fouled up and they can't, so Darius is trapped. They positioned him so he'd have no choice.

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The conspirators assured the king that Daniel was flagrantly violating his order, not only one time a day, but horror of horrors three times a day.

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This could not be tolerated by the tolerators. Verse 14, then

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Darius' reaction to this is remarkable for a king of Babylon who was used to putting multitudes to death in the most horrible ways possible.

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As soon as the king heard this statement in verse 14, he says he was deeply distressed and he set his mind on delivering

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Daniel and even until sunset, he kept exerting himself to rescue him.

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It is only now that the king finally realized that he has been played. His prime minister elect must be destroyed and he was not happy about this at all.

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He began casting about for some method of stopping this from happening, but he could find nothing and so he was compelled by his own law to throw his most trustworthy servant to certain death.

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That must have been very difficult for him. Normally, the king would have had some sort of entertainment between dinner and bedtime and lights out, but this night, he spent seeking for ways to save Daniel.

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The Chaldean word that is translated exerting has the idea of laboring. He probably consulted books. He probably consulted other people and he'd have to probably swear them to secrecy.

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If somebody knew that Darius was consulting some way to revoke what he had done, well, that makes him less than deity.

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This happened later on to some Chaldean kings who did the same thing. The one I talked about that put that general, that warrior to death.

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He was so sorry that he had done that, but there was nothing he could do. Same thing with Daniel. He probably consulted some other wise men looking for ways to circumvent this law of the

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Medes and Persians. This simple statement shows just how much the king had begun to respect and appreciate

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Daniel. He actually cared for Daniel. He cared for this Judah exile from Judah.

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It was clear to him that Daniel had his best interests at heart and these others didn't.

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Now, I'm not going to be advocating that we deal with political appointees who don't have the best interests of our republican mind, but it's an interesting way to deal with them.

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We'll see about that in a minute here. That's right, we're online, aren't we?

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Well, okay then. Verse 15. Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, recognize our king.

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Really, they talk like that. It is that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or statute what the king establishes may be changed.

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Don't you think Darius knows that? Of course he does. In the same manner as they came before the king to set the trap, that is tumultuously and chaotically, the conspirators clamber back into the chamber, to the king's throne room, and remind him of something that he has been working on all night.

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It probably infuriated him, which would give an understanding of how he deals with them later on, in that interesting way.

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That is that no law that is established in the kingdom may be changed. In this case, it would have to run its 30 -day course, and Daniel was already trapped in it.

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He was already trapped. It most certainly must have irked the king that they would remind him of this. By now, it was clearly evident to him that they had conspired to get rid of his favorite official.

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This would set the basis for what he does to them later on. Hopefully, this had the effect of reminding

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Cyrus Darius that even the advice of his counselors must be questioned and thought through before taking action.

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After all, they're just people. Any comments or questions about that? We're about to get to the meat of the story.

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Can I say that? I guess I can. Verse 16, then the king gave orders, and these must have been some of the hardest orders he ever gave in his entire reign.

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And Daniel was brought in and cast into the lion's den, and the king spoke to Daniel and said, your

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God, whom you constantly serve, will himself deliver you. So despite the king's best efforts, despite the king's best efforts, he could come up with no way of saving

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Daniel. He couldn't save him from the lion's den. We have no accounts of just how these dens were constructed in ancient times, but there are descriptions of dens that were found in Morocco.

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In his commentary, John Walvor describes them thusly. He says, Kiel gives an interesting account of a lion's den found in more modern times.

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We have no account of the ancients of the construction of lion's den. Host, in his work on Fez in Morocco, describes the lion's dens as they have been found.

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According to this account, his account, they consist of a large square cavern under the earth, having a partition wall in the middle of it, which is furnished with a door, which the keeper can open and close from above.

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By throwing in food, they can entice the lions from one chamber to the other, and then, having shut the inner door, they enter the vacant space for the purpose of cleaning it.

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The cavern is open above, its mouth being surrounded by a wall of a yard and a half high, over which one can look down into the den.

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The description agrees perfectly with that which is given here in the text regarding the lion's den of Daniel's time.

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So, they could look down in, and there was a way to move them from one part of the pen to another to clean it, and then they were able to seal the front as well, which also had a wall in front of it.

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The den would have had a drainage system since it was underground to keep the lions from being drowned in a heavy rain, and there would have been a stone to roll across the upper opening to keep people from falling in accidentally.

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It was not at this time unusual for kings to keep lions for many reasons, including the ability to do combat with them and to prove their deity, the kings, that is.

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The words of the king to Daniel here are very instructive. He had spent the night trying to come up with a method to free

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Daniel and could not do it. Now, he says to Daniel, your God whom you constantly serve will himself deliver you.

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The form of the verb translated will deliver leaves the option that God may, must, will, may, or even can rescue

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Daniel. It seems possible from verses 18 through 20 that Darius, Darius, that's their names put together,

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Darius, had no real faith that God could do this. He really didn't have any faith. He hoped, but he didn't have faith.

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Daniel knew, just like the three, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew God could save them from the firmament.

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Whether he chose to or not was unimportant. He could, he may not, but whether he does or he doesn't, we will not kneel to you, they said.

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Daniel, same thing. He knew God could deliver him, but what was important to him was that God be honored.

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Darius certainly hoped that God would deliver him. Darius was not giving up worship, was not giving worship or consideration to Jehovah.

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Rather, he was simply expressing the common pagan belief that the gods intervened in situations where humans were subjected to great injustice.

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He saw this as a mistake he had made, and as such, a great injustice. He most likely believed that Daniel's God was simply a local god of the

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Hebrews. This isn't Darius getting saved. This is Darius, in his pagan mind, hoping that this local god over in Jerusalem is powerful enough to save him.

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I hope he is. I think he can. I hope he is. Verse 17, a stone was brought and laid over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring.

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He sealed it with his and the signet rings of his nobles so that nothing would be changed in regard to Daniel.

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The laws of the Medes and Persians cannot be revoked. Daniel is sealed into the den. The stone is rolled over.

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They seal the wax over the stone with their rings. In keeping with the specific wording of the statute

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Darius had enacted, he had the den sealed with the stone and verified with his signet ring, and the signet rings of his nobles stamped into the wax on the stone.

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This was so that no one would tamper with the stone and allow Daniel to escape, even him. The purpose that the nobles must have had in adding the requirement of their signet rings testimony was most likely to prevent

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Darius from coming in in the night and releasing Daniel. They trusted him no more than he trusted them, which is pretty common.

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That's, unfortunately, that's how politics is. But only back then, not now. It's a wonderful place now, somewhere.

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Verse 18, then the king went off to his palace and spent the night fasting, and no entertainment was brought to him, and his sleep fled from him.

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Darius Cyrus left the den and went home for the night. Normally, he would have spent the evening in revelry, but this evening he couldn't bear to do that because he was concerned about Daniel.

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This is really unusual for a Babylonian king, for a Persian king, excuse me. They were good at killing people without a peck on their conscience at all, nothing.

