Daniel 6 | Saved From The Power of Lions

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Welcome everybody.

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Glad you're here. We're going to study Daniel Chapter 6 today. Do you think there are any powerful leaders in the world who are still desiring more power, coveting to run things?

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Is that a rhetorical question? You think maybe. Is that rhetorical?

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Well, it's not rhetorical. It is the age -old story. You guys remember when we studied the book of Isaiah?

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The Assyrians wanted to dominate the world. Well, they got right to the gates of Jerusalem, desiring to crush and to destroy

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Jerusalem. But Hezekiah turned to the Lord in prayer. Remember, he began to trust in God.

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Now, for a time, Judah was looking to Egypt to be their strength. They began to rely on Egypt.

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And Rabshakeh, the leader of Assyria, was mocking. Do you think that you can lean on them?

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They're just a reed. They'll break off as soon as you put any weight on them. He was right about that. But Hezekiah began to turn to the

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Lord. And although it looked like there was no hope for them, First, God caused the

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Assyrians to turn back because someone else attacked Assyria while they were attacking Jerusalem.

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But then when they are reestablished to take over Jerusalem, God simply sent an angel and in one night killed 185 ,000 soldiers.

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And then the king goes back to Nineveh. And within days, it seems he's murdered and he loses his throne.

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So, yes, there are wicked people clamoring for power. In our culture, you know, the

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United Nations is meeting right now in New York. And they are talking about a plan for 2030 that would, once again, fundamentally transform the world.

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Their vision, as with the World Economic Forum, is to get away from oil and coal.

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Because they say it's warming the environment and it's going to destroy everybody. In truth, what they're after is power, more control.

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And they see this as an opportunity to introduce Marxism and their command economy, centralizing power.

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Ultimately, this will result, finally, in the coming of the Antichrist. But we don't know if that's by 2030 or sooner or 100 years after that.

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We don't know the time. But we know there's always wicked men who desire more and more power.

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They want to rule the world. Yes? Did I read somewhere that their objective is to have a three -portion leadership of the world?

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Yeah, I think they call them their three horns. I don't know what they call them. I may have heard something like that.

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There was the ten in Daniel's prophecy. And we're going to get to that at the beginning. I think after chapter 6, right?

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Does that begin in chapter 7? Yeah. Chapter 7. So we will get to that. And surely it looks to be things...

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I mean, you can't buy or sell anything in the end times without the mark of the beast. And now we have digital currency being introduced over against cash.

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They went to outlaw cash. All of these things seem to be setting up for the end times. But way back in the book of Daniel, chapter 6, let's turn there, you have men who are hungry for power.

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We're going to begin reading in Daniel 6. A change has happened here in the text.

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And that is the Babylonians, who were the ones that conquered Assyria. Remember how the

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Assyrians were attacking Jerusalem? They're the ones that wiped out the northern kingdom. Babylon will overtake

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Assyria. And then what we have here between chapters 5 and 6 is the fall of Babylon to the

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Medo -Persian Empire. So you have Darius the Mede followed by Cyrus the Persian. But these are working together as one empire.

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And it's ultimately Persia that will send the captives back to rebuild under Ezra and Nehemiah and Zerubbabel, Shealtiel.

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So Rich, would you read chapter 6, 1 to 3? And the first thing

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I want you to see is that we can trust in our station in life.

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God is the one who's elevating Daniel. But you have 120 satraps, powerful men underneath the king.

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And these 120 are becoming increasingly jealous of Daniel.

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So you will always have men like this that are clamoring for power, that are desiring and coveting these things for themselves.

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Rich, if you would. 1 to 3. It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, that he would rule the whole kingdom.

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And over these, three governors of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them so that the king would suffer no loss.

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Then this Daniel distinguished himself above all the governors of satraps because an excellent spirit was in him.

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And the king gave thought to sending him over the whole realm. Wonderful.

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It is God who establishes Daniel's favor and shows

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Daniel what he has for him. It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps.

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So he's dividing up the responsibility and entrusting this to them.

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There are three over the 120. And notice that Daniel is rising above them all.

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Why? Because of an excellent spirit.

