An Endangered Species: Christians With Conviction (Daniel 1:8-21) | Matthew Maher | CCOC

okay so i want to begin by sharing with you the title for tonight's message and the reason i want to share the title up front is because it provides us with the framework of the entire message verses 8 all the way to verse 21 and the title is an endangered species christians with conviction now if you know anything about an endangered species it's a species that is endangered by various risk factors including one habitat loss that means their natural environment is taken over whether by nature or by man the second risk is poaching that could be again man hunting these species for whatever reason and the third is often invasive creatures or species which means harmful animals coming in and either eating or taking over now i said endangered species where are the christians with convictions it seems like the christian with conviction is going extinct why is that well the same risk factors are at play habitat loss churches in america specifically this is our habitat this is our spiritual environment and when this environment is no longer about making people holy from god's word and it's more about keeping people happy and we compromise the purity and the power of the gospel it produces spineless christians poaching of course many people who claim the name christ are frightened to take a stand because of poaching or persecution i don't want to put myself out there i'd rather go under the radar i don't want anybody to know that i'm a christian and then finally invasive species the invasion of the unbiblical christian in the midst of the church where we've adopted progressive ideology and theology which transgresses the boundaries of the bible the bible has a boundary it's genesis to revelation and all of the truth in between and it's a story of god's redemption and the culmination is the son of god we see him concealed in the old testament it's why we study the prophets because it all points to him it talks of him it foretells of him and then he shows up in the gospels and the epistles of paul and peter and james and they point back to him and then revelation is again the story of god's kingdom the kingdom of light that conquers the kingdom of darkness and we need to be reminded who we are in christ and it starts with having a conviction like the apostle paul what made him pen from a prison cell philippians chapter 1 verse 21 for to me to live is christ and to die is gain what made him say i'm going to live is going to be for christ by christ with christ and oh yeah even if they take my life that is considered profitable that is for christ's sake as well i want to live in light of that type of faith but no no not only are we not willing to die for our faith in america we don't have to think that way here some of us aren't even willing to live for our faith in america how did we get here i'll tell you two reasons comfort and compromise when we're comfortable you know the minister's responsibility can be reduced to these two things when you come through these doors and i'm supposed to be communicating god's truth to god's people which is the christian so my role and responsibility is to instigate the christian to be a christian but it's reduced to these two things taking the word of god opening it and administering it and it will do two things it will afflict those who are comfortable and it will bring comfort to those who are afflicted that's what the word of god does no but we're idle in worship and when we're idle and worship it leads to idol worship idol i-d-l-e leads to idol i-d-o-l you see what i did there idol worship is when we replace god this was the history of israel they constantly rejected god and then replaced god idolatry the first commandment you shall have no other god before me and we have so many other gods before the one true god we might not see it that way the god of sex the god of money the god of entertainment i mean the list goes on remember babylon's tactics are threefold they first and foremost want to physically isolate they took these young jewish boys children of israel and they physically isolated them they were cut off from their comfort they were cut off from their home life they were cut off from their worship life that was revolving around the jewish temple in jerusalem physical isolation and then mental indoctrination they taught them the language and the literature of the chaldeans they taught them their ways their culture and then finally it was all to win over their spiritual identification that is the same strategy of the enemy today physical isolation if he can cut you off from this fellowship physical isolation leads to mental indoctrination because now we're being fed by all the lies of the world and before we know it our spiritual identification is in association with the world babylon the culture not the scriptures so remember idleness when you're idling your faith when you're not pursuing god and he'll never stop pursuing you idleness is the gate for a lie to get in when your mind stops working when you're no longer critically thinking through truth studying scripture meditating upon it memorizing it a lie creeps in and then here's the second part isolation then becomes the ground for that lie to grow when you're cut off from your individual devotional life when you're no longer reading the word for yourself don't let me do it it's my honor to do it but you're supposed to be doing it yourself when you are no longer pursuing god reading his word when you're isolated from the book and you're isolated from the fellowship the church it's only a matter of time before babylon has you but we live in such a time that you no longer even have to be in babylon you can be in the comfort of your own home and babylon is being streamlined directly to you oh babylon's lies are being streamlined directly into your lives we know how that happens