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He spent the night in fasting and he couldn't sleep. This probably was something he had never experienced before.

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It was completely out of character for a king of this sort to have any compassion whatsoever for the victims he had condemned to whatever fate he had condemned them.

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Nebuchadnezzar had no compassion whatsoever on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. As a matter of fact, his response was to heat the furnace seven times hotter, killed the guys throwing it in.

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We'll take care of those idiots, that was his thought. And this is the same mindset that the

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Persian kings would have. Verse 18, that was 18. Verse 19, then the king arose at dawn, and at the break of day he went in haste to the lion's den.

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So in the early morning hours, we see this king shuffling along, hurrying along to the lion's den from the palace.

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Unfortunately for the conspirators, they didn't make the law specific enough about the punishment being required to end, to result in death.

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It was just that he had to be cast into the lion's den. The law didn't say he had to die, just said he had to be cast into the lion's den.

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Keep that in mind, and laws are specific like that. Apparently, Darius considered the injunction he signed as only requiring one night in the lion's den.

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Frankly, under normal circumstances without the intervention of a miracle from God, one night would be all that was required.

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In fact, as we will see, only a few moments would be required. They would keep the lions purposefully not quite full, purposefully hungry, purposely keep them hungry so that they would be much more vicious.

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Predators, when they're hungry, are far less likely to become even some sort of docile if they were full, if they were kept full.

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So these are upper African, they're nasty lions, they're big guys, and they'd have no problem killing a dozen men.

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So, when he had come near the den, verse 20, he cried out with a troubled voice.

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The king spoke and said to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God whom you constantly serve been able to deliver you from the lions?

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He expected to hear nothing but the breathing and munching of the lions. He had no faith that Daniel would be alive.

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This is seen in the fact that he cried out with a troubled voice. The word means lamentable, sad, or pitiable.

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He knew it was all over. There's no way. I hope, but there's just no way Daniel could survive this.

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Nobody else has ever survived it. Why would he? He wanted Daniel to be alive, but he had no hope that he would be so.

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He also referred to Jehovah in the same way he would have referred to any one of his non -omnipotent gods.

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He asked if Jehovah had been able to save Daniel, implying that he may not have had the power to save Daniel.

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He didn't know the God of the universe like Daniel knew. Here, he uses the language of Daniel when he refers to the living

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God. He is actually probably only expecting, as I said, to hear the growl of the lions in return, but he cries out in this lamentable voice, trying to find out if Daniel was still alive beyond all hope.

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He references Daniel's faithful service to Jehovah. If God chose to save Daniel, it would have been out of his own sovereignty and grace.

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Even Darius would recognize that. Daniel knew it. Verse 21, then

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Daniel spoke to the king. Now, can you imagine what the king thought when he heard these four words?

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Oh, king, live forever. Oops, I went backwards. That was pretty cool. Oh, king, live forever.

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He probably breathed a huge sigh of relief and actually probably became a bit excited.

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In contrast to the king's anguished question, Daniel answers calmly with the standard greeting for the king.

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That's the standard greeting. Whenever you came into his throne room, first thing you would say, the satraps and governors all said that, oh, king, live forever.

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Oh, king, live forever. They knew he didn't mean that. Daniel meant it in a way that as much as he could mean it.

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He meant it. He meant for the king to have a good life. And here's what he says to the king in verse 22.

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He said, my God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths and they have not harmed me.

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Inasmuch as I was found innocent before him and also toward you, I have committed no crime. In the same way that God did not put the fire out for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, he did not ameliorate the lion's hunger, nor did he remove them from Daniel's presence.

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Rather, his angel shut their mouths and controlled their paws so that they could not harm

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Daniel. This angel was most likely another pre -incarnate presence of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. Daniel reminds the king that he had done nothing wrong to deserve this punishment in the first place.

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His decision to pray, even after the king's decree was not wrong. In fact, it was the right thing to do.

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He states that he was found innocent before Jehovah and that he had committed no crime against the king. Did you get that?

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There was a law passed that you couldn't pray and Daniel ignored it and violated it. And his statement was, he did nothing wrong.

01:00:07

When the state mandates something against Christians that will cause them to violate their conscience or violate the word of God, and Christians remain obedient to God, they are doing no wrong.

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Daniel did no wrong. He did no wrong. It is never a crime to follow biblical mandates.

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Daniel points these things out in something of a mini sermon. The fact that the lion's mouths were shut is referenced in the

01:00:34

New Testament book of Hebrews. Verse chapter 11, it says, and what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions.

01:00:50

Who do you think the writer of Hebrews was talking about? He was talking about Daniel. And we're gonna stop there.

01:00:57

Next week, we'll talk about the fact that scripture does not authorize punishment against families.

01:01:08

Scripture talks about punishment against individuals. Individuals pay for their sin, not families.

01:01:15

Pagan, horrifyingly pagan realms, kingdoms, have a different standard, and we should be grateful for that.

01:01:22

Can you imagine being the wife of one of those guys? What did I do? You idiot.

01:01:31

It was not a very good position to be in. Any comments or questions before we close? So Daniel's saved.

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Did y 'all know that was gonna happen? You do? Okay. It is a famous chapter.

01:01:44

God's sovereignty was vindicated. Darius is now put in a position to do something different, and we'll talk about the next time we're together.

01:01:50

Let's pray. Lord, thank you that you can choose to save. Sometimes you do not.

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You are still the same loving God. You are still the same God of grace, the same God of glory. For whatever brings you the most glory is what we would choose, what we would want.

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And if we were in that position, we would choose it ourselves. Sometimes from our positions of difficulty, we don't see the things that are happening to us as good.

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Daniel most certainly knew that his potential end was very difficult, was painful, was horrifying, but he trusted you.

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Lord, might we become people who trust, who trust in the sovereignty, if we are not already, trust in the sovereignty of Jehovah, of the

01:02:30

Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Spirit. We look to you for you to glorify yourself in whatever way you choose to do in our lives, and we thank you for that in Jesus' name.