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An excellent spirit. We saw this in Joseph as well, that everything he set his hand to do, he did well.

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As Christians, whatever we do, we should do with all of our might and to the glory of God.

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If you work at a Publix or a ShopRite, you should be the best employee, showing up on time, working diligently.

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Whatever it is that you're called to do, whatever you set your hand to do, you should do as unto the Lord and with excellence.

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Here in verse 3, Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him.

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What is the definition of success for a Christian? Winning souls for Christ.

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But can you convert even one soul? No, not me.

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I can tell. Neither can I. You can share the gospel. So would it be success? Proverbs 3, 5, and 6,

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I would call that success. I would define success as faithfulness unto the Lord. And if you are faithful in the small things, he will make you in charge of much, we're told.

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And that may be in the next life. But here's the point. If you concern yourself with walking uprightly before the

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Lord, being faithful, you can trust him with your station in life.

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So many people in the world are concerned about their station in life. And so they constantly clamor for more and more power.

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They want more influence. They want more money. They want more leisure. All the good things of this life that they desire causes them to clamor for those things.

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But how few people are concerned with faithfulness. Daniel, there's no evidence in the text that he's clamoring to be the new leader of the entire world.

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And yet, that's what's happening to him. He is concerning himself with excellence.

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Now, this goes back earlier into the book. Remember the first chapter. He was not concerned with being the most, the strongest and the best among those chosen out of the captives.

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He desired to eat what was pleasing to the Lord and to follow the dietary code of Israel.

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And he was willing to suffer for that. But in the end, he turned out stronger and better off along with his friends than all the ones who did eat the king's food.

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He wasn't going. He wasn't aiming for power. He was aiming for faithfulness.

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Is there anything wrong with power? Not as usual. Right. Power is like anything else.

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It's neutral, like a tool. If it's wielded for the glory of God, that's good.

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You would like to see, I would rather see a righteous Christian in office in the presidency. Wouldn't that be amazing?

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I'd pray for that. Yeah, we can sure pray for that. Michael Huckabee was a pastor when he became governor of Arkansas.

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Yeah, yeah. So, of course, that would be great. We would love to see righteous laws. But our concern is faithfulness.

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And look what God does in his plan. He becomes, this is verse 3, he becomes distinguished above all the other high officials and state traps.

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The same thing that happened to Joseph so long ago. An excellent spirit. And the king had planned to send him over the whole kingdom.

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Now, the story, this is sort of the backdrop to the story.

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The story begins with wicked rulers, 120 state traps, desiring more power for themselves.

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The problem here is covetousness. Let's read, I guess, John, you'll go next.

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Daniel chapter 6, verse 4. Then the high officials and the state traps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom.

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But they could find no ground for complaint or any fault because he was faithful and no error or fault was found in him.

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Here you have a man who is faithful before the Lord. So, doesn't that mean if you do what's right, you will always have smooth sailing?

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Yeah, sure. That's how life goes, right? I'm sure that's how we've all experienced life to be.

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Now, faithfulness, contrary to the prosperity gospel, does not always result in smooth sailing.

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In fact, one particular danger that we all need to be aware of is that covetousness will crop up.

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There will be jealousy to the degree that God has blessed you. There will be people who are jealous, who covet the power or the opportunity that you have.

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So, turn with me to James chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, because this problem is also prevalent in churches.

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James, the half -brother of Jesus, is writing instruction to the church.

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And he's explaining to them why many of their prayers go unanswered and why there is quarreling and fighting within the church.

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What causes James 4, verses 1 and 2? Would you like to read that for us?

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Thank you. What causes wars and what causes fighting among you? Is it not your passion, your desire, and do not have, so you kill and you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and wage war?

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You do not have because you do not ask. That's it. What causes church wars?

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Pride. Pride, yeah. And here the word is coveting. You see that in verse 2,

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James 4, 2? It is often the case in churches all around the world that even though we are sanctified, we have the

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Holy Spirit, there is still covetousness left in the fallen human nature. And many people desire things and don't get their way.

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And when that happens, that covetousness results in quarreling and fighting.

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What is that ultimately? It's wrestling for power. It is a wrestling for control of a certain situation.