one of the main ways we all have either in our lap or in our pocket or in our purse or in our bag it's in the cell phone now listen i don't find a coincidence that one of the main mediums by which babylon can enter our lives through social media through the internet through browsing and scrolling i don't find it a coincidence that the main device has a sign or an insignia on it and it's an apple with a bite out of it and i'm not a conspiracy theorist i don't think that they chose that symbol as a correlation with genesis chapter 3 i'm not saying it was created for that intention i am saying the enemy's intention has not changed from the beginning it's the same genesis chapter 3 where he tripped up adam and eve god's crown of creation and all he wanted them to do look at me was rebel and disobey against god did god really say well that's not what god really meant and the fall of mankind the atom bomb that struck in chapter three we are experiencing the repercussions the consequences from that decision for all of human history and let me just tell you it wasn't an apple it was a fruit of sorts a forbidden fruit but i see that and i go wow how many of us are stumbling because of temptation that we're engaging and all because our cell phones men and women how many of us are a click away from destruction how many of us think because it's done in private because babylon is being streamlined directly into my life and nobody sees it well the bible says god sees it and he's look at me he's not looking at you in those moments of failure with eyes of condemnation how dare you he's looking at you with eyes of compassion he wants you to come back to him not run from him who do you think would want to censor truth when truth is censored in our world who do you think is behind the censorship of truth the devil's called the father of lies and he'll use every single medium he can possible to influence us away from god and we know that the only defense against being indoctrinated by lies is to be insulated from the inside out by the truth first john chapter 4 verse 4 you are of god little children and have overcome them them will take you back several verses before he's talking about the spirit of antichrist he's talking about false teachers he's talking about spiritual deceivers spiritual liars he's saying you are able to overcome them now here's the main part of that verse because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world the he in the world is the spirit of antichrist spiritual liars and because christ inside of you the truth inside of you the holy spirit inside of you is greater you aren't overcome by those lies do you ever wonder how you are you're staying seated in these seats i'm staying stuck to this platform did you ever wonder how you stay grounded to earth to planet earth how are you planted on earth gravity the gravitational pull of the mass of earth is greater than your weight and somehow by way of law of gravity you are staying grounded that's why you're not drifting out into outer space that is why you're not sucked into the the atmosphere because of gravity what's the point the point is if greater is he who is in you then the gravity of god in you should always keep you grounded even though the prince of the power of the air is trying to get you to drift and he's trying to get you to float away from your mark this is what kept daniel and his three friends grounded they understood the gravity of their god and babylon could change their names but babylon could not change their nature they knew who they were babylon could regulate their culture but babylon could not contaminate their character verse 8 tells us exactly where daniel's heart was but daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies nor with the wine which he drank therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself okay first things first underlined purposed in his heart it literally means daniel set his heart he set his heart upward he set his heart heavenward it was not a decision of the whim it wasn't a last minute whim it was a predetermined preset upon his heart that when he got into temptation that he would not bow to it see young ones in here if you're waiting to the last minute to make up your mind about not bowing to the culture around you you will fail i'm telling you straight up you have to preset your heart that you're not going to bow down to the culture and its ways daniel purposed in his heart he was a thermostat i talk about the thermostat and a thermometer all the time because it's good imagery a thermostat regulates the temperature of any given room if it's cold you put the temperature on a certain degree and the entire room will change according to that pre-set degree contrary to a thermometer a thermometer conforms to whatever the temperature is that is around it and i know what that's like because i was a thermometer my entire young life i conformed to whatever the environment needed me to be when i was with my christian friends i was a christian when i was with my non-believing friends i was a non-believer i was a heathen i was whatever they needed me to be but no more because i know who i am in christ and i want to be a thermostat and i want like daniel to have my heart set on a heavenly degree and like paul wrote in colossians set my mind on things above where christ is see what's the big deal here though it's just food see we need to understand that when daniel set his heart made up his mind to not defile himself the word defile tells us that this was a religious matter for him this wasn't just a physical matter this wasn't just a dietary restriction even though levitical law would not allow jews to eat meat that had its blood so he still he's knowing the levitical law that he should not eat this type of meat but more than that the word defile means he did not want to corrupt himself stain himself or pollute himself morally what would