01:02:40

Amen. ♪

01:04:11

How great Thou art,

01:04:30

Son of Spirit, sent Him to die ♪ ♪

01:04:36

I scarce can take it in to take away my sins ♪ ♪

01:04:57

And it seems my soul, my Savior, died to Thee ♪ ♪

01:05:14

And it seems my soul, my Savior, died to Thee ♪ ♪

01:05:19

And it seems my soul, my Savior, died to Thee ♪ ♪ I shall come with shouts of adoration ♪ ♪

01:05:51

And take me home where Georgia fill my heart ♪ ♪

01:05:59

And I shall bow in humble adoration ♪ ♪

01:06:07

And then proclaim my God has redeemed me ♪ ♪

01:08:42

And it seems my soul, my Savior, died to Thee ♪ ♪ And take me home where Georgia fill my heart ♪ ♪

01:08:49

Singing tongues above, praise the mount ♪ ♪

01:08:56

Big star, mount of the redeemer ♪ ♪

01:09:15

Heaven, give her safety to our brother ♪ ♪

01:09:34

Jesus saw me when a stranger, wandering from me to rescue ♪ ♪

01:09:48

Me from danger, interposed his precious crown ♪ ♪

01:10:21

Daily I'm constrained to be, let thy heart be fed ♪ ♪

01:10:32

Find my heart, you rose to wonder,

01:10:41

Lord, don't you leave me ♪ ♪

01:10:49

Use my heart, take and seal, seal it for thy courts above ♪ ♪

01:11:03

I adore the last, to my heart, to sing your praise ♪ ♪

01:11:20

Oh, to sing your praise, oh to my heart, to sing your praise ♪ ♪

01:12:59

I rose to wonder, Lord, don't you leave me ♪ ♪

01:13:13

Take and seal, seal it for thy courts above ♪ ♪

01:13:58

Praise the Lord, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:14:12

Stronger than darkness, new every morning ♪ ♪

01:14:18

Our sins they are many, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:14:36

I could remember, no wrongs we have done ♪ ♪

01:14:41

Omniscient, all -knowing, he counts not their sum ♪ ♪

01:14:48

Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore ♪ ♪

01:14:55

Our sins they are many, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:15:05

Praise the Lord, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:15:18

Stronger than darkness, new every morning ♪ ♪

01:15:24

Our sins they are many, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:15:41

Patience would wait as we constantly run ♪ ♪

01:15:47

What Father so tender is calling us home ♪ ♪

01:15:53

He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor ♪ ♪

01:16:01

Our sins they are many, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:16:07

Praise the

01:16:14

Lord, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:16:21

Stronger than darkness, new our sins they are many ♪ ♪

01:16:30

His mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:16:56

What riches of kindness he lavished on us ♪ ♪

01:17:02

His blood was the payment, his life was the cost ♪ ♪

01:17:08

We stood beneath the debt we could never afford ♪ ♪

01:17:19

Our sins they are many, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:17:34

His mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:17:47

Our sins they are many, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:17:58

His mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:18:09

Stronger than darkness, new our sins they are many ♪ ♪

01:18:15

His mercy is more ♪ ♪ Our sins they are many, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:18:27

His mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:18:58

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound ♪ ♪

01:19:07

A wretch like me, I once was lost but was blind ♪ ♪

01:19:23

But now I see the grace that taught me grace ♪ ♪

01:19:50

My fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear ♪ ♪

01:20:00

My fears relieved, my chains are gone,

01:20:14

I've been set free ♪ ♪ I've got my saving grace on me, and I've got his mercy grace ♪ ♪

01:20:36

Amazing grace, how strong, his grace is more ♪ ♪

01:20:57

His mercy is more, his mercy is more ♪ ♪

01:21:04

His mercy is more, his mercy is more, his mercy is more ♪ ♪ My fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear ♪ ♪

01:21:17

My fears relieved, my chains are gone,

01:21:27

I've been set free ♪ me.

01:21:37

In light of the mercy rains, unending, unceasing grace.

01:21:53

My chains are unbund and set free.

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My God, my Saviour, hands on me.

01:22:07

In light of the mercy rains, unceasing grace.

01:22:26

Shadows soon dissolve like smoke. The sun won't bear the sun.

01:22:37

But God will be for ever.

01:23:36

Of the depths I cry to you. In darkest places

01:23:43

I will call. Incline your ear to me anew, and hear my cry for mercy.

01:23:57

Were you to count my sinful ways, how could

01:24:12

I come before your throne? Yet for forgiveness needs my gaze.

01:24:22

I stand redeemed by grace alone. Yet I will wait, surely wait for you, till my soul is satisfied.

01:25:01

So put your hope in God alone. Take courage in his power to save.

01:25:12

Completely and forever. Yet I will wait, surely wait for you, till my soul is satisfied.

01:26:06

Check, check, check. Check one, two. Check one, two. Checking. Testing. One, two.

01:26:12

Testing. Testing. One, two, three. Testing. Check one. Check one. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.

01:26:37

Check one, check one, check one. Check, check.

01:27:52

Check one, two. Check one, two. Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.

01:29:18

The grace of God has reached for me, and pulled me from the raging sea, and I am safe on this solid ground.

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The Lord is my salvation. I fear when darkness falls,

01:30:50

His strength will help me stand these walls, I'll see the dawn of the rising sun, the

01:31:04

Lord is my salvation. And good morning, and welcome to Kootenai Church, we're glad you're here this morning.

01:33:57

Would you please stand as we sing, Trust and Obey. When we walk with the

01:34:15

Lord, in the light of His word, what a glory

01:34:20

He sheds on our way. While we do

01:34:26

His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.

01:34:36

Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

01:34:50

We never hide of His love, until all on the altar we lay.

01:35:05

For the favor He shows, and the joy He bestows, are for them who will trust and obey.

01:35:15

Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

01:35:32

In a fellowship suite, we will sit at His feet, or we'll walk by His side in the way.

01:35:43

What He says, we will do. Where He stands, we will go.

01:35:50

Never fear, only trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

01:36:10

Let's sing the first song that we heard this morning, play for the call to worship. Holy, holy, holy.

01:36:25

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.

01:36:34

Early in the morning, our song shall rise to Thee.

01:36:43

Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty.

01:36:52

God in three persons, blessed

01:36:57

Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore

01:37:09

Thee. Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.

01:37:19

Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee.

01:37:28

Willward and orphan evermore shall be.

01:37:36

Holy, holy, holy, though the darkness hide

01:37:45

Thee. Though the eye of sinful mankind thy glory may not see.

01:37:55

Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee.

01:38:05

Perfect in power, in love and purity.

01:38:12

Let's sing this acapella. Holy, holy, holy,

01:38:19

Lord God Almighty. All Thy works shall praise

01:38:27

Thy name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty.

01:38:44

God in three persons, blessed

01:38:50

Trinity. All creation of water, earth, and sky.

01:39:29

The heavens are your tabernacle. Glory to the

01:39:36

Lord on high. God of wonders beyond our galaxy.

01:39:43

You are holy, holy.

01:39:50

The universe declares your majesty. You are holy, holy.

01:40:02

Of heaven and earth, of heaven and earth.

01:40:13

Early in the morning I will celebrate the light.

01:40:22

When I stumble in the darkness, I will call your name by night.

01:40:32

God of wonders beyond our galaxy. You are holy, holy.

01:40:43

The universe declares your majesty. You are holy, holy.

01:40:54

Of heaven and earth, Lord of heaven and earth.

01:41:04

Hallelujah to the Lord of heaven and earth. Hallelujah to the

01:41:11

Lord of heaven and earth. Hallelujah to the

01:41:16

Lord of heaven and earth. God of wonders beyond our galaxy.

01:41:26

You are holy, holy. The universe declares your majesty.

01:41:36

You are holy, holy. Lord of heaven and earth.

