Daniel's Stand

And I'm thankful I'm in the palm of his hand, aren't you?

If you wouldn't your Bible tonight turn to Daniel, Chapter one.

Daniel, Chapter one.

And we have we started the book of Daniel the end of last year,

and we've done two introductory messages on prophecy.

And so but now we'll delve into the book itself.

And so the first chapter, there'll be two messages at least

on the first chapter.

But then we we won't go verse by verse from here going forward

for the most part.

And so look to be about 13 or 14 messages on the book of Daniel

throughout this year on Sunday nights.

And so what a hero of the faith Daniel was, and what a great

example he was.

And then we'll delve into chapter two and many other the prophecies,

and we'll define some terms and help you with some terms like

what is the term, you know, times of the Gentiles or what's the

term, the fullness of the Gentiles and the impact that these

prophecies have on us and where we're at in these prophecies.

And it's going to be a good time.

So we kind of get a mixture, especially tonight, of preaching

on character and doing the right thing, but then also preaching

on prophecy.

And again, just it'll be I'm looking forward to preaching through

the Book of Daniel.

So Daniel chapter one.

Look with me in verse one.

We'll be in verse one through seven tonight.

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem, and besieged

it.

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah into his hand with

part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into

the land of Shinar to the house of his God.

And he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his God.

And the king spake unto Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs,

that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of

the king's seed, and of the princes, children in whom was no

blemish, but well favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and cunning

in knowledge and understanding, science, and such

as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, in whom

they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans,

verse 5.

And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat

and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years,

that at the end thereof they might stand before the king now among

these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael

and Azariah, unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names.

For he gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar, and unto Hananiah,

of Shadrach, and unto Mishael, Meshach, and unto Azariah, Abednego,

Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, again we thank you for your word.

I pray tonight that as we look at the life of Daniel here in the

beginning, God, that you would again encourage us.

And Lord, we would see again just the strength and what Daniel

faced and the similarities, Lord, between what these four Hebrew

faced, what we face today.

And we thank you and love you in Jesus name, Amen.

We won't do a complete Old Testament history, which I like to

do a lot.

We won't do that tonight.

But I do want to go back and look at.

We won't turn there.

But Romans 15, verse 4 says, for whatsoever things were written

Romans 15:4

aforetime or written for our learning, that we through patience

and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

And then first Corinthians 10:11 says that these things were

1 Corinthians 10:11

written that were for our example, for an example unto us.

In other words, the Old Testament historical stories.

What was recorded in the Old Testament was written down for our

learning, was written down for our example.

That by seeing the lives of the Old Testament saints, their patience

and reliance on God, that we might have hope to see again what

they went through and how they overcame and even their failures,

that we might have hope.

And again, through this example, I also remind you that the

Old Testament was written primarily for New Testament saints.

How do we know this?

Well, think about it again.

Abraham had six or seven books of the Old Testament.

Only six or seven.

David.

King David.

We think about King David.

We think, oh man, well, he only had 12 or 15 books of the Old

Testament.

And we could go on and on and on.

In other words, these men, these great Jewish men, only had

part of the Bible.

Only had part of it, whereas we have it all.

The Old Testament was primarily written for us.

For New Testament saints, the Old Testament is the foundation of

the New Testament.

Again, remind you that your New Testament writers wrote in light

of that you already know your Old Testament.

So as the New Testament writers are writing, they're writing

in such a way that they are writing that you already have read

the Old Testament and you know it.

So what does that mean?

That means if you don't know the Old Testament, your Understanding

of the New Testament will be incomplete.

That's just a fact.

And so we do live in a day and age, and this has been going on for

years and years where some preachers and some of those believe.

Well, we're just New Testament saints.

We just believe the New Testament.

We just read the New Testament.

No, no, no, no, no.

Again, the Old Testament is the foundation of the New Testament.

In order to have a proper understanding of the New Testament,

you must understand and read the Old Testament.

That's why after, when a person gets saved, I encourage them,

yeah, go read the Book of John.

I think that's a great book to read, right?

When you get saved, read through the Book of John, you get

to see the life of Christ and read about the life of Christ.

But after that, go back to Genesis chapter one and read your

Bible through as it was intended to be.

Read from Genesis to Revelation.