be the harm in eating the king's food well they said idolatry was woven into the common life of babylon everything they did was centered around all of their pagan gods even eating they would actually dedicate their foods especially the king's food to these gods for prosperity to come to their kingdom so the meat would have been dedicated to their gods and the wine would have been dedicated to their gods and daniel understood that and he was unwilling to pledge allegiance to their gods knowing that his allegiance was to the one true god in spite of the pressure to conform so this wasn't just about abstinence it was also about allegiance and it wasn't just about dietary restriction as much as it was about sanctification he was setting himself apart daniel had deep rooted conviction right the oak tree the roots of the oak tree are remarkable an oak tree can stand alone because the roots grab earth and when a storm comes even a hurricane the roots of an oak tree will go deeper and become stronger and there's a reason why god allows trials to touch our life it's because he's trying to develop our roots he's trying to strengthen our conviction to not move to the waves and the wind of the world around us proverbs chapter 12 verse 3 says a man is not established by wickedness but the root of the righteous cannot be moved the root the root system of the righteous they are immovable you know what 2020 has revealed this year in and of itself a year like no other year for us 2020 has revealed that many christians who thought they had conviction really just had opinions there's a huge difference between opinions and conviction opinions are defined by having judgments and views of something that aren't necessarily based on knowledge or facts just an opinion opinions are built on feelings conviction however the other definition for conviction is evidence conviction is built on facts so if you were to be put on trial right now for your faith would they have enough evidence to convict you of being a christian if you were put on trial right now your life your social media your occupation your thoughts if you were put on trial right now would they have enough evidence to convict you of being a christian i would want to be found guilty in that case see an opinion is something you'd argue about like tug of war a conviction is something you'd die for like real war you know an opinion whoever has the stronger point whoever might even be able to present it more eloquently whoever is even maybe on the majority side you know that's what tug of war is right it's the strongest side on the rope whoever can pull it stronger they'll win the competition or the contest that's what an opinion is and if you'll notice there's a lot of noise around a lot of opinions and it sounds like they're the majority and they are the majority but they're the majority wrong and a lot of people are unwilling to go against the majority even though it's a bunch of opinions a bunch of lies a bunch of myths why because they're stronger i'm saying we need conviction a conviction says i don't care if the whole world is aimed at me i'm willing to die for this truth see conviction will truly empower you to stand strong against the majority wrong question would you be willing to stand against the whole world if you knew the whole world was standing against you actually that's not a rhetorical question that's a reality jesus said in john 15 verses 18 and 19 if the world hates you the system of the world the antichrist system the system that rebels against god if the world hates you know that it hated me first he said that completely destroys the image of jesus wanting everybody to love him and like him please please don't walk away not once when you see jesus say that no he he shared the truth he was the truth and he let the truth fall where it may if the world hates you know that it hated me first if you were of the world the world would love you as its own then he says but you're not of the world you're not of babylon i've called you out of the world he said and that's why the world hates you that's why there is a listen a literal conglomerate of anti-christ groups right now that are all aimed at silencing the church and the christian from the world economic forum you can do your research for having a a conference come up and it was supposed to be in january it's coming up in the spring it's called the great reset they're literally talking about a globalist agenda that's what revelation said is going to happen about a one world order a one world economy a one world currency and a world one world religion i'm not making this up it's happening our world is spinning in the way the bible said it would i know you have all by the way of you know human safety because of the the virus the united nations you have big tech oligarchy you already know they're silencing and censoring anything that doesn't go with their narrative you got higher learning institutions it used to be just colleges and universities that would indoctrinate their students with progressive ideology and anti-american sentiment now it's even bleeding into the high school age group and the lgbtq curriculum is being introduced to third and fourth graders and it just entered new jersey you got blm antifa which is just an idea apparently you know what antifa is right anti-fascist you know the sad irony about those that prescribe to antifa they're burning flags they're rioting they're looting fascism you know the most despicable picture of fascism in history is hitler nazis right but here's the sad irony that mentality of antifa if they were alive in the 30s and 40s with hitler's rise to power they would be brainwashed by fascism because it's a pliable mentality that doesn't seek out the truth they're all aimed at silencing the church in a christian if you don't believe me if you were to distill this entire book distill it all the way down to one theme it