01:41:53

You may be seated. Well, good morning.

01:42:04

We have a number of ministries and events coming up now that the church campout is over. We always start preparing for fall.

01:42:10

And first up is the Adventure Club registration, which you probably saw out in the hallway. So if you would like to register your children for Adventure Club this fall, and that includes the week of adventure on August 23rd to the 27th, then please make your way out to that table for all of the information out there.

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And then also this coming weekend, we have a rummage sale on Saturday. So if you read the bulletin for the last few weeks, you probably noticed a call to get rid of all of your junk except your old clothes and old socks and underwear and things like that, but all the other junk we will gladly take for the rummage sale this next weekend.

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And so you can drop that off during this week and please check the bulletin for details. And then last,

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I wanted to make you aware of the Thunder homeschool ministry that is starting up again this fall with soccer and volleyball.

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If you have children that are homeschool, public school, private school, and you want them to play for a team with Christian coaches and a

01:43:04

Christian league against other Christian schools, then this ministry could be something for you. So please talk to Tracy Jensen.

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If you don't know who Tracy Jensen is, then talk with me and I'll point out who Tracy Jensen is to you. Oh, and lastly,

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I warned you yesterday at the campout not to leave your stuff for me to collect from the lost and found. If that was you and you did leave stuff, in spite of the warning, then the lost and found is out in the hallway.

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Please turn in your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 20, please, for the Scripture reading. Leviticus chapter 20.

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We're going to read beginning at verse 22 through verse 26. Leviticus 20, verses 22 through 26.

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I have to wait until I hear all the pages stop. Somebody's out there just doing this.

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Leviticus 20, verse 22. You are therefore to keep all my statutes and all my ordinances and do them, so that the land to which

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I am bringing you to live will not spew you out. Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation, which

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I will drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have award them. Hence, I have said to you, you are to possess their land, and I myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.

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I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You are therefore to make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean, and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which

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I have separated for you as unclean. Thus you are to be holy to me, for I, the

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Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the peoples to be mine. Let's pray together.

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Will you please stand? No, I'm sorry. Please remain seated, because there's a special right after this.

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Please remain seated. Now let's pray. Our Father, we thank

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You that You are our God, that You by Your grace have called us to be Your children, that You have called us out of darkness, that we might be a holy people to You, a special possession, and we are grateful for that.

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We are thankful that You work in us every good thing that pleases You. We're thankful that You are conforming us to the image of Christ, and it is our earnest desire to be more like the

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Lord whom we love, we worship, and we serve. We thank You for Your holiness and for Your righteousness, and we thank

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You for satisfying the demands of Your righteousness on our behalf in Christ so that we might belong to You.

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We thank You for the gift of faith and the gift of repentance. We thank You for the work that You do in our hearts, and we thank

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You that You are making us a holy people. Give to us, we pray, a love for righteousness and holiness and a hatred for iniquity and impurity and uncleanness.

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May we give our hearts and our lives in obedience to You. We love You, and we thank You for the grace that makes us

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Your people and for the grace that conforms us to Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing together,

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Be Thou My Vision. Be Thou my vision,

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O Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to be saved that Thou art.

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Thou my best thought, by day or by night.

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Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

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Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true word.

01:51:16

I ever with Thee, and Thou with me,

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Lord. Thou my great Father, I Thy true son.

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Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

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Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise.

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Thou mine inheritance, now and always.

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Thou any first in my heart.

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High King of Heaven, my treasure Thou art.

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High King of Heaven, my victory won.

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May I re -challenge joys of bright heaven's light.

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Heart of my Father, still be my vision.

01:52:44

In Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, it says, Therefore I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

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And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect.

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Speak, O Lord, as we come to you, to receive the fruit of your holy work.

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Take your truth, and in deep in us, shape and fashion us in your likeness.

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That the light of Christ might be seen today in our acts of love and our deeds of faith.

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Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us all your purposes for your glory.

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Teach us, Lord, full obedience, holy reverence, true humility.

01:54:29

Test our thoughts and our attitudes in the radiance of your purity.

01:54:41

Cause our faith to rise, cause our eyes to see your majestic love and authority.

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Words of power that can never fail, let the truth prevail over us.

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Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds, help us grasp the heights of your plans for us.

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Truths unchanged from the dawn of time that will echo down through eternity.

01:55:36

And thy grace will stand on your promises, and my faith will walk as you walk with us.

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Speak, O Lord, till your church is built, and the earth is filled with your glory.

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You may be seated. Good morning.

01:56:29

Let's pray together. Father, we are so grateful for your word and for all that it teaches us.

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And Lord, it's been a struggle for me with this passage. I pray that the same struggle would happen in earnest for all of those who are here today who know you.

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That all of your children of obedience would choose to be holy, to not conform to the lusts that were theirs and their ignorance.

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I pray that they would be changed. And Lord, I pray that as I preach,

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I pray that my words would be right, they would be accurate, that they would be what you intended. But if they're not, that you would superintend that your word would be heard appropriately,

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Lord. I pray that we'd be attentive to your word, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. So turn in your

01:57:26

Bibles to 1 Peter 1. We'll read together beginning in verses 14 through 16.

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Before I get started, if you hear anything today that sounds familiar, it's because once again,

01:57:38

Jim has completely stolen my thunder on purpose. He looks ahead. He knows

01:57:43

I'm teaching in 1 Peter, so he looks ahead to the passage that I will be teaching in. And the week before, he shoehorns into his passage in Hebrews the same emphasis.

01:57:54

1 Peter 1, 14 through 16. As obedient children, not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours and your ignorance, but like the

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Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

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So this passage begins in most English translations, and I think very likely in every

01:58:19

English translation that's here in the room today, with three English words, as obedient children.

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And if you just were to read the words in the original language, it would be as children obedience.

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The word translated obedience, obedient is actually a genitive noun. So it's a noun, a noun that's used to modify the other noun, children, the word for children.

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So a more consistent translation would be as children of obedience, as children of obedience, using the noun obedience as written.

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And I think that makes the intended meaning just a little bit more clear. The phrase is intended to address and describe a group of people with a central characteristic in common.

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It's a structure that's used that way both in the Old and New Testaments. You see it in your Bible. Sons of worthlessness, sons of Belial, sons of thunder, children of Jerusalem, there's all sorts of uses of that sort of structure.

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It's a phrase of identification. So Peter isn't giving a command here, not yet. He does that in verse 15.

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He isn't just calling his readers obedient children, he's putting them in a camp, identifying them as a distinct nation and a particular family.

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So we, and I'm speaking to Christians only, we are children of obedience.

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Note the similarity to Ephesians 5 .8, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

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Similar. Christians are referred to as children of obedience, children of light, children of the day, children of the promise, most of all, children of God.

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Now note the contrast of the term, the term that we're looking at, children of obedience, with its opposite.

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This is in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. And you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also formerly conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

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We're by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest.

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So the unregenerate are referred to in Scripture as children of disobedience, children of wrath, children of the night, children of darkness, children of hell, accursed children, children of the devil.