And you may veer off from that from time to time.

But I would tell you as a New Christian, you shouldn't veer off

of that for several years.

For several years.

You should go to Genesis 1 and read to the end of Book of Revelation.

Go to Genesis 1 and read to the end of Book of Revelation as

you grow in the Lord.

And if you want to do some of the other readings, such as reading

a proverb a day or skipping around and reading the New Testament

or reading maybe the Gospels four or five times in a row, you

can do all those things too.

But again, after you get a proper understanding, or at least

a good understanding, the Old Testament, amen.

That's Bible, that's biblical.

That's the way it was intended to be read.

So encourage you in that way.

The Old Testament is a historical gallery, and I've used

this illustration with you before.

But if I was to drive or take you to Bowie, Texas, where I was

raised 60 miles north of here, I could take you to places that would

have significance to me.

I could take it to the house that I was raised in.

I could take it to the church that I was saved and baptized in.

I could take it to the kindergarten, and I could take it.

My dad and I were just having a discussion the other day or yesterday,

whenever it was about my second grade, second grade teacher.

Her name is Ms.

Hankins.

She was also the principal.

And in that day, the second grade was housed all to itself in

what was called.

It was a building called the North Ward.

And it was one of the old red, you know, school buildings.

Of course, they don't use it anymore, but it was One of the old

school buildings.

And so.

And I was a hyperactive kid.

And Ms.

Hankins, she had to whoop me about every other day.

I don't remember.

I feel for her now.

It's like looking back.

But I could take you to the place where, you know, I bounced.

I can remember in the second grade bouncing my friend on the seesaw.

You know, you're see sawing like that, and then you bounce him

and try to bounce him off.

I got caught doing that by Ms.

Hankinson.

She whooped me for it.

I was constantly getting a whipping.

But anyway, back when you could spank in public school.

And I deserved every one of them that I got.

I'm so thankful for some good teachers.

My dad says amen.

Yeah, but I could take you many places and talk about what happened.

And I could take you to places where in my own life and even again

with my wife, and had great victories and also failures.

And you could go through all those things again.

A gallery of events in my life.

We do the same thing in the Old Testament.

We walk down through the Old Testament.

We look at Abraham, we look at Isaac.

We don't only look, you know, again, God kept his word and God

preserved his word.

He didn't just save the good, he also preserved the bad.

And we can look at Abraham's life, the good and the bad.

We can look at Isaac's life, the good and the bad.

And they're there for our example and for our learning.

We learn from them.

And so that's what we do here in the Book of Daniel.

We're learning biblical truth illustrated for us by way of example.

It's one thing to know the truth, another one to see it lived

out.

And so we know the truth.

But now we see it lived out by Daniel himself.

We see it lived out by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

We see these wonderful biblical truths lived out.

Look at verse one and two again.

Again.

This is the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah,

Came Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, unto Jerusalem and besieged

it.

This was in 606 BC.

This is the first deportation.

There was three deportations.

Nebuchadnezzar came in and carried them away.

And then the final, the final siege.

He destroyed the temple and destroyed the city, basically.

Didn't leave a rock on top of each other.

I mean, he just wiped it out.

King Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians, verse 1 and 2.

Look at verse 2.

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim King of Judah, into his hand with

part of the vessels.

I want you to notice the phrase.

The Lord gave Jehoiakim, King of Judah, into what?

His hand?

Whose hand?

Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar.

The theme of the book of Daniel is God rules in the affairs

of men.

Understand that Judah would not have fallen unless the Lord had

allowed it to happen.

The Bible makes it very clear that it's God who sets kings on thrones

and who takes them down.

And that God truly does rule in the affairs of men.

We can trust him no matter what comes to America understanding

that God rules in the affairs of men.

He determines who's president, who's not.

I mean, he has the final say.

And we see this here in this, that the Lord gave Jehoiakim into

Nebuchadnezzar's hand.

Into Nebuchadnezzar's hand.

So we understand the two kingdoms.

And again, that's why I'm not going to go back and do a history

review.

I might do that at a later date.

Again, just.

I love to review history with you, Biblical history because it

helps you get the Bible within a framework.

But understand again, after King Solomon, the kingdom split into

two kingdoms.

