Sermon
When Life Is Hard
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Good morning, New News Church. Good morning. Happy New Year,
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first Sunday of the year. Glad that you are here with us.
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Today we begin a new series titled Shadrach, Meshach, and Bednagel.
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The inspiration for this series would be the camps that our church sponsors
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in the summertime for kids that are in the foster care.
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If you are unfamiliar with that, I will just tell you a little bit about that.
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In every summer, our church sponsors two camps for kids in foster care.
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One is called Rural Family Kids Camp, and that's for kids that are elementary age.
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And then the other one is called Teen Reach Adventures Camp,
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which is abbreviated TRAC, TRAC.
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And that is for middle school and high school age.
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And what both camps have in common is they're both designed for kids who have
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been neglected or abused or abandoned.
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So it's not a typical summer camp that you send your kids to.
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It's not as typical as a DBS program.
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It's specifically designed for kids in the foster care system I
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was the speaker at the middle school and high school
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age camp the boys version of
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it this past summer and so this week's
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sermon and next week's sermon are based on what I said at camp last summer and
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so I'm just letting you know that I want to give a disclaimer so that I don't
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plagiarize I have preached on these Bible stories at camp multiple times I think
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at least twice maybe it was three but I think we talked about Daniel,
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because you know it's kind of on rotation because it's different kids over the years.
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I preach on these Bible stories at least twice over the years.
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The camp gives us a curriculum to
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use and the curriculum is specifically designed for kids in foster care.
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However, it is not the kind of curriculum that I can just re-say to the kids.
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I cannot just open the booklet and just read it and the kids will be like,
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oh thank you sir, that is so helpful.
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So I have to do my own Bible study, I have to think of my own thoughts,
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and then I come up with something that is sort of a mix between their curriculum
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and my preaching so it
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has been long enough now I don't have the original curriculum that they sent
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on Daniel it would be very difficult to try to figure out which like of these
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next two weeks which sentences and which ideas are theirs and which ones are
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mine and so I'm not going to try to do that I'm just letting you know there's
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content in here that is by then content that is specifically designed for people
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who reviews neglected or revamped.
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Now, you may wonder, okay, well, that's cool, but Mario, why would you preach this to us?
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Like, if this is for kids in foster care, and we are mostly adults,
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not in foster care, why waste our time with this?
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That is a good question. I have four reasons.
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Reason number one, just because something was originally written for middle
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schoolers and high schoolers doesn't mean it's not good for an adult to hear. Did you know that?
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In fact I'm going to give you a little confession right now before I was the
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pastor here I was a youth pastor and when I was a youth pastor I was a youth
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pastor for 10 years before I came to this church and then when I showed up at
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this church I can tell you for sure what I did not do is I did not show up here
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after having to talk to teenagers every single week for a decade I did not show up here and go.
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I am an adult minister now I will never say anything that I've said before that
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is not what happened I had realized at that point I had said lots of important
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and helpful things to teenagers.
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So I came here and I repeated them to adults with no shame.
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And in some cases, didn't even tell you. You didn't even know you were hearing that. Ah!
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All right? So I'm sorry. That's the first reason I want to tell you.
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Second thing is the points in these sermons are good for the family of God to
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hear. They are filled with principles from the Bible.
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Even when I was preaching at camp, if I remember correctly, I think as I was
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preaching to the campers at camp, I remember thinking, I'm going to share this
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with the people of Good News.
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You know, eventually one day I will get around to it. And I've gotten around to it.
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Third reason I want to preach this to you is there are people here in this church,
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both adults and kids, who have been abandoned or neglected or abused.
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And maybe you've never been in the foster care system or maybe you've never
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gone to a summer camp like growing up in a kid's camp.
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But these sermons might be particularly good for you to hear.
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And then fourth, because our church is so involved in Rural Family Kids Camp
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and Tract, and I know not all of you are available to serve there, right?
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You know, big church, not every single person is available to go to camp and serve.
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But some of you support us, like, indirectly as we do camps.
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Some of you pray for us while we're out there. Some of you give money.
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And so because there are a lot of you here who support this camp indirectly,
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I like it every now and then for you to be able to hear the kinds of things
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that we say there so that you know what kind of youth ministry we are doing
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when you are around. Fair enough?
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All right, here we go. If you have your Bible, go to Daniel chapter 1.