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So you see, Scripture knows only two families. There's the family of God and there's the family of Satan.

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And as I do this motion here, I'm going to mix them up, decide which corner is which.

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This is a quote from John Stott. John Stott wrote a commentary on 1 John, which of course has some of these same themes.

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He says, The contrast is stark and absolute. We're said to be either in the light or in the darkness and there is no twilight.

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No twilight. There's no dusk. There's just light and darkness. No gray areas in Scripture.

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The Scripture doesn't know gradations in terms of identity. Heaven has various rewards for obedience.

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Hell has various punishments for sin. But there's a broad chasm in between those.

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The Scripture knows only two kingdoms, two families. So there's only on one hand the dominion of darkness, the children of disobedience, the family of Satan, the kingdom of this world that's dead in sin, resolute in its rebellion to the

02:02:00

God who still loves them, that is who they are, that is who you would still be were it not for the overwhelming intervention of the

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Holy Spirit. That's one. The other realm is opposite.

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It's the dominion of light, the children of God, the kingdom of heaven. It's a particular and peculiar people that are no longer bound to their sin, no longer blinded in our minds by the

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God of this age. You Christian, child of obedience, you have been made alive in Christ.

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God has caused you to be born again. That's further up in chapter 1.

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You now can see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. That's the difference. You're now called children of God.

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You call the servant of the universe Father and Lord and Savior and King and God. You are his child, his obedient child, the child of obedience.

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This is who you are. It's who you are. It's not just an address.

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It's God's statement of identity. We don't want to miss it. You're a child of obedience. We are children of obedience.

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Peter's not asking us to be obedient. He's not telling us someday we will be obedient or we should be obedient. He's identifying us with obedience.

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This is who you and I are. Right? This is us. It's a contrast with the unregenerate sinner or the pre -regenerate sinner.

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What makes you and I different? What moved us from one family to another? What caused us to be born again?

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We are regenerated. We are made new. We are made alive spiritually.

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We are given the... Our essential character is the same as the life that our resurrected

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Savior lives. The life that was always with the Father and was manifested in the Son. Right?

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That's the life we live. If you have repented of your sins and put your faith in Christ, that is who you are.

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All of it a gift of the grace of God. The grace to the revealed will of God.

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That's the essential outward difference, isn't it? Between the Christian and the unbeliever. So the scripture refers to the one as children of obedience, the other as sons of disobedience.

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That is, after all, what sin is. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is disobedience.

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Disobedience to whatever will of God a person understands. It comes down to this.

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And I borrowed this from A .W. Tozer. This little phrase.

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I'm not doing that to you today. Close. It's close, but it's not all the way. It comes down to this.

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Who's the boss? Who's the boss? Who's in charge?

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Being a Christian, and I know somebody said Alyssa Milano or Tony Danza. That's not what

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I'm talking about. Who's in charge? Like, who's in charge of your life? Being a

02:05:09

Christian, that means that you've come to the point, at some point, where you have joyfully and completely acquiesced to the will of another.

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You've submitted your will to His. You admit that God is the boss and you are not. God is sovereign.

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God is good. God is wise. He's powerful. He's king. He's master. And He is God. And as God, He deserves your fealty, your love, and your worship, and your obedience.

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That's a good definition of what it means to be a Christian. A child of obedience.

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Well, what's the alternative? There's really only one other boss. If you don't submit to God, there's really only one other possibility.

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There's only one other sovereign in your life and it may not be who you think it is. Most people who aren't

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Christians will declare they follow no one but themselves. There's a famous poem.

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It was written by a British poet, W .E. Henley. You may not be familiar with his name or you may have heard of the poem.

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I don't know. How would I know? There's a lot of people in here. But this is the poem.

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I know you've heard part of it. So listen to this carefully. Out of the night that covers me, black is the pit from pole to pole.

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I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance

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I have not winced nor cried aloud for this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade.

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And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll.

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I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

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Right? Rebellious nonsense. Very popular. And I think, even though this was written long ago,

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I think it captures the spirit of the age still today. You see in this, he speaks of the straight gate, the punishments in the scroll.

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He's declaring his total disdain for submission to the will of God. He's in charge.

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He's the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. Henley died in 1903. He sadly learned otherwise. But this is still the spirit of the age.

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Pretty much unchanging. You see this in modern music. You can see its theme in modern media.

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You can see it in tattoos. I follow no one but myself.

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I'm not a sheeple, like you guys. I'm not a follower. I'm a leader.

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I make my own way. I follow no one but myself. I obey no one but myself. No one can judge me. I'm the captain of my soul.

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I am my own God. That's the spirit of the age. Most unbelievers would say they obey only themselves.

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They serve no God, I obey my own self -taught conscience.

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That's my highest authority. Now some might tell you they're spiritual.

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They might tell you about their God. My God does this or that. Upon careful consideration, you'll find that their idiosyncratic

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God sounds remarkably similar to themselves. The supposed

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God of the individual unbeliever, and I'm speaking of myself before I was saved. This is me. That God never seemed to disagree with them, never asked anything of them that they're not willing to give.

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Their God may have a moral code, one they'll usually find easy to follow, coincidentally, gives them some relief from those last remaining embers of their

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God -given conscience. That was me. They recycle.

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They protest. They give. They may give or serve in a charity, might wear a slogan on their t -shirt, signal their virtue in ways that cost them nothing, just enough to convince them that they're generally good -hearted, truly worthy of their own loyalty, their own approval.

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That the God of their imagination ought to approve them. Now it's obvious that the

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God of one's own imagination is no God at all. It's just an image made in your own image.

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So whether a person claims to have no authority other than themselves or they claim to have, to be loyal to some

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God that they've made up, really collapses to the same thing. It's self -worship, auto -idolatry, worship of the self.

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But in reality, a person who worships a false God or an imaginary God or simply exalts themselves as serving

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Satan, that's the truth of it. They're dwelling in his kingdom, in his realm of darkness, can only suffer loss but we all conform to something.

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We all serve someone. We all obey somebody, disobey somebody else.

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Whether we think we're serving ourselves or a fake deity of some organized religion or some mystical notion of our own imagination, we're conforming to the will of Satan.

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We're just living in easy agreement to the dictates of our sinful nature. Easy. It's what

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I want to do. And there's no bravery in that. There's nothing there in which to take a moment's pride, let alone a month's worth.

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Yeah, that was a good line if you catch that one. It really, if you think of it, it is the easiest, it's the most cowardly, it's the least thoughtful mode of living.

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I just live according to the dictates of the flesh. Just mindless dead conformity to the flesh. Now, that sort of disobedience to the revealed will of God, whether that's in the conscience or in the creation or in the written word, that kind of disobedience shouldn't surprise us.

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We expect pagans to peg. We expect pagans is going to peg.

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We expect that. You expect sons of disobedience to disobey. There's nothing surprising there.