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Someone might not like that we use a projector. There have been wars fought in churches that we should use only, and this isn't our church, only hymnals with printed material.

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And the projector, that's worldly and I don't know. Someone might not like the square carpet.

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Someone might not like the color of the walls. Yeah, so obviously in churches, in churches there will be differences of opinion, and so who makes the decisions?

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Here is commended to us a gentle spirit that doesn't clamor for power, right?

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And trusting God's structure in the church, congregational rule, elder -led but congregationally ruled, that kind of system results in peace in the church.

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But things get out of whack when people try to take what God has not given, right?

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So look at, again, James 4, 1 and 2. What causes quarrels? What causes fights among you?

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Is it not this, that your lusts, your passions, desires, yeah, the desire is at war within you.

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You desire and do not have, so you murder. That's a full expression of it, and then at a lesser level here, because even that anger or the murdering in the heart is the trouble, at root of that is coveting.

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You covet and cannot obtain. There's something that you want. Picture these satraps, the 120.

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They've already been elevated above the rest of the empire, but once they're part of the 120, they want to be one of the three, because there's three over the 120.

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And among the three, it becomes evident to them that the king plans to make Daniel the one, and each of them want to be the one.

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There's always something more in life to covet, but one of the keys to happiness and contentment in the

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Christian life is to focus on being found faithful before God and trusting

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Him with your station in life. And then we go back to Daniel 6. Which comes first, looking at the verse in Daniel?

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I know it literally comes first. Misguided passions or covetousness?

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Do misguided passions lead to covetousness, or does covetousness lead to misguided passions?

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For us, for the Christian. How would you distinguish between the two? Because I think of a passion as just a burning.

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It's a desire for something. There has to be an object. So you're coveting the object. What do you want?

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It could be sex, it could be money, it could be this cruise. You're coveting a thing, and the passion is what's stirred up in you.

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It's the emotional drive for that thing. If our passion is for God and for His Word and for faithfulness, then covetousness does not result.

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Right. So a disordered desire comes from the flesh, but it fixates on a thing.

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In what way is it not? You're back to Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.

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Yeah, and I think that is an appropriate verse there. The contrast there is trusting and leaning not on your own understanding.

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Yeah, you're acknowledging... That's where the misguided, the difference in that, because you said we all have wants and needs, but the misguiding comes from not leaning on the

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Lord and trusting Him. I think coveting to me is not a good thing.

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No, it's not. It's not something worldly or... I mean, you can have a passion for Christ, but there's no covetousness in there.

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No, that's pure. The love of the Lord is pure. So coveting is the 10th commandment.

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It's the one that slew Paul. In Romans 7, he thought he was great as a

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Pharisee, and then that commandment cut him, and he realized he was a sinner, because although he could obey the outward form, that 10th one was at the heart.

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It's only a desire. It's only your jealousies of others or what you want that you don't have, and that's what crushed him, and then he turns to Christ in faith.

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All right, so back to Daniel. You will have in this world covetous men clamoring for power, and what will they do?

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Here in verse 4, they will search for reasons to accuse the godly.

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There was nothing there, and they're searching for something to find in Daniel. Yeah. The amazing thing is that the king recognizes that in Daniel.

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Yeah, he sees the excellence. Yeah. Ironically, I think the king recognizes, you know what?

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These 119, they all just want this job because they want the power, but there's something different about Daniel.

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There's an excellent spirit. I think he trusts him because he's seen how faithful Daniel has been, and then he doesn't really seem to be after the paycheck or the power.

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Powerful testimony that the only way that he could get to him was finding the law of his God. Yes, and that's the next point.

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Okay, so verse 5. Obedience to the law of God will set us at variance with the world.

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Can you think of any occasions where the law of God sets us at variance with the culture in which we live?

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John McCarthy was told by Governor Newsom to shut the church down, and John was the member of it that way.

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Yeah, because the word of God says in Hebrews 10, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.

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Yeah, where else? You laugh, but there's a thousand examples. We've got the trans stuff. We've got the pride.

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Yeah, well, that's the same thing, I guess. The T is part of the LGBT. We've got all the rules they're making now against Christians, like certain things, you know.