So King Saul was the first king of Israel, then King David,

then King Solomon.

Each one of those reigned 40 years after Solomon reigned and he

died.

The kingdom split into the northern kingdom and southern kingdom.

The northern kingdom was carried into captivity by the Assyrians

in 722 BC about 150 years later.

125 years later, the southern kingdom, that's what we're reading

right here.

The southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, is carried into

captivity again, defeated.

Jerusalem is besieged.

They are defeated and they're carried into captivity by the Babylonians

in 606 BC they don't carry away everybody.

They carry away, as we see here, as we just read, they carry

away the best.

The best.

They carry away the princess and those who are of learning and

those who.

So forth and so on.

Then they come back in 597 BC and carry away some more.

And then in 586 B.C.

nebuchadnezzar comes back and just obliterates Jerusalem, destroys

it and they're done.

And carries away all but the very poor Babylon.

So that's where we are in this story.

Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah are

carried into captivity.

Again, the choice of those or the choice individuals were carried

away first.

Why did God allow Israel?

Why did God allow Judah to be taken captive.

The Bible points that out.

And we're not going to turn there either because of lack of time.

But 2 Chronicles 36, 13, 17, the Bible says they were warned and

warned and warned about their idolatry.

When the northern kingdom was carried off into captivity in 722,

the southern kingdom laughed.

And basically they said, in fact, you can go read about it.

They said, God will never do that to us.

We have Jerusalem, we have the temple.

God would never allow the temple to be destroyed.

They believed that.

And God kept warning them through his prophets.

If you don't turn, if you don't turn away from your idolatry,

if you don't turn from your sin.

And then finally Isaiah the prophet prophesied they would be

carried into captivity.

And then you go on and on, they were carried into captivity.

God judged his people.

Why?

Because of their sin, because of their idolatry, because of their

mocking God's prophets, killing God's prophets.

Understand that God loved Israel.

He warned them, gave them opportunity to turn.

He does the same for us.

Be not deceived.

Galatians, chapter 6.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

God is not mocked.

For whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Understand that God judges sin.

And again, that's not preached in a lot of the modern churches today.

They like to skip over.

And again, you have many pastors who say, well, I'll never

preach on sin.

Never talk about sin.

Well, it's in the Bible.

And we see the example in the Old Testament of those who were warned

about their sin and the judgment that was to come upon them.

And we see that for the most part, they did not turn and they

were judged.

Let me read it again.

You can go read it yourself later.

Galatians 6.

Be not deceived.

Be not deceived.

God is not mocked.

For whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap.

You reap what you sow, you reap more than you sow.

And we as Christians need to remember that it's important to obey

his word, to not put things in front of God.

Again, the children of Israel were disobedient.

They were disobedient to his law, to his commands, to His Word,

and they were idolatrous.

Now, again, idolatry is putting anything in front of God.

Anything that we would do that would be more important than God

in our lives is idolatry.

We all, from time to time, allow that to happen in our lives.

We need to be careful.

So we have an example in the Old Testament of what happens when

you allow yourself to and you do not correct the disobedient heart.

When you allow yourself to put other things in front of God.

Seek those things which are above.

Amen.

Set your affections on things above.

We need to keep Christ in focus and keep him first.

Dad's, that's in your family.

Moms, it's in your family.

It's in your marriage.

We see this all the time.

Things that get interfere with the things of God.

I always come back to sports because it's just one of those things

that weighs heavy on me.

When our kids were little and some of you were in church, when

our kids were little, we had a hard and fast rule.

If they play on Sunday, we don't participate.

I mean, it's just the way it is.

Now let me clarify.

A Sunday afternoon rain out, we would try to make it.

But if it's a church time, if it's Sunday morning, Sunday night,

Wednesday night, our kids were in church because God was more important

than sports.

I know that's a, maybe a small illustration, but it's a big one.

Are you going to put God first?

And that could be said of many, many other things.

Many other things.

Put the Lord first.

Put the Lord forth.

God should reign in our hearts.

He should sit on the throne of our hearts.

We see again Daniel taken captive in verses three and four.

And the king spake unto Ashpenaz, the master of the eunuchs,

that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of

the king's seed and of the princes, children of whom was no

blemish.

And you see the list there we just read a moment ago.