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Tragically though, the revealed will of God has found its way into the church, into the children of obedience.

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Now, I'm not speaking of this particular local body of believers. I'm referring to the visible church, the evangelical church as a whole.

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In most pulpits and pews this morning sit a lot of people, many of them believers, many of them unfortunately false converts, who made a separation between salvation and obedience.

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You've heard it before. It's the idea that's sometimes called free grace theology. If you have

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Christian friends, you've heard it before. John MacArthur has written several books in opposition to it, as have

02:12:27

Wayne Grudem and others. Free grace theology is the idea you can and you must separate faith from repentance.

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You can come to Jesus that is Savior only. And perhaps later, if you're so inclined, you can come back to the other

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Jesus or the other part of Jesus and you can make Him your master. Something He wasn't before and He will be only so long as you find it tolerable.

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That's a divided gospel. It's a divided Jesus. You may come to Him as one goes to a doctor or a dentist and get the cure for what ails you.

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In this case, the judgment for your sin. But then you just leave with no further obligation. If you choose later, you might come back.

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You might agree to listen to what that physician has to say. You might perhaps choose to obey to one degree or another.

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That's the idea. You come to Christ, you get what you need freely from Him and off you go. He makes no demands.

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He can make no demands. He's just always ready to forgive and forget. Now, free grace theology, it's an overextension of something true and good.

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It's falling into a ditch off the side of a good road. Let me try to explain it.

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This is the argument. Since grace is free, since the offer of the gospel is a free offer, we offer the gift of grace.

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Salvation is based solely on the work of Christ on our behalf. We have atonement in the cross. We have justification, perfect righteousness in the perfect life of Christ.

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Salvation is all of Christ. It has nothing to do with us, certainly nothing to do with any human works. We're saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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Do you have any objection that grace of salvation is free?

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It's free to the recipient of grace. It's not free. It wasn't free to Christ. It's free to the recipient of grace.

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We bring nothing. But here's the ditch. The free grace theologian asserts now that repentance, that turning from sin, being obedient to Christ, changing our thoughts and our behavior, that has to have no connection to conversion whatsoever.

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If you choose to obey Him, if you say that there are ethical requirements in the new covenant, then you are adding to the gospel and you render it a false gospel.

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You've added works. That's the thinking. So there has to be a separation between faith and obedience or repentance.

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You can come to Christ in faith without any change in behavior, without any striving against your sin.

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You just accept Him as Savior. And that's utterly unbiblical.

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That part. The scripture uses the terms faith and repentance interchangeably. I'm just going to read a couple to you.

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Acts 26. This is Paul's defense before Agrippa. Paul says that he kept declaring to everyone that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.

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That's how he characterized his evangelism. Repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.

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Imagine how he took the gospel to the Gentiles. And in response to that testimony, those that were gathered in the churches of Jerusalem, they quieted down and glorified

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God saying, well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.

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The repentance that leads to life. Right? This is clear in scripture.

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Repentance, which includes performing deeds appropriate to repentance, now you got to hear that it's not a condition of our justification.

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It is always its result. That's the point. And we should be clear about that.

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You can't come to genuine saving faith in Christ without repenting of your sins. Faith and repentance are two sides of the same conversion coin.

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To turn to Christ is to turn from sin. Think about it for a second. How ridiculous to think you come to Christ with no intention of turning from sin.

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You're turning away from the sin that put him on the cross. Imagine coming to the foot of the cross to your savior, admitting that you need a savior.

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Your sins have put him on the cross. Coming to him, asking for forgiveness of those sins with no intention whatsoever of putting away that which put him on the cross.

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It can't be done. You will not find a carnal Christian in scripture. What will you find?

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Sons of disobedience That's what you'll find.

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Okay. When we come to Christ for salvation, we come to a Christ who simply is both savior and Lord.

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He is. Romans 10, 8, 9 says this. But what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.

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That is the word of faith which we are preaching that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as savior,

02:17:53

Jesus as friend, Jesus as lamb, Jesus as sacrifice. No, Jesus as Lord.

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And believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You will be saved. Salvation comes from confessing

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Jesus as Lord. Why? Because he is. He is.

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He always is. There's only one Jesus and he is always both savior and Lord. He doesn't become one because of what you do.

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People say I made him Lord. He didn't make him Lord. When we come to him, we come repentant.

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We come hat in hand. We come trembling but also hopeful, joyful.

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Right? We see in him the rescue. We understand now who he is.

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He is our savior and our master and our king. He is our sacrifice, the lamb, but he's also our

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God. That's who he is. Jesus Christ is all there is to those of us who know him.

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We would sacrifice everything else. All we ever wish to do is that which pleases him.

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Now, all I can ever do to please him is obey him. That's what pleases him.

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Obedience. How do I know that? John 14, 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

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John 15, 10. If you keep my commandments, you'll abide in my love just as I've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

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1 John 2, 3, and 4. And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says

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I've come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. If you're a

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Christian, you're a child of obedience. That's how Peter addresses his readers. It's identification of them and us as believers in Christ.

02:20:01

And then Peter spells it out in the rest of the passage. So let's continue. Next Peter says, not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance.

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Again, there's no command here yet. This is a present participle. It's translated that way in the new legacy standard.

02:20:19

But most other translations translate it as an imperative or a command. It says do not be conformed.

02:20:25

It probably says do not be conformed in your Bible unless you're using the LSB. He's just building onto your identity.

02:20:34

This is what you do and have been doing as children of obedience. One thing you have not been doing is allowing yourself to be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance.

02:20:43

You've been fighting that pressure to conform. That's what he says. You're instead conforming yourself to the revealed will of God as children of obedience.

02:20:52

So again, it's not a command. It is just what believers do. We actively do not conform to our former lusts.

02:21:01

The desires that led our thoughts and actions prior to our conversion, Peter calls them former, and he says that they are in our ignorance.

02:21:10

Those are the things that we're disobeying. We're mortifying those things. We're putting those to death.

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As children of obedience, we continue to strive towards sanctification. We are repenting against those deeds of the flesh.

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We're fighting those, those lusts, those sinful desires. They once had dominion over us, but they're former.

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They're former. They're no longer our lusts. Now, they may still have some power over us, may still entice us towards sin, but they've lost their dominion, their sovereignty.

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They belong to a prior, a former way of life. 1 Peter 4 .3 says this,

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For the time already passed is sufficient for you to have worked out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lust, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and having said that word on the first try.

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I did not think that was going to happen. The time already passed is sufficient.

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It's more than sufficient. Right? It's over. That belongs to who we were apart from Christ, or who we would be apart from Christ.

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It has no part in who we are in Christ. Those were our lusts and our ignorance.

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It points to a time when we didn't know something. We were ignorant. What didn't we know? We didn't know Christ. And in our ignorance, we had those lusts.

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We were spiritually dead. As obedient children, not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the

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Holy One who called you, there's another phrase there, but like the

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Holy One who called you. Another rationale for the command that's still to come. There's still no command yet.