Daniel 1 chapter mention
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That's where the story begins.
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Daniel chapter 1, we're going to begin with verse 1.
Daniel 1 chapter mention
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So, here's how our story begins. Daniel 1.1 says, In the third year of the reign
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of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
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came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it.
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So, the way that the story begins is we see that this story is about two kingdoms with two kings.
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One kingdom, the king over that kingdom's name is Jehoiakim.
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Jehoiakim is over the Israelites to Judah, and the capital city is Jerusalem.
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The other kingdom is headed up by Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar is the king over the Chaldeans, and he is in Babylon.
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And Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Chaldeans in Babylon, he is the one that
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attacks King Jehoiakim and the Israelites that are in Judah in the city of Jerusalem.
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And what he says in the verse particularly is that he came to Jerusalem and he laid siege to it.
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Do you know what laid siege means?
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I ask the kids that can't, what does it mean when one king laid siege to the other kingdom?
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And if I remember correctly, I think they said things like, it means he attacked
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it. It means he conquered it.
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And that is like true, but only partially true. This is a particular word that is something specific.
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There is a way that you could attack, like one country could attack another country.
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And the way they do it, they could just go in and attack the people they're
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going to attack and just go in and just kill them all. Okay?
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But that's not what the word for this is. Okay?
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Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it.
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What does that mean? To lay siege is to encircle a city with an army so that
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no one can get interactive.
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The purpose for this is it's very similar to what happens with police officers
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and bank robbers on TV, and I assume in real life, but I've only seen this on TV, not in real.
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But the people are robbing the bank, and then the police officers get there,
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and then what happens a lot of times?
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They surround the building, they block all the exits, and then some police officer
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gets on to a bullhorn, and they say, come out with your hands up, we have you surrounded.
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Them right why do they do that the reason they do that is the
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police officers are trying to conquer the bank robbers without killing them
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right that's what's happening here the purpose of laying siege to a city is
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so that you can conquer people while at the same time keeping them alive you
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got at least some of them so that's what happens happen here let's go on verse two,
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the lord handed jehoiakim king of judah over to him the him being nebuchadnezzar
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so notice god God is sovereign over this.
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He hands Jehoiakim over. He decides who wins the battle, right?
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He hands Jehoiakim over to the king of Judah, sorry, the king of Judah over
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to Nebuchadnezzar, along with some of the vessels from the house of God.
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Nebuchadnezzar carried them to the land of Babylon, to the house of his God,
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and put the vessels in the treasury of his God.
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So Nebuchadnezzar, when he goes and he conquers the Israelites,
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he takes some of the stuff, some of the special things, from the God's temple,
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and he takes it and puts it in the temple and the treasury of his God and his new land.
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So he takes things from there.
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One thing you're going to see as we keep going is Nebuchadnezzar not only took
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things from the Israelites, but we're about to find out that he also took people
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from the Israelites. That's the whole purpose of the laying sea.
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So when you go in somewhere and you take things that don't belong to you, that's called what?
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Yes. But when you go and you take people who don't belong to you, what's that called?
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Very good. So that's what this is. This is a kidnapping story.
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That's what we're learning right now. This is essentially a kidnapping story.
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Here we go. Daniel chapter 1, verse 30.
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The king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his court officials,
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to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility.
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Notice, bring Israelites.
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Israelite is the type of person. He's saying, hey, remember when we captured all those people?
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I want you to grab some of those people we got, and I want you to bring them to me. Right?
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Bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility.
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Young men without any physical defect.
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He's describing the kind of people he wants them to bring. This is what I want you to bring.
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Young men without any physical defect, good looking, suitable for instruction
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in all wisdom, knowledgeable, perceptive, and capable of serving in the king's
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palace, and to teach them the Chaldean language and literature.
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The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank.
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They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time.
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They were to serve in the king's court.
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Among them were the descendants of Judah. So among them from the descendants
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of Judah There were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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The chief official gave them other names.
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He gave the name Belteshazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah,
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Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah.
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So what we see in the story is there's four main characters.
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I'm sure there are more than four people that actually lived through this.
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But this story centers on four guys are named in the story. The four guys,
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the word that's translated in English, sometimes they're called young men,
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or sometimes it's translated youths.
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But I'm guessing these four guys are probably teenagers, probably upper age
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teenagers, but don't know for sure.