would literally be light versus darkness christ versus antichrist good versus evil so don't be fooled by all these other agendas you know the agenda of mother earth climate change global warming which one is it a couple decades ago it was global cooling but here's why that's a problem because the people that are in the name of compassion so concerned about mother earth in the same breath would encourage a mother to kill her child before birth you want me to say that again the people that are advocating for mother earth many of which out of the same mouth would encourage a mom to kill her child before birth not to mention the marxist mainstream media they're not just affecting public opinion they're altering world views of entire generations entire generations are being warped because of the narrative the mainstream media remember it's all done under the code names of freedom and fairness peace and human rights but human rights are wrong when they contradict what god says is right for humans see everybody is expected to be in line with the accepted cultural values you and i but daniel purposed in his heart didn't matter how many were against him he purposed in his heart he preset his heart to not defile himself to not conform to the world around him a recent politician made a speech and one line was put in all of the mainstream media headlines for the days to come and the line was time to heal it's time to heal but if you have spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear it wasn't time to heal it was really saying it's time to kneel it's time to get with the program i'm currently reading through the second time a book that i would highly encourage everybody in this room and everybody listening online to read it's titled when a nation forgets god by erwin lutzer subtitle seven lessons we must learn from nazi germany he makes a comparison between the lands and the stages that were set that led to in nazi germany what we know as holocaust six million jews slaughtered as many in that country turned a blind eye hitler's tactics in the 30s are exactly the same tactics that are happening in the united states of america he set out to undermine the two god-given institutions that were the bedrock of society family and church and he did it from the government the third institution by god this was one of his quotes the state he said would have to be scrubbed clean of all christian convictions and values the state needs to be scrubbed clean of all the christian convictions and values does that sound similar to a wrongly interpreted and applied idea in america separation of church and state he set out to separate these two entities he scrubbed the entire state of christian convictions and values and many christians during that time they thought that if they left hitler alone that he would leave them alone and not only that he didn't leave them alone and then he pressured the families to send their children to state schools mandatory where they were exposed to nazi curriculum and they had no say about it and on top of that at the same time because churches were already compromising the gospel because of cultural pressure even though the kids were forced to go to the school they didn't have a foundation beneath them to even be able to discern the ignorance of that ideology and the lies they were being exposed to why because there was no conviction in the pulpit two men that we read about martini muller and dietrich bonhoeffer and a coalition of other pastors they saw what was happening they would call hitler out for the things he was doing that he was overreaching into the church's affairs so hitler called a meeting with these pastors and in that meeting he said to them you confine yourself to the church and i will take care of the german people before they could leave the meeting martin knee muller spoke up and said you said we're to confine ourselves to the church and you'll take care of the german people where our responsibility is not only to the church but to the people of the state and that is a god-given responsibility and nobody can take that from us it is said that hitler said nothing in response but from that day forward knee muller and ben hoffer bonhoeffer became targets of the state but not only targets from the state they became ostracized by their own people over two thousand pastors who had stood with them up to that particular point completely withdrew their support you know why they believed appeasement was their best strategy they thought that if they just remained silent on all these issues if they didn't get involved in politics because those two should never mix that everything would have been okay we know that history tells us otherwise a witness alive during that time says this i was alive during the nazi rule i was a christian we distanced ourselves from what was happening because we thought what could we possibly do to stop it they said i was attending a church that was in front of a railroad track and every single sunday at the same time a train would come and you would hear the whistle and while we were in church we started to hear the cries of the jews that were being carted away to death camps every single sunday they said we dreaded it because we would hear the cries we would hear the whistle so we decided to sing a hymn every sunday when that whistle would blow we would just take our hymn books and begin singing and when they started screaming we just sang louder and when they started screaming more we just sang louder so we could not hear it they closed their testimonial by saying nobody talks about that time anymore i hear that whistle in my dreams god forgive me god forgive all of us who said we were christians and we did not intervene you might be saying really the slaughter of people and you're comparing that to america nope because as the train goes by of the cries of unborn babies that are illegally boarded legally