What happens here is the king takes of the royal and the nobility,

he takes the princes, he takes the finest young people in the country.

And really what we do see here in the title of this, if you had

a title for it, would be when worldviews collide.

When worldviews collide.

And that's what's going to happen here.

These young men are carried into captivity.

The nobility are carried into captivity, and they're about to face

some big.

Some big stuff.

Their worldview is about to be rocked by an opposing worldview.

Boy, there's no similarities in our world today, is there?

Man, let's just go home.

Of course this is, I mean, if you could take a paper and just put

it over here, modern paper and put it over here and say, man, it

matches up perfectly.

Daniel and his friends faced a worldview that was contrary to the

worldview that their parents had taught them.

That The Bible had taught them and so many things.

And we're seeing the same thing, and we have been for several,

several years, this worldview colliding.

I've had many people ask me, preacher, why is there such a chasm

today between conservative and liberals?

I'll just go ahead and say it.

Between Democrats and Republicans.

Why is there.

Used to.

There wasn't such a.

There was a better relationship between the two.

Why is that the case 40 years ago, but not the case today?

Well, if you go back 40 or 50 years ago, the disagreements we had

that conservatives had with again on that side was more preferences.

It was, how do you want the economy to be run?

Or how do you want this to be run or that be run?

And it was, you know, some social services and those type of

things.

But it was.

But it was never about.

If you were.

I'm just saying here, it was never really about morality.

It was never.

It was never really.

There was never really a contradiction or a.

The party was never really opposed to biblical morality.

And what's happened is once they made that step of becoming opposed

to biblical morality, then it became a moral issue for us.

It became a crucial biblical issue for us.

Make sense?

Let me clarify.

Jesus loved everybody.

Amen.

And you can contend without being contentious, you can disagree

without being disagreeable.

And let me tell you, there's a lot on both sides who need to learn

how to be kind to each other.

Amen.

It's terrible the way people are so mean to each other.

We could be kind, but there is a divide, and the divide is bigger

because of the biblical implications when it comes to Bible

standards, Bible beliefs, foundational Bible beliefs, not just

like little stuff, but big stuff.

And so that's why I believe there's such a chasm.

Daniel faced somewhat the similar circumstance when he was

enrolled into Babylon University.

He was enrolled into a university that was totally teaching

him totally different doctrines and teachings than what

he was raised with.

Opposed to Jehovah, opposed to his law and his teachings.

And Daniel and his friends stood in the face, stood for right,

and stood for the Bible.

They took the king's seed.

Daniel would have been 16 to 18 years of age.

And so would have his other friends again around that same age

group.

These were promising young people.

It was a small remnant.

I'm thankful for the small remnant.

I'm thankful the Bible refers to the small remnant, that there'll

be a small remnant when the Lord returns.

I'm thankful for that.

I want to remind our young people the devil is a roaring lion.

Seeking who may devour.

Let me remind all of us, the devil is a roaring lion seeking whom

they devour.

He wants to corrupt you.

He wants to corrupt you.

You notice in verse four, it gives their ability.

It says they were well favored and skillful in all wisdom and cunning

and knowledge and understanding in science, and such

as had ability of them to stand in the king's palace and whom

they might teach the learning of the tongues of the Chaldeans.

We see their ability again to be able to appear in public.

They had no blemishes.

In other words, this wasn't just about their mental state or

their ability and their intellect.

But also they were physically good looking young men, pleasing

in appearance, healthy and handsome, young, smart, athletic,

whatever you'd like to say.

That's the implications here.

What the.

Even in the Hebrews, what it's saying, they were smart, they were

wise and they had understanding.

They were quick to learn, poised.

It says there, the ability to stand in the king's palace.

In other words, they were cultured and now would be selected

for special training.

What happened?

Well, they were immersed.

Verses 4 through 7, they were immersed in the culture of the Chaldeans.

Again, it says they may appoint them.

Verse 5, a daily provision of the king's meat and the wine which

he drank, so nourishing them three years that the end of they

might stand before the king.

And they were also given different names.

They were immersed in the culture.

They were given new food and new names.

Today we see the same thing happening when worldviews collide,

not just for our young people, but for us as well.

We must remember that the Bible says in Romans 12, I beseech

you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present

your body, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which

is reasonable service.