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Probably young men, I'm thinking 16, 17, 18 years old.
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And they get taken to Babylon. And we have now eight names total,
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but it's only four people, right? Each one of them has two names.
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We have two listed names.
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The author of the book of Daniel gives us their Hebrew names.
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That would be the name that they had prior to being kidnapped.
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And these four guys' names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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And then he gives us their Babylonian names. This would be the name that they
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were given after they were kidnapped. and those names are Belteshazzar,
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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So what names, since there's two different options, what names am I going to
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use as I'm referring to the people in the story?
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I'm going to tell you, it's kind of weird because these four characters became
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famous and they became famous under particular names and not their other name,
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but it wasn't all from one list. Do you see that?
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Daniel is famous under his Hebrew name. No one calls him Belteshazzar,
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right? We all know him as Daniel.
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But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are known by their Babylonian names.
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No one calls them Hananiah, Meshachah, and Nazareth.
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So there's a little piece of it that's like, well, I'm going to be consistent.
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We'll either call them all by their Hebrew names, or we'll call them all by
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their Babylonian names. They might have decided, no, that's stupid.
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They're famous. Three of them are famous under the Babylonian names.
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One of them is famous under the Hebrew name. I'm just going to go with the name
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that they're well known for. So that's what we'll be calling them.
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So, what has happened in the story so far? We are seven verses into Daniel.
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We go, okay, it looks like basically you're saying, so far here's the story.
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Four guys got kidnapped, and they had to go work, so they came in some other country.
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Is that what's happened so far? Yeah, that's what's happened so far.
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Okay, what does any of that have to do with God?
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Ah, here we go, that's a good question.
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These people that were kidnapped from Judah and brought over Babylon are people
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who worshipped the true God.
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Like they worshipped the God of the Bible.
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And the people in their new country that they were brought to worshipped false gods.
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And I think back then, a lot of people would have thought that when you get
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taken to a new country, especially when you get conquered, when you get taken
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from one kingdom to another, you leave behind your old land.
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You have to. You leave behind your old king, because you've got a new one now,
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and you leave behind your old God.
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And you begin to worship the new ones in the new kingdom. I think that's what
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would have been assumed back then, especially, like, why would you worship the
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old God? He wasn't even there for you. Like, you lost. You got conquered.
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So you worship the new God in the new land with your new king.
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This is something that, for those of you that were here during our Christmas
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series, and we talked about Ruth, do you remember that this principle was there too?
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Right? That their geography and their theology was a lot more connected.
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Do you remember the part of the story where Orba was told to go back to her
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land? And in the same breath, it was like, go back to your land and your gods.
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And then when Ruth said that she's going to go to Naomi, do you remember how
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she said, I'm going to go with you and your people will be my people and your
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god will be my god? The idea is I'm going to the new land and I'm going to believe
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in the god of the new land.
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So here these guys are. They've been brought into the new kingdom.
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And I think the assumption is they're going to worship the new gods, not the old ones.
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And that is not what these guys did.
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So let me go ahead and read you a poem a portion of a poem from the Royal Family
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Kids Camp curriculum, I don't have
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all of it but I wrote this down at the time that I had it it says this.
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Before long the chosen ones left their hometown their brothers and sisters and
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moms, their fathers and friends, their language and land, they left all that they knew but not God,
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no God traveled with them He lived in their hearts.
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They vowed they'd stay true to his plan.
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I like that poem, and I like that it talks about the many, many things that
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they had to leave behind in this situation.
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They were taken from their house. Think about that. They wanted to live nice, too.
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They were taken forcibly from their house and moved to a different location.
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They were taken from the city that they used to live in and the city that they
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were used to. They were probably taken from their families.
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They were taken away from the foods that they were used to eating.
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They were taken away from the language that they were used to speaking.
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They're talking about the language.
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And some of you have gone through some of that, haven't you?
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There are some of you in this room that you were living somewhere,
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and some sort of thing happened, and suddenly you were taken away,
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and you weren't able to live there anymore.
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I'm sure there are some of you, when you look back on your childhood,
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do you remember when there was that difficult thing, there was that tragedy,
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there was that terrible thing that happened?
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Maybe Bob never even told you
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the whole story, but you had to go live with your aunt for a little while.