aborted in the name of woman's choice the church just sings louder when the train of the moans and the groans of more victims from the arbitrary dictates of governmental overreach according to kovid restrictions which is isn't about saving people it's destroying people and we're about to go into more lockdowns where businesses are literally being ruined families are being ruined there's suicide that is on the rise depression child abuse sexual assaults domestic violence all on the rise and that train goes by and we just sing louder just ignore it don't bring it up pastor don't bring up the fact that it's still a 99.99 survivability rate don't bring up the fact that there's more cases because there's more testing but there's less deaths don't bring that up let's just keep singing as the train of our youth being indoctrinated by godless curriculum on their way to babylon let's just sing louder and finally let's sing louder as a church not engage what's happening in our world as the train which will soon happen of our religious liberties goes by let's ignore it let's sing louder see in esther chapter four esther was a young jewish girl like daniel god plants her in the midst of the persian kingdom the persians would eventually conquer the babylonians so esther overlaps daniel remarkably god always plants his people as a remnant in the midst of a godless culture and mordecai esther's uncle a very wise man very influential in this story and i never picked up on this in chapter four she is now the queen so she has favor from god she's the queen to king xerxes and there's a man named haman similarly to hitler who wants to exterminate the jewish people he gets the king to sign a decree that would allow him to go forth with his wicked plan mordecai finds out about it he is weeping in the gates esther sends word to her uncle what is going on he sends word back to her and tells her about the plan but then he says to her this is what he says you should approach the king approach your husband in essence like you're the only one and this is where the story picks up the letter to her do something about it her letter to him all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king who has not been called he has but one law this is the king's law put all to death except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live yet i myself this is esther have not seen him or been called to him in these 30 days so they told mordecai esther's words and then mordecai told them to answer esther ready do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace any more than all the other jews all right while she may have been inclined to reserve herself to not get involved because that's the easy route mordecai reminds her don't think for a second that this isn't coming to your house christian don't think for a second that this isn't coming to your house that it is not gonna touch your personal life for if you remain completely silent at this time relief and deliverance will arise for the jews from another place he's like if it's not you god will find somebody else but you and your father's house will perish here's the famous line we all know from esther yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this you are alive in 2020 for such a time as this christians with conviction being willing to rise up and stand our ground even when the whole world is pushing us back we know who's we are and in christ we know who we are see this is daniel daniel the rest of verse 8 says he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself i love that because he makes a polite request though he has conviction he's not obnoxious with it he's not forcing it on other people he ready peacefully protests this is what a peaceful protest looks like he makes a request he sets the spiritual tone you know how hard it is to recover the ground that is lost once you've entered into a workplace once you've entered into a new school year a new school a college when you enter that and you don't establish who you are as a christian and what you believe in it's only a matter of time when you get with the wrong group and you laugh at the wrong joke and you watch the wrong thing and then they find out a week or months later that you're a christian and you just blew your whole testimony and i'm saying the wisest thing to do even if that's you and you already blew your testimony i don't know when you're going back to school young ones in here but when you do or if you're at a workplace establish the spiritual tone go in identify yourself as a believer yeah it might come with ridicule yeah it might come with persecution yeah you might lose some friends yeah it's not popular but setting the spiritual tone like daniel he didn't wait for people to ask he didn't wait until safe he made sure people knew his conscience was held captive to his god is your conscience held captive to your god looking at the time i don't know if i'm going to get through all this you know i've mentioned this particular testimony before but it just really speaks volumes about the work that the lord was doing in my heart i had been moved from the downstairs prison unit to the upstairs one which was in many people's eyes i moved backwards upstairs units were more unruly the younger inmates the gangs i got moved to the worst housing unit and i remember feeling like a pit in my stomach as i walked up these concrete steps with all of my belongings for two years wrestling with god i served you on that unit i started a bible study why am i being moved upstairs unjustly but i'll never forget it i got upstairs i made my bed i got into my space and i said all right god i'm gonna take root wherever you planted me within moments a group of my peers called me over so i went and sat on their bunk bed probably about eight other inmates i'm new i'm the new guy on their block i'm sure they're feeling me out the first thing they did was throw a photo