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Like in Canada, you can't tell somebody that you're a sinner if you're gay because then they'll put you in jail for converting or something.

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Yeah, that's right. They do have those laws. No, they have this new law that says you're not allowed to convert people.

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And I get it to a point because they have those weird places where they electrocute people and stuff like that, and I get the idea, but they're including everything, including a person's ability to obtain information and make their own decisions.

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If you use the wrong pronoun in the United States, then you're going to get the same thing. We've been arrested for using the wrong pronoun.

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It's going down the hell in a handbasket. Well, it says here in verse 5, Then these men said,

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We shall not find any ground for a complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of God.

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His God. Of His God. Yes. Yeah. So they know that's where they need to look.

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So they open up the book, I guess. Or they ask around, What are the Ten Commandments?

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And they turn to Exodus chapter 20, or they ask a Jew, and they find out what it is they are commanded to do and look for a way to entrap

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Him. And they are bidding by that that His God is different from their false gods. Yes.

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They are driven by their false gods. Yes, they are. Okay, who's my next reader?

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Verses 6 to 9. Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him,

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O King Darius, live forever. All the high officials of the kingdom, the priests and the satraps, the counselors and the governors, are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and force an injunction that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days except to you,

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O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the

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Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked. Therefore, King Darius signed the document and injunction.

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All the high officials of the kingdom. Is that true or false? Because of the 120,

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Daniel was never part of that. In fact, he's not just one of the 120. He's one of the three. In fact, he is about to be the one over them all.

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Might not want to mention him, but they conveniently leave him out and misrepresent saying all the...

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No, this is those particular ones that are trying to attract Daniel. And they find...

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They're very clever, aren't they? They find a law that if the king would write this injunction according to the law of the

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Medes and Persians, you can't undo it. It's been... It's the rule of law versus the rule of a dictator.

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So in a sense, there's something good about that policy so that it's not an arbitrary ruler's decision, but there would be rule of law in the kingdom.

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Trouble is, you can have laws that are themselves unjust. And this, of course, would be one of them.

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Now, I just wonder, is it also true in our day that naive leaders are often duped by underlings clamoring to rise?

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I wonder if there's ever been a president that was actually being controlled by underlings who have their own agenda.

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Yeah. I wonder if Valerie Jarrett and Barack Obama are actually pulling the strings of a senile puppet.

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Maybe. No. Couldn't be. Yeah. But notice how naive this king is.

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He does not see... He walks right into this. He wants nothing to do with this. This is his pride.

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Yeah. He likes the idea because they tickle his pride while they propose this idea, and he goes along with it.

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Now, interestingly, verses 10 to 13, this is different than the temptation that came on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

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They were told, bow down to this idol or else we're throwing you in the fiery furnace.

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They would have to overtly break the Ten Commandments, the second one, not to bow to any idol.

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Right? But this is different. Daniel could have gone into his room, as he always did, and closed the shutters.

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Yeah. But that, too, would have dishonored God. Let's read 10 to 13.

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This was a subterfuge. Yes. But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home, knelt down, as usual, in his upstairs room, with its windows open, poured through his room.

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He prayed three times a day, just as he always had done, giving thanks to his

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God. The officials went together to Daniel's house, found him praying and asking for God's help.

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So they went back to the king and reminded him about his law. Did you not sign a law that for the next 30 days, anyone who prays to anyone, divine or human, except to your majesty, will be thrown to the lions?

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Yes, the king replied. That decision stands. It is a law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.

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This is interesting. Windows open toward Jerusalem.

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And it says, as he had always done. That's interesting. What happens when a governor tells a church you are not to meet for fear of a virus?

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You'd be John whatever his name is and have church anyway. Well, what if they say you can have 25 % occupancy in your building?

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A church could say, all right, we'll divide by four. Now instead of two services, we'll have eight services on Sunday.

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There would have been a way to possibly comply with that. But you know what that would say to the governor?

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It would say you are justified in dictating to the church of the living

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God how you are to worship. What if they said, which they did, you must put a mask on your face.

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Is it possible to worship through a mask? Yeah, it's possible.

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But what does that say? That you can veil our faces. It grants the authority to do this.