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Or there are some of you that have suddenly had to move, even in adulthood, something happened
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and suddenly you had to pick up and go to a whole other place there wasn't a good time to
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pack much but you had to just get out of there and you had to go set up somewhere
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else it was difficult to start over some of you have had times in your life
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where you were separated from your family and it was painful do you remember
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that some of you have had a tragedy hit your life,
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where you very suddenly had to switch your
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whole lifestyle because you
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got sick or she got sick or he died or
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she died or he lost his job or you lost your job
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and all of a sudden everything was
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brand new your whole life was turned upside down have you
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been in that situation my point is I don't
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think that you have to be a prisoner of war like these guys in
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the story to be able to relate to some of
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what they went through yes not all they probably know
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in this room has had it worse than what
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these guys went through but probably many of us in this
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room can relate to some of it though yeah I remember starting all
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over again I never I didn't know what anybody was talking about I remember what I really wanted
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to live there I couldn't ever go back I remember I
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didn't get to see them anymore I didn't even get to say goodbye I think there
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are a lot of us in this room that we go yeah I can remember that and so that's
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the situation these guys are in but probably worse and the point here particularly
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and the point of that poem that I wanted to point out is there is so much that
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these three guys and Daniel, but we're going to mostly focus on these three.
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There's so much that these guys have to leave behind.
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But not God. He went with them.
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And we're going to see that these guys believed that God was not only the God
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over their old kingdom, but that he was the God over their new kingdom too.
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Because he's the God over every kingdom.
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And so they were going to keep believing in him, and they were going to keep
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serving him, even in their new land.
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And you're going to see that as the story goes on. But it was at this point
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in the story that I said to the kids that I believe that what was true for them
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is the same is true for us.
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That you can have people and stuff in your life taken away from you.
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But if you know God, he can never be taken away from you.
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That's a big deal. People can literally take everything and everyone away from
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you. But God, if you know him, cannot be taken away from you.
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Wherever you go he goes with you,
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Even into the new, difficult, unfamiliar patch. And that is a big deal.
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So I have the kids repeat something after me. I'm going to ask you to do it
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as well. I'm going to say a sentence, and I'm going to ask you to say it back.
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No one can take God away from me.
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Very big deal. It is. In fact, one more thing I want you to repeat.
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I ask the kids to repeat this other thing. It's like three phrases.
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I'm going to say them, and you say them back. If I know God.
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He'll be with me. everywhere I go.
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That's huge. And some of you have had your life turned upside down.
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And it is good for you to remember it.
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I know God is going to be with me wherever I go next.
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So let's move on to the next verse. Daniel chapter 1 verse 8.
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Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine he drank.
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So he asked permission from the chief official not to defile himself.
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Now this particular verse only mentions Daniel. It doesn't say Shadrach,
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Meshach, and Ben-Nagot.
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However, if you keep reading, you'll see by the time you get to verses 11 through
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16, you will see that the concern that Daniel had also applied to Shadrach,
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Meshach, and Ben-Nagot. But at this point, it's just Daniel talking.
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But what was the problem? It was really a problem for all four of them,
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but Daniel's the one that brings it up. Okay, what's the problem?
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And the problem was, we can't eat the food.
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We're going to this college of the new king, right?
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Three years of training, so that we're going to serve him in his court,
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and we're giving all this food and all this wine, and we can't eat the food.
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Well, what was the problem with the food?
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And the answer is, well, we don't know for sure what the problem was with the
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food, because it doesn't say what the problem was with the food.
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But you can kind of guess, because whatever the problem was with the food,
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you can see Daniel believed that eating it would defile him.
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He would not defile himself as a king's food, so he asked permission by the
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chief official not to defile himself.
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So all we know about this food is Daniel believes that it would defile him,
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And that word sounds like not just I don't think it's fit for me or an analogy.
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This is, it would be dishonoring to go.
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So it could be that these foods were foods that the Jewish people were told not to eat.
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That they had codes and laws, like Israelites had laws, this is the kind of
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food you can't eat, this is the kind of meat that you can eat,
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this is the kind of meat you can't eat. They lived with it their whole life.
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They show up, and all the stuff that they said, no, no, no, all of a sudden
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it's put in front of them, and they go, oh, we're not allowed to do this,
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we're not allowed to eat this.
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It could be that these were foods that were dedicated to the false gods of Babylon.