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Like the Holy One who called you, the Holy One has called you. Now, I thought about what to do here.

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There's not enough time to do an exposition, explanation of the holiness of the

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One who called you. So, I hereby reserve the right to preach an entire sermon on the holiness of God before I die, or after,

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I don't care. But I really would love to do that. So, I'm just going to do a little bit.

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I'm first going to remind you of a sermon a few weeks ago in Hebrews. Jim explained the term the living God. Do you remember that?

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The fact that God alone has no source of life outside of himself. He's the only independent being.

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Everything else depends on something else. God alone is independent in that sense. He is the source of all life and needs nothing outside of him.

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So, holiness is, in general, the attribute of separation, God being otherly. God is different.

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Now, some of his attributes can be understood by us. And we, as his image bearers, we're to reflect some of those attributes to the degree that we can.

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God is other. He's like nothing else. He's holy in that sense. God is omniscient.

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His knowledge is complete. There's nothing he doesn't know. There's nothing he cannot know. God is omnipresent.

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Think about that. He's everywhere without dimension. He has no size.

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He's not big. Okay, I said it. Kids sing the song, our

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God is so big. It's in my mind, and I'm not saying you shouldn't sing it because God is not big.

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He's not. He's not big. He's not small. He is without dimension. He's without size.

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Now, he can express himself in time and space, even in a human body, in the second person of the

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Trinity. But yet, he is omnipresent. He's timeless. He's eternal, never ending, without time in his nature.

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He alone is not trapped in a succession of moments. You're trapped in a succession of moments.

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Right now, you're really trapped in a succession of moments. But we always are.

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He is not. He can see all time, any time, equally vividly. He can exist outside of time.

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It's not something we can conceive of. He's three divine persons in one being. God is three divine persons in one divine being.

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We can't begin to fathom such a one. Or we can only begin to fathom such a one.

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Okay, so you know there's a lot more to this. To say that God is holy is to declare that, his otherliness, his general perfection, his incomprehensibility, his transcendence.

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To say that God is holy, though sometimes in Scripture it has a more restricted meaning, that God's holiness is this.

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God is perfectly distinct from everything outside himself. That's the more general. And is absolutely morally separate from sin.

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He's absolutely morally separate from sin. And I think that's the reference here in verse 15. God as holy one, emphasizing his moral perfection.

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Absolutely morally separate from sin. It's a contrast to mankind, especially unregenerate mankind. So as the holy one who called you as holy, be holy yourself.

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Be holy yourself. Since the one who called you as holy, be holy. It's the holy one who called you out of darkness and introduced marvelous light from a destiny of eternal torment that was well deserved to a heavenly inheritance, as he says, protected by the power of God.

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Completely undeserved. Since the one who did that for you is holy, be holy yourselves. It is just a reasonable response to the calling of the gospel.

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It is the necessary response to an encounter with this holy one. He is your savior and Lord.

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So just continue, continue in your obedience to the revealable of God being. Just be true to the precepts of the new covenant, those ethical requirements that we live under as Christians.

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That's obedience, that's holiness. It's the same as not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance.

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It's just now that we have a command. Be holy. You're God's children.

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You're God's called out ones. You're God's image bearers.

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His name bearers. You're closely identified with him. You've identified with him publicly before his church, before his holy angels, before him in baptism, in confession, in commitment.

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You're here now with his people. You're part of his bride. You're in his kingdom. Bought by his blood, you are his.

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And you have to be like him more and more. Be holy. Be true to your behavior.

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You see that? Word there translated conduct behavior. It's not a common word. It's used more by Peter than anybody else.

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He's very concerned with our conduct, our way of living, the manner in which we deal with other people. It's about outward conduct, how it reflects our inward condition.

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We're to be holy like God in our conduct. Peter's emphasis in particular is our conduct toward unbelievers.

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You'll see that as we go through. Remember he's encouraging us to live not in our former lust, not the will of the sinful world, but to live humbly and submissively in the world, but uncompromisingly as children of obedience.

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Note also all of our conduct, not just Sunday morning.

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It's not just here, not just among God's people. All demands consistency, obedience, holiness in all of our conduct.

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At home, at work, at school, in your employment, in your leisure, in everything, all of your conduct.

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The ultimate rationale for that is in verse 15. Because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

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That's the rationale. Why must we be holy? Because he's holy. So you may have been wondering why the scripture reading was in Leviticus and what does any of this have to do with eating the wrong things.

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But you don't have to wonder anymore. The quotation here is a reference back to the holiness code in Leviticus.

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It's about all the laws. And he repeatedly gives as the rationale for obedience to those laws, words like,

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I am the Lord your God. I am holy. You shall be holy because I am holy.

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It is the character and holiness of God that is the reason why we must live that way.

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We must reflect his character. Now what Jim read was written to the

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Israelites under Moses. We always have to be careful when you see that the command to be holy is repeated here.

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So we're safe to take that as a command. We're to be holy. And the reason we're to be holy is because the one with whom we are in closest relationship is holy.

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We're his image bearers. We're his obedient children. We're to be holy. Holy before the angels who long to look into the gospel of our salvation and how we live that out.

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We're to be holy before one another to bring encouragement that we live out our holiness or lack thereof before God himself, the

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Holy One who called us. So we've seen our identification as children of obedience. We've seen an encouragement of our living that out in the negative where he says you're not being conformed to the former lusts that were yours in your ignorance.

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We've seen now the positive command to be holy. The ultimate rationale for that is because of the holiness of God and our relationship to him.

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Let me ask you two questions briefly. What does it mean practically to be holy? You can say be holy, but what does that really mean? What do

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I do when I go to lunch? How do I be holy? How do I work it out? What are the ethical requirements of the new covenant?

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What does that term mean? If we're not under the Mosaic covenant, what do we do with that? What about God's commands to say

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Adam and Eve or to Noah to predate the Mosaic covenant? How do we deal with that? Legalism is bad.

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I don't want this to be legalism. What about sinless perfectionism? Is that what is being taught here?

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Is this moralistic? I'm going to go through that just briefly. Of course, there's a lot more to be said.

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What are the ethical requirements of the new covenant? How do we handle the law of Moses, the commands of the Old Testament?

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Of course, anything that's given to Christians in the New Testament is binding on believers. There are some transitional elements in the gospel.

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There's transitional elements in the book of Acts that need to be understood. Jim did a series on Acts some years ago.

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He carefully addressed those. That's online if you want to. There's a lot of them, but it's worth it.

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He talked about casting lots. Was that okay? The Jerusalem Council, you shouldn't eat meat with the blood in it.

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There's some transitional elements there that we have to be careful about when we're binding on Christians.

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If an Old Testament command predates the Mosaic covenant, and if it wasn't clearly commanded to a specific person, specific time, purpose, place, then it does teach ethical principles for all time.

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General commands that were given to Adam and Eve, for example, or to Noah, those are ethical principles that persist, apply to all mankind.