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There is a time, and I'm not saying it's every time, but there is a time to say with the apostles in Acts 5 .29,

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it is right to obey God, not men. It's obviously clear when they say you cannot preach any longer in this name, but we're still going to evangelize, say the apostles.

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And I think here, Daniel, he could have prayed in private, but he didn't.

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Do you see? He did not grant that authority. What's that? He also wasn't being shady.

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No, there's nothing shady. He's doing what he always does. If he had gone into his room and shut his shutters and done all that stuff, it would have made it look like he was trying to hide.

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Right. Yeah, that's the point. He was going to be a bold witness for his God, as he always had been.

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He's not going to let them dictate that behavior because here, fundamentally, what's happening is this power -hungry government, in the case of Assyria, is not recognizing that there's a

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God over them. And they are taking from the individual freedoms of a person made in the image of God who's free to worship because you're made in the image of God.

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As you see fit, you have that inalienable right. Even before... You see, the Constitution of the

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United States did not confer rights on an individual. They were inalienable, meant that these come from God.

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There are certain things that you cannot do. You cannot murder, not just because we make laws against abortion, but because when a woman becomes pregnant and a baby is in the womb, she does not have two heads and four lungs and two hearts and four hands and four feet.

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There is a human made in the image of God within the womb, and that baby has rights as an individual made in the image of God.

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And for anyone, including the mother or a doctor or a father or anyone, if someone kicks that woman in the stomach and the baby dies, do you know that this person gets charged with murder?

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Yes. And they still do it, yeah. And now it's legal for them to go and murder their child.

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But see, whether the law recognizes that or not, there's a higher law and that is the law of God. So in verses 14 and 15,

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Daniel 6, 14 and 15. When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed. He was determined to rescue

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Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him. Then the men went as a group to the king and said to him,

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Remember, O king, that according to the law of the Medes and Persians, no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed.

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So now the issue is it's a law. He's established it as a law that cannot be undone because that's part of their code and he has to follow through with it.

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Well, of course, as we just mentioned, there are laws in our country that are unjust. Laws themselves can be unjust.

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That's the case here in verses 14 and 15. Do you think the king wants to do this? No. Was this in his heart to do?

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Yeah. I didn't realize he made a mistake. Yeah, he's great. The word says he is distressed, much distress, and he's trying to think of everything.

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He's looking for every out, every way to free Daniel, but he's bound by the law of the

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Medes and Persians. Yeah, my translation says when the king heard these words, he was sore displeased with himself.

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Yeah, sore displeased. He set his heart on Daniel. Yeah, he loved him. That's why he wanted him to be top of the kingdom.

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He valued this man. He saw an excellent spirit and he was a friend, I'm sure.

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John, would you read? Did you read the part? Yes. And you did a great job. I'm sure.

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It was so good. I wasn't even distracted. 1618.

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Who does the king hope will save Daniel? His God. His God. Yahweh.

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Isn't that amazing? Now you have the king of the Medes, Darius the Mede, hoping in Yahweh for the deliverance of Daniel.

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That's a testimony. Here's what it tells me. When you live the Christian life with excellence, people notice and you begin to point them to your

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God and they see the outcome of your lives. In Hebrews 13, 7 and 17, you are to look to your leaders in the church and consider the outcome of their lives because that should evidence or witness to the power of their

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God. And this is not only true for the leaders, Hebrews 13, 7 and 17, but every

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Christian is like Daniel. You should live your life with such excellence and with the favor of God's hand on you that the world looks and there is a certain kind of, what do they have?

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What's different about them? What makes them like they are? Where does their joy come from?

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Why do they love so well? And this points to your God. This is what's happened with Daniel.

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All of a sudden, now you have the king fasting, refusing entertainment, and hoping that Yahweh will save Daniel.

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It's a beautiful thing. It is the power of the devoted Christian, the power to influence, not even by words in this case, but by your life.

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I don't think Daniel, when he was being thrown into that den, was panicking, even though natural human instinct would be to panic when you're thrown into a den.

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I sense Daniel is resigned, kind of like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

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If my Lord doesn't save me, that's okay. But either way, we're trusting in Him.