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And they said, well, we can't enter into the worship of these gods we don't
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believe in. I don't see any reason why it could have been both.
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It could have been food that they were told not to eat and had been dedicated to the gods of Babel.
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But whatever it was, Daniel thought that it could defile him.
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The assumption seems to be that
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it would dishonor his God for him to partake in the food and the wine.
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So he said we can't do this. So what happens? Look at verse 9.
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God had granted Daniel favor and compassion from the chief official.
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Well, that's good. I just like to think of it in a good direction. Verse 10.
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Yet, he said to Daniel, my lord the king assigned your food and drink I'm afraid
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of what would happen if he saw your faces looking thinner than those of the
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other young men your age you would endanger my life with the king,
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so it sounds like Daniel maybe had a good personality I don't know what but
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the guy that's in charge of him goes I like you, I like you more than the average
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person so if you asked him for a favor I would really like to do it I'd be happy
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to do something to help you out,
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but now this, again this one the king is the one that assigned the food,
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If I give you different food than everybody else, and then you start losing
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weight or you get pale or sickly or whatever, you start looking less healthy than the other guys,
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the king's going to come to me and go, what's the deal there?
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Have you fed them all the same food as everyone else?
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Well, no, actually not. You did not feed them the food that I told you to do? Well, no. Why?
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Well, because they wanted to eat something different, so I did what they wanted
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instead of what you wanted.
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He's saying, I'm not going to get myself in that situation. The king's going to kill me if I do that.
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So Daniel is now in a tough situation, isn't he? And what we're about to see
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in the next verse, Shireach, Meshach, and Bennego are in a tough situation because
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they're in the same situation with him.
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I think that they're all in the same difficult situation, but up to this point
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in the story, it's only mentioned Daniel, and I think that's because Daniel
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is the spokesman for the group.
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But what is being asked of them? I want you to think about it from their perspective.
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These people who are buttingen with this other country, they are being told to eat food.
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And probably what they were being told to do I would guess that most of the
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people around them would have said this is not a big deal just eat it,
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they would be told probably everybody around them said just eat the food just
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go along and get along this is not a big deal, go for it,
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but they believe that it would dishonor God so I think the temptation for them
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would have been this is the temptation to not worry about what God says just
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to fit in with everyone else.
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Have you been there? Have you ever had the temptation, don't do what God says
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just to fit in with everyone else?
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Well, here's another portion of that poem that I read to you earlier.
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It says, Meshach then mentioned, I think I have heard, I'm sure that this statement
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is true, that when living in places like, well, Babylonia, what you do is Babylonians do.
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Then all looked at Daniel, but Daniel scowled. And then suddenly the guys caught
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a clue. They were chosen.
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Royal, belonging to God. As Jews, they had no right to die on anything God had
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labeled not good, including the king's food and wine.
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Now, I don't know if it really went down like that with Meshach being the one
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that goes, well, let's just try it.
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And then Daniel scowls and then Meshach's like, okay, I'm sorry,
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I'm not going to take that.
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I don't know if that's how it actually went down. But I will say this,
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in real life, as people are struggling through situations like this,
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conversations do happen and there was probably some sort of conversation that
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took place between Daniel and Meshach and Shadrach and Abednego.
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So this is what happens. Verse 11. So Daniel said to the guard who the chief
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official had assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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Notice it's not just Daniel, right?
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That's their Hebrew names, but that's our people. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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They're all there. The chief official had assigned to Daniel,
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Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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Please test your servants for ten days. let us be given vegetables to eat and
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water to drink and then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young
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men who are eating the king's food and deal with your servants based on what you see.
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I want you to notice the way Daniel says it. You can tell that this is not just a Daniel thing, right?
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He says, test your servants for 10 days, right? Let us be given vegetables,
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examine our appearance, right?
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And deal with your servants, plural, based on what you see. You can see that
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this is Daniel speaking on behalf of the four of them.
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And so what does he say? He suggests a 10-day vegetable test, right?
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So let us be given... Because apparently they're saying, like,
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we're fine with eating vegetables, and we're fine with drinking water, right?
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So you have this meat over here we can't eat, it would defile us.
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There's wine over here we can't eat, it would defile us.
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But you've got some vegetables that we believe would not defile us.
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You've got some water that would not defile us. So can we just eat the vegetables
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and the water? Let us be given vegetables to eat, and water and drink.