And what Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by

the renewing of your mind.

John Phillips said it this way.

He said, you'll either be transformed or you will be conformed.

Conformed.

And we are inundated with counterculture.

We're inundated with culture that is against biblical standards

and biblical teachings.

We're immersed in it.

Immersed in it.

And that was the intention of the king as he brought these Hebrew

children from Jerusalem and brought them to Babylon.

He was going.

They entered into an indoctrination program.

Three years of it.

Three years of it.

I've seen this a lot, especially when it comes to young

people going into college and entering college.

And mom and dad come to me a year or two later.

And say, you know, my son's become an atheist.

I said, what?

Your son's become an atheist?

Yeah, my son's an atheist.

What did I do again?

Get into the college and get into that counterculture, get into

that culture that's contrary to the word of God and get immersed

in it and all of a sudden find yourself believing differently.

We have to be careful.

Young people, be careful.

We have some seniors.

I've been praying for you guys, by the way, as you make decisions.

Greg, and many others, be careful.

I don't think it's wrong at all for a young person to go to a

secular college.

But when you go there, know what you're getting into, especially

Texas A and M.

That's just terrible.

But know what you're getting into.

Know that you're going to have professors who are going to teach

contrary to the word of God.

You got to be a Daniel.

You got to stand up.

There's some of our church families.

We have church family here that go to public school, private

school, home school.

Understand, just because you put your kids in a Christian school

doesn't mean it's not going to be exposed to things they shouldn't

be.

Even at Heritage Christian Academy, you got to stand these young

people.

You got to stand mom and dad, of course, it's our job to protect

them.

I believe that.

With that I've heard some parents, I don't think we should

protect our kids.

That's hogwash.

I protected my kids as long as I could put boundaries around them,

help them, protect them.

These three Hebrew children, exposed at such an early age as teenagers

to a new culture, taught a new language again, new learning a pagan

philosophy.

They were taught evolution.

These were truths they weren't raised with.

These were biblical truths they weren't raised with.

Babylonian truths they weren't raised with.

It was Bible.

God's authority versus Babylon.

And I would say today it's Bible versus society.

Can I remind you tonight that the Bible is the absolute authority

for all manner of faith and practice.

We just went over that Wednesday night.

Why?

Well, do you want a man to determine the standards, or do you

want God to determine standards?

That's really what it comes down to when it comes to relativism.

Again, as I said Wednesday night, we have this culture of relativism

that everything's okay.

And you may think this is wrong, but that's what you think.

And I don't think that's wrong until somebody steals your tv.

I love it when the person who's all about relativism Just until

something happens to them.

Who's the standard?

You know, the man behind the bench with the gavel.

Is he the standard?

Our founding fathers believed differently.

Our founding fathers understood that the man behind the

desk, the hand behind the pulpit, the man behind with the little

robe on and the little gavel was not to be the standard.

That's why they based America and our system upon Judeo Christian

ethics.

And that there was a greater standard than man and that God is

the standard.

We all are facing lies every day.

We need to count.

We need to count on the Lord.

Trust him.

And then number two, the new food again.

Three year scholarship, room and board included.

How would you like that?

The very best that Babylon had to offer.

Well, also a lot of it went contrary to the Mosaic law about

what a Jew could eat or not eat or what a Jew could drink or

not drink.

And these young men were taught the biblical standard.

And we'll find out in the story.

Most of you know the story that the they asked, could we not

have pulse to eat.

Basically we want to eat vegetarian style because they didn't

want to eat, contrary to the biblical standard.

Why?

Well, because the meat of the king of Babylon was offered to gods,

was offered to idols and so forth and so on.

So much.

We'll cover later.

But understand that the devil wants to change our appetites.

When I was a kid, I hated milk.

When I was a little kid, I hated milk.

My dad and mom made me drink milk because it was good for you.

Guess what I did?

I learned to like milk.

Changed my appetite.

We ought to be careful because the same thing can happen to us spiritually

as well as we are exposed to the world and music and television

and books and video games and social media and work and education.

All these things, many of them contrary to scripture.

We're not careful.

It'll change our appetite, our appetite for the things of God.

We are constantly pounded by the ungodly, immoral world in which

we live.

Amen.