album on my lap everybody had photo albums you got family pics friends pics but that's not what was in this photo album see when i opened it up to see what they were showing me it's what they call in prison a flick book and it's all pornographic pictures i'll never forget it in that moment i have a decision to make they don't know what i'm thinking i could just struggle through it so as not to offend them close it be part of the group one of the guys but i was unwilling to cheapen my conviction so as soon as i opened it and saw what it was i closed it and handed it back and yeah they made fun of me and it's not your typical locker room bullying in prison it's a whole different level but i'll tell you what my intention was to establish a bible study and when i established that bible study some of those very same inmates they ended up joining the bible study and they ended up bringing up that testimony saying we thought you were just another hypocrite using that book and you showed us that you were real with it and i never took credit for that i remember just being in awe that god would choose a wretch like me by his grace alone i'd be able to have conviction and be courageous in an environment where everyone is telling you to bow down and go with the flow but look at me conversely most of my young life when i look out and i see a lot of young kids in here i see myself in you guys i was held captive to the culture i was held captive to the peer pressure i was held captive to being cool and i look back and i regret how i didn't stand strong for my faith at that time in that season and i i begged some of you i implore some of you the greatest gift you have right now is your youth and god has given you this season to know who you are in him see god's promises are often hindered due to our compromises god's promises are conditional many of them are conditional upon our pattern of living right there are so many verses that say if you do this god will do that it's not a work based thing but it's like if you show god your maturity and you can handle the responsibility god's willing to put on your life his favor you know what a winding path or a crooked river and a crooked character have in common both choose the path of least resistance if you're in a plane and you look down and you see rivers below that are winding like a snake did you ever wonder how they got like that the water is choosing the path of least resistance and when a character gets crooked inside of us it's because we chose the path of least resistance we chose the easy way out our nature is not inclined to put the work in but that's why it's not our nature that is able to do the work it's christ inside of us with the holy spirit that overhauls our nature and gives us a new nature proverbs 3 5 6 trust in the lord with all your heart don't trust your heart as lord trust in the lord with all your heart don't lean on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will what make your path straight he will make your life straight verse 9 now god had brought daniel into the favor and good will of the chief of the eunuchs this verse right here is the summary of the scenes to follow right it's like in the midst of the fiction even though it's not fiction i'm saying it that way because there's characters and it plays like a story in the midst of it this verse is like this is about to show you what's going to happen and the scenes that are about to follow it shows us how god brings daniel into the favor and the goodwill of his peers and the chief of the eunuchs by doing several things the favor of god in daniel's life provides him with one the audience to even make the request the fact that he even has a voice with the chief of the eunuchs god's favor provides for daniel and audition to put his faith to the test an audience to make the request an audition to put his faith to the test three authentication that puts the supervisor's fear to rest while simultaneously proving god's way is best see what i did there bunch of rhymes audience to make the request audition to put his faith to the test authentication that puts the supervisor's fear to rest and proves god's way is best now let's get after it verse 10 and the chief of the eunuch said to daniel i fear my lord the king who has appointed your food and drink for why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are of your age then you would endanger my head before the king are you seeing this the the chief of the eunuchs is saying i'm responsible for the outcome of this training and if you don't eat the food which is the king's menu it's not only a slap in the king's face but it's gonna cost me my head daniel does not say in response i'm okay with that now he says daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over daniel hananiah misha l and azerite i want to take a moment here because it's an interesting exchange at first the chief of the eunuch said i can't do that it'll cost my head you need to come out looking just like the rest of the boys and then the next verse says and then daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs set over them what just happened there we don't know this is the silence of scripture this is where you step in and go wait it says god gave daniel favor with the chief of the eunuchs so maybe the chief of the eunuchs made up his mind and said because he had favor he said okay i don't know do whatever he says to the steward and now the steward has the responsibility to make the decision and yet daniel he makes concession he doesn't stomp his foot he doesn't say we're not having it we're not eating it no no he goes he says to the steward hey please test your servants for 10 days remember it's a 3-year training test this for 10 days let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink vegetables included bread that's what the word means grain and vegetables and water and let our appearance be