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And then examine our appearance, and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king's food.
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And deal with your servants based on what you see. And he, and it looks like
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they talked to a different person. This is to the guard.
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So this is not the first person they asked that said no. He's a different person, it looks like.
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And that guy says, all right. He agreed with them about this matter and tested them for 10 days.
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So the idea here seems to be, okay, I get it. You're worried that something's going to happen to us.
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It'll be obvious that we're different than them. And they're going to see our
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diet is different than them. You're going to get in trouble.
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So what if, what if. He talks to the guard.
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So what if we just test it out and see if you have anything to worry about?
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Would you just let up? Because we can't. We can't eat this food.
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So can you give us the food that we can, and let's just wait ten days and see what happens.
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Let's just see if the gods of Babylon bless the king's food,
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or if God blesses our food. Let's just see what comes of it.
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Like, let's just, we're going to eat vegetables.
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And then at the end of the ten days, check and see what we look like,
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see what happened, and then make your long-term decision from there.
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So the guy goes, okay, we'll give it ten days. Look what happens.
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Verse 15. At the end of 10 days, they looked better and healthier than all the
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young men who were eating the king's food.
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So the guards continued to remove their food and the wine they were to drink
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and gave them vegetables.
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So what is the point of this story? Here's the thing.
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I don't think the point of the story is simply vegetables are good for you.
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Even though that is true, right? And that's definitely true.
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Ask any nutritionist, they will tell you. Vegetables are good for you. That's for sure true.
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But because of what happens before and after this, I think it's fair to say
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this is not a vegetables are good for you story. That's not what this is about.
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What's happening here is these guys are trying to be faithful to God in a hostile situation.
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And there was great pressure on them to do something different than other than honor God.
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And they succeeded. And followed by God. And so the lesson here is simple.
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What God says matters. So we should listen to what he says, even when it's hard.
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You get that? What God says matters, so we should listen to what he says, even when it's hard.
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Next week, if the Lord wills, the plan is to cover the Shadrach,
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Meshach, and Abednego story that they are most famous for.
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And in that story we will see that God is not just a rule maker but he is also
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a savior so come next week let's pray.
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Lord, I thank you for your word, and I thank you for these principles,
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and I thank you for what you've taught us, and I pray for the people of this congregation today.
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I do know that there are people in here who have had to switch things up or move around.
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I know that there are people, I mean, it's incredible to even think about.
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We're so used to, like, the truth that you are the God over the whole world
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that we don't even think about, like, the worldview they probably have.
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But it's incredible that people from Washington, California,
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Canada, China and Brazil and all different places, like move to other places
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and you're still their God.
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And we've had people from places like that move here to Ocala and you were their
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God in their own place and then you came with them and you're their God here.
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And maybe many of us in this room plan on sticking around here in Ocala for
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a while, but maybe many of us plan on going somewhere else.
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And the thought that we will not be leaving you, but that you will go with us,
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and as long as we know you, you can't be taken away from us.
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That is a beautiful truth and so we thank you for it and we praise you for it.
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From the people that leave here and go to other places, we thank you that you go with them.
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People that have come here from other places, we thank you that you're our God.
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You're there, that God there and here.
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And we especially thank you. We know that one day we'll be in your presence
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and anything will be fine. And we know between now and that day things are not fine.
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And yet, even during this time period of not fun, it's still true that you cannot
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be taken away from us if we know you and we thank you for that.
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People could take all our stuff away. People could take away all of our people away.
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But you can't be taken away from us. And so we thank you and we praise you for that.
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I also pray for us as a congregation that you would help us to stand firm in
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difficult situations and in a hostile culture.
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I was thinking about it this morning, and I don't know exactly where America
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is on a scale of Jerusalem to Babylon, but I kind of assume we're closer to Babylon.
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And I think there are a lot of people in this room that there is this pressure
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that everybody else around them is saying it's no big deal, and it's hard to stand firm.
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So I pray that you would give us the strength to do that. I pray that we would
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honor you in the midst of our Babylon.
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We love you and we thank you for your grace we thank you Jesus.
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In Jesus name we pray Amen let me end with these good words from God's word
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this is actually from Romans chapter 8 it says for I consider that the sufferings of this present time,
Romans 8 chapter mention
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are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us that is good news Thank you.