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He's all in at this point. Once he made that decision to open the windows, that's when he had made the decision.

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Because everything else was just dominoes after that, and he knew it. As soon as he prayed in public view, he knew where he was going, and he had determined to live as Christ to die as gain, prophetically speaking.

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He was crediting to him his righteousness. It was faithfulness. He had left the window open and prayed regardless of what the

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Lord was going to bring. Amen. And Janet, could you read for us then 19 -23?

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And the king arose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried out with a lamenting voice to Daniel.

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

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Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before him.

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And also, O king, I have done no wrong before you. Now the king was exceedingly glad for him and commanded that they should take

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Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no injury whatsoever was found on him because he believed in his

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God. Wow. So you hear the king's anguish in his voice.

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He, all night, I'm sure he didn't sleep a wink. He is in anguish.

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He's yelling, Daniel, wanting to hear his voice and there's just that pause, that little moment of silence before Daniel answers.

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And then you hear, I'm good. All's well.

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And then he gives the glory to God. Yeah. He says, Daniel, servant of the living

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God. Yes, he does. Yes, the living God. Yeah. That's a great point.

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But we thought Daniel was like, I'm just sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't want to wake up the lion's knee.

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He's like, that's good. That's a good one. He was probably petting him all night.

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Just like, he's like sad to say goodbye at this point. No, I'm sure he wants out of there. But so he comes out and the king noticed the second time.

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Now, the king was exceedingly glad from anguish to joy.

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He is now seeing this living God has come through and it is.

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This rocks his world. The other guys, they've got a problem. Well, let's look at that.

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Then move us on to verse 24. There are many who have been martyred.

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However, yes, I mean, not all get rescued as Daniel. Yeah. Wow. Great point.

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So in the book of Acts, I think it's chapter 12. They throw James in prison and Peter in prison and they right away take

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James and kill him and the church is praying for Peter and he gets delivered from prison.

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One dead, the other lives. The same God saved them both.

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One saved from eternal damnation and the struggles and trials of this life.

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His race is over and he's in glory. No, no stinging death. But in both cases,

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James and Peter were saved by the living God one through death and the other escaping death.

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Isn't that amazing? Yeah. But it's a great point. Yeah, Martin Luther.

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When Martin Luther made his stand, he was convinced he was going to die and that by being burned at the stake.

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He and his friends knew that it was like not even a question. At first, when he was only fighting indulgences, they thought they might kind of get away with it.

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But when he turned it and directed his argument against the Pope himself and called him the Antichrist, he knew he was dead.

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It was only because by the grace of God, the elector, Frederick, snatched him up and took him to a safe house and kept him in a castle to translate.

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But from his perspective, he was willing to go die. Daniel was willing to die. God is able to rescue out of the lion's den from wicked men.

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But what happens then ultimately to the wicked? You read for us, right Daniel? Yes. Okay.

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Which means it's Rick's turn. Verse 24. And the king commanded that those men who had maliciously accused

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Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions. They, their children, and their wives.

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And before they reached the bottom of the den, the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.

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So much could be said there. Hosea warns, for they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind.

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This, this is sowing and reaping. It's like Haman. He built a noose to hang

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Mordecai and ended up himself hung on the same noose he built for another.

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Ultimately, there will be wicked people in this world. But what will the end of them be?

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Unless they repent. And sadly, you see also that there is there is an effect on families.

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How many godless mothers and fathers raise children or not raise them?

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And the children repeat the same pattern of the parents and suffer the consequences of the parents.

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How many kids are suffering because the parents weren't there to love them and raise them?

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This is a sad reality of the world. But we as Christians should be compassionate on sinners.

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And we should try to care for those who have been orphaned by wicked parents. But ultimately, we trust

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God's judgment in all of these things. And here, God judged not just the parents, but even the children were thrown to the lions.

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Consider both the kindness and the severity of God. We do not understand.

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And we don't, by the way, we don't execute wrath and judgment the way God does. Are we ever called to execute that?

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Or should we trust wrath to the living God? It's not our part to do as God does.

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But we trust God's sovereignty in judging, right? And here you see the wicked clamoring for power, but ultimately destroyed in the pursuit.