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As far as the Mosaic covenant, well, nine of the 10 commandments are repeated, actually strengthened in the

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New Testament, but the law of Moses as a whole is not binding on Christians, obviously.

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Just look at what you had for breakfast, what you're going to have for lunch. We don't consider those to be binding.

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You're seeing that in Hebrews as Jim goes through Hebrews. But some of the precepts that are in the law of Moses are part of the law of Christ, are part of the

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New Testament commands and principles. We have to understand that.

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There's some of those that don't apply, and there are others that do because they're repeated in the New Testament. The rest of the

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Old Testament, after the law was given to Moses, we have to be careful with it. We have to be careful to understand if there's commands there, if they're given to Israel under the

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Mosaic covenant and understanding that.

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I'm not going to go through all that, but I'll just say it's not that hard. A lot of times we try to find the ethical conundrum, that one thing that's really hard, the

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Nazis at the door. Do we lie when the Nazis are at the door? I do know the answer to that,

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I think, but how often have the Nazis been at your door? Like, you do your taxes every year.

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You have your review with your boss every year. You talk with your friends and your spouse.

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The day -to -day life, it's not really that hard to know what is required of us.

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It really isn't. It's really good to study. I love to study biblical ethics.

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I think it's really good to do that. You learn a lot, but it's not really necessary for your day -to -day living.

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So is this legalism then? And if it isn't, what is legalism? Well, Peter's not teaching legalism.

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Legalism is a cry that you hear all the time whenever you say what the Bible has to say about biblical ethics.

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Mortifying your sin, actively striving to live in a manner consistent with your calling, being holy because God is holy, that's not legalism.

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Legalism is the idea that obedience to law saves you. And nothing that I've said or that the

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Bible says should lead you to believe that. The commandments of Scripture doesn't have any bearing on your salvation.

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But to say that the person who's received that gift should and will live in obedience to the Holy One who called them, that's just reasonable and biblical.

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Obedience, again, not a condition of salvation, but it is an inevitable result of salvation.

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It's not legalistic. I'm not teaching sinless perfectionism. I'm teaching 1 John with the young adult class.

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1 John chapter 1 is enough to show that we can ever be sinlessly perfect in this life.

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We're never gonna be free from the presence of sin or its enticement in this life. While in the flesh we'll be tempted to sin and we will sin.

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I'm not teaching you sinless perfection. But we have to be in that Roman 7 fight with sin.

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That's the point. That's the point. We ought to live that we're characterized as children of obedience.

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We are at war with sin. We're actively fighting it. We're mortifying it. That's the command.

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Because we're not holy, perfectly holy. We need the command to be more holy, to continue to avoid being conformed to our sin.

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The fight against sin is over at your last heartbeat or when you hear the trump.

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Not before. If you think you hear the bell to end the round before the fight is over, you're gonna take a beating.

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The fight is not over until you're dead. You gotta keep fighting. Be holy.

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So is this moralism? No. I would just leave it there, but I kind of have to define moralism.

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So I'll define it one way. There's multiple ways. This is one way. A kind of personal moralism where people set up a law for themselves that is not based solely on the biblical requirements, the ethical requirements for Christians, but some other way.

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And again, the intent is good. The intent is a good one. We're to be different in the way that the

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Bible says to be different. We don't have to make up a new difference. So this is, you know, you have to dress a certain way, you can't go to certain places.

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I was in a church once where bowling was frowned upon and theaters were frowned upon. That's what I'm talking about.

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That is actually going beyond what is written, making a law where there is no law.

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That itself is a violation of a command of scripture. So in an effort, in an effort to live obediently, you are now making a law unto yourself, which is a violation of scripture.

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1 Corinthians 4, 6. I'm not going to read you. You have to look it up yourself if you don't believe me.

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The Westminster Confession of Faith has this to say, The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture.

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Did you get that? All things necessary for life is in the scripture. The Cambridge Declaration of the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals was issued in 1996. It was regard to the five solas.

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This one is regard to the doctrine of sola scriptura. We reaffirm the inerrant scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience.

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I love that term. Scripture alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all

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Christian behavior must be measured. We deny that any creed, counsel, or individual may bind a Christian's conscience that the

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Holy Spirit speaks independently of or contrary to what is set forth in the Bible or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation.

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Amen and amen to that. Scripture alone can bind the conscience. That's the formal principle of the

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Reformation. That really is it in a nutshell. Scripture alone can bind the conscience.

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We can disagree on an ethical point of scripture. We can disagree on whether you ought to do this or that thing.

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But we have no right to apply bindings to a Christian based on anything other than scripture.

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We can argue over scripture, but we have no right to place any other ethical or theological or ecclesial or any other bindings on a believer.

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Remember the point of 1 Peter. Peter writes the suffering persecuted people and his believers. He wants them to glorify God. He wants them to live joyfully, happily, and confidently in the midst of that suffering.

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That's his purpose. And here's one of the keys. Be holy. No matter what happens, no matter what the implications of living this type of life, be holy.

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Live in obedience. Live as a child of obedience. Now why would he say that? Sounds like bad advice.

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But that's the point. The trouble's not the point. Trials are,

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Peter said it, trials are distressing, but they're temporary and they serve a purpose.

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God -glorifying, happy -making, reward -resulting, faith -proving sanctification of the child of obedience.

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And so now I'm done. Now the ball's in your court. You've just had a command of scripture.

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You've had a command from God, from the Holy One who calls you. Be holy. What will you do with that?

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It's none of my business. The Holy Spirit knows what to do. He knows how to apply his word to his people.

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I'll just remind you of this. As obedient children, not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the

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Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct because it is written, you shall be holy because I am holy.

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Let's pray. Father, indeed you are the Holy One.

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You are holy. You are transcendent, incomprehensible. The more we know about you, the less we know about you, and the more you are glorified, the more we love you, the more we worship you.

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And so Lord, you just ask that we reflect your glory as much as we can.

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And so Lord, I pray for each one that is here, each one of your children, that you would bring this to mind in their lives and that they would in fact glorify you in their lives.

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Amen. Would you please stand?

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O great God of highest heav 'n,

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Occupy my lowly heart. Own it all and reign supreme.

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Conquer every rebel power. Let no vice or sin remain that resists your holy war.

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You have loved and purchased me. Make me yours forevermore.

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I was blinded by my sin, had no ears to hear your voice, did not know your love within, had no taste for heaven's joys.

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Then your spirit gave me life, opened up your wounds to me.

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Through the gospel of your Son, gave me endless hope and peace.

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Help me now to live a life that's dependent on your grace.

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Keep my heart and guard my soul from the evils that I face.

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You are worthy to be praised with my every heart and deed.

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O great God of highest heav 'n, glorify your name through me.

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You are worthy to be praised with my every thought and deed.

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O great God of highest heav 'n, glorify your name through me.

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May the grace of our

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Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen. You are dismissed. One in three persons blesses your name.

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Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore.

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Casting down their golden crowns above the glassy sea.