Don't get quiet.

It's all good.

But I am thankful for a God who's bigger than our circumstances.

Right?

And I'm thankful for an example like Daniel and his three

friends who stood up and stood for Bible and stood for their God.

And we should do the same.

And we should be careful what we allow ourselves to get exposed

to.

Parents, be careful what you allow your kids to get exposed to,

what you allow them to be immersed in.

You ought to know everything your kid is involved in.

You ought to know everything that's on their phone by the way

mom and dad, you ought to know everything that's on your phone.

Be careful, little eyes what you see oh, be careful, little eyes

what you see for the Father up above is looking down and low oh,

be careful, little eyes what you see oh, be careful, little feet

where you go oh, be careful, little feet where you go we teach

that to our kids, don't we?

Well, of course it's applicable to kids, but it's also

applicable to us.

Be careful what we're allowing ourselves to be influenced by.

And then lastly, the new name.

Can I just say that there were absolutely more than just four Hebrew

children carried away, yet we're only hearing about four.

There would have been thousands carried away, and yet we're

only hearing about 4.

The remnant, if you would.

The Remnant.

In other words, you either cave or you stand.

You just got to make up your mind to stand.

My brother in high school, as I've told you, and we have new members,

though, that don't know this.

My Brother, high school, 5 foot 10, 5 foot 11, 120 pounds soaking

wet.

Big old nose like mine.

He looked like a dork of all dorks wore boots.

But I'm so thankful for an older brother.

He's four years older than me, so I followed him in high school,

right?

I followed all the teachers he had, and I had those same teachers.

I'm thankful for an older brother who was like Daniel, who

had a godly.

Godly testimony.

And they used to call him.

They did.

They called him Dippy Dan the holy man.

Again, he was a nerd.

Not a nerd's not the right word.

He wasn't a nerd.

He was just weird.

He's my older brother.

But what a testimony he had.

If you ask anybody from high school, ask him about my brother,

they'll say that just a godly testimony.

I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful that they made fun of him, calling Dippy Dan the

holy man.

We ought to stand today, young people.

Stand.

But that's certainly not.

That goes for all of us in the workplace.

They ought to know that you're a Christian.

They ought to know that there's something different about

you.

They ought to know it.

You don't act like they do.

You don't talk like they do.

You don't cuss like they do.

You don't go places.

You don't tell the stories that they tell.

You know, you don't sit around the water fountain and talk about,

you know, ungodly things.

You excuse yourself when somebody else Is doing it just different.

These four young men were different.

They changed their names in order that they might change again

their beliefs.

Was Daniel the word.

The name Daniel means God is my judge.

Hananiah.

The name means Jehovah is gracious.

Michelle.

The name means who is he?

That is God.

Azariah's name means the Lord is help.

The Lord is help.

The indication here is that these four young men had spiritual

parents or they wouldn't have named them those names.

And it's hard for us to understand the culture of the Jews

in that their names were given names that had meaning on purpose,

whereas we're given names that either have to do with our, you know,

former grandparents or dads.

And there's not really a lot of.

There's not any weight given to the meaning of our names.

But to the Jew, that was different.

To the Jew, their name and the meaning of their name was very important

to them.

These four men had godly, godly parents.

They had godly names that was given to them by good, godly parents.

For 16, 17, 18 years, these young men were raised in godly homes

with parents who taught them the scripture and prayed with them.

Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they're

old, they won't depart from it.

Parents can remind you, man, that young kid, your daughter, your

son, are so impressionable at an early age.

It really is the time between the birth and the time they're six

or seven or eight, really around six.

That 95% go look it up.

95% of their personality of who they're going to be is set.

Just that alone tells you how important it is those first few years.

Train up a child, these young men, and we also have the great example

of Moses, too.

Moses, who was only raised in his home for just a few years, and

yet he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

It's an amazing thought.

Train up a child in the way they should go.

I got to be done.

They were given new names, new names.

Names like Belteshazzar and names that had ungodly and awful

meanings.

Names that were contrary to their faith, but their names reminded

them of their faith.

May we be reminded as well.

Be careful about what you allow yourself to be immersed in.

Remember that Satan seeks to destroy you.

Watch your appetite.

Remember your faith.

Amen.

Let's all stand.