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And that pretty much is the case. Follow every Hollywood actor that doesn't know the Lord. And yes, they get glory, but don't they tend to end in tragedy?

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Yeah. And the powerful rulers of the world, it all comes to nothing. Solomon, fortunately, learned that before he died, because he got caught up in that pursuit and then ultimately wrote

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Ecclesiastes to say, actually, you should eat, drink, and be merry and trust in God and then enjoy your work.

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Because if you try to build it and create this kingdom for yourself, it's empty. It's chasing after win.

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It's vanity. And it seems that Solomon repented before it was too late.

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Verses 25 to 28, and then we'll be wrapping up. So, Lisa. And his dominion shall be everlasting.

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He rescueth and delivereth. We have the old one. And he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.

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Who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions? So, this Daniel prospered in the region of Darius and the reign of Cyrus of Persia.

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After Nebuchadnezzar had been reduced to the state of an animal, he was restored after those seven years, given back his mind.

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And here are his words. Praise and he says, my reason returned to me and I blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever for his dominion is an everlasting dominion.

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His kingdom endures from generation to generation. And he goes on to say that none can stay his hand.

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God does whatever he wants in heaven and on earth. Well, now look at this king. Darius, at the end of of this chapter, this encounter,

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Daniel on the lion's den, what is the conclusion of the matter? It's the same thing that Nebuchadnezzar saw.

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It's the point of the book. The sovereign rule of God over the nations and over all things.

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He is the living God, verse 26, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed.

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And his dominion shall be to the end. Whether or not a

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Christian, a nation identifies as Christian, there's, I think, one nation now that's identifying as Christian.

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That's Hungary. Interesting situation there. You can kind of follow and who knows to what extent that's good or bad based on Victor Orban and there's questions around that.

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Some others identify as Christian still like Finland. Yet, the state church celebrates pride and one of the parliament members, remember we talked about this,

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Razanon, when she spoke up against pride just on Instagram, she was thrown in jail and she's been put on trial for speaking about what the

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Bible says and all she did was quote Romans 1 on an Instagram post. So a quote unquote

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Christian nation is not so Christian. They're persecuting a Christian for quoting a scripture.

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That was Finland. But listen, whether it's overtly

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Christian or not, no matter how wicked the ruler is, and I think this was a wicked ruler, that's why he's making these kind of decrees that people must pray to him only.

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Right? Here at the end, he's humbled and he acknowledges God and he makes a decree which affirms the point of this book.

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There is a God over the nations of the earth and he does whatever he wants in the heavens and on the earth.

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So as much as these wicked rulers in our day over America or even over the world, the

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United Nations that we talked about earlier and their designs and their schemes, nothing will come of it apart from the will of the

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Lord. There is nothing to fear because there's truly a king that's over nations and his kingdom will one day come to earth at the second coming of Christ.

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Christ himself will rule as king and we will be his vice -regents on earth.

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Amazing. Those who choose to embrace that need to look at what happened to the other leaders underneath and whose bones were crushed and their children and wives.

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It will not go well for those who clamor for power and oppress people in their pursuit of it.

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So in closing, remember Ephesians 1, 21, that Jesus is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age, but hold on there.

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If it says not only in this age, what does that imply? Well, not only in this age means that this age is included in his reign.

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Not only in this age, so he's reigning now. All authority and heaven on earth has been given unto me.

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Therefore, go baptize the nations. Our job is to preach the gospel, but he's already ruling in the heavens.

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He's already crushed Satan. He is the king of kings, the lord of lords. At the end of 1

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Timothy 6, we see he's the immortal God. King of kings, lord of lords.

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He dwells in unapproachable light. We don't see him now, but he is king of kings.

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And when he comes back and sets his foot on the Mount of Olives, on his thigh is written his title.

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King of kings and lord of lords. So be aware of these kind of power plays that are going on in the world, but stand fast and do not fear.

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Could I ask, Rick, would you close us in a word of prayer? Father, we thank you for your word and our opportunity to look into it a little bit more carefully and deeply.

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We thank you that you are on your throne and you will stay there. Yes. And we are greatly blessed by that idea that you are king forever.