examined before you and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king's delicacy delicacies and as you see fit then deal with your servants this is remarkable what is daniel doing here daniel is putting his faith to the test why because faith without works is dead and hebrews 11 1 says faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen faith is the hypostasis faith is the substance it's the word title deed it is the promissory note faith is the promissory note faith is taking god at his word if he said it he will complete it faith is the evidence it's the word get ready for it conviction of things not seen it is a spiritual persuasion within the result verse 14 to 16 so he consented with them in this matter and tested them 10 days and at the end of the 10 days their features appeared better and fatter and flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink and he gave them vegetables this is the first recorded exercise of faith by young daniel and his three friends that would hold true the rest of the book the legacy of daniel and his three friends are literally established in these verses right here they made up their heart and that's why god brought daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs that's back to verse 9. right proverbs 16 verse 7 says this when a man's ways please the lord he makes even his enemies be at peace when your ways please god when you live in light of eternity when you live for him alone when your ways please god he makes even your enemies a manager an employer a boss a teacher somebody that is opposing you he makes that person be at peace with you it means to give you favor see we make room for god to move upon our situation when we don't move away from our conviction i give god space to move that requires again conviction can be misused people have conviction in the wrong places biblical conviction is always founded on integrity integrity always gives way to influence if you have integrity god will give you influence if you have integrity god will give you insight if you have integrity god will give you increase that's verses 17 to 21. watch how this plays out as for these four young men god gave them wait stop verse two daniel chapter one and god gave king jehoiachin into the hand of king nebuchadnezzar okay verse 9 and god brought daniel into the favor and good will of the chief of the eunuchs verse 17. god gave them knowledge and skill in all literature and wisdom are you seeing the sovereignty of god here it is god in the midst of this entire story god brought them here god provided favor here god's giving them insight here it's god and god is looking for a man or a woman who he can make much of himself through he provides them insight remember the literature the language of the chaldeans god gives them the insight to see through that to provide the proper context when they're studying the stars god reminded them that he was the creator of the stars so you can't be indoctrinated if you know the truth he's the one that gave daniel understanding in all visions and dreams we'll see that in chapter two literally daniel his rise to greater influence comes by way of interpreting a dream similar to joseph in the book of genesis now at the end of the days when the king had said that they should be brought in three years are done the eunuchs brought them in before king nebuchadnezzar here it is here's the beauty contest then the king interviewed them and among them all among them all none was found like daniel hananiah meshael and azariah therefore they served before the king and in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them he found them increase ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in all his realm staple ready thus daniel continued until the first year of king cyrus you know how long that is 70 years king cyrus is the persian king that would eventually conquer babylon in 539 bc you're talking about a 15 year old boy making up his mind to not defile himself to not bow down and you see his career all the way through four different kings influencing them greatly why because god's favor falls upon those who are faithful but let me be very clear sometimes the favor of god will keep you from getting fired and sometimes the favor of god will lead you right into the fire and we're going to see that in chapter three either or no matter the odds that are stacked against the christian and the church nothing can outweigh the favor of god second chronicles chapter 16 verse 9 for the eyes of the lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth billions of people god's eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth searching for a heart that is loyal to him so he can stand strong behind so the bible says god's looking for a heart that's loyal to him how do we get loyal hearts i'll tell you loyal hearts are forged at the cross the true man of compassion and conviction was jesus christ and it was at the cross where he forged forgiveness into our souls and he instilled courageousness into the christian spines the cross is not a necklace that you wear around your neck it's not a decoration it's an instrument that changes the soul the cross of jesus christ that is antithetical to the whole world the whole system of the world it is the cross that the christian builds his life on christianity is not behavior modified if you came in here tonight trying to modify your behavior trying to get right with your good works christianity is not behavior modified christianity is christ crucified your life for his life your sin for his righteousness i want to be like paul and he wrote to the corinthians chapter two verse two first corinthians two two fry determined not to know anything among you except jesus christ and him crucified would our wealth be in the cross tonight and since we're not dead we're not done we've heard it by god's grace let's do it

Channel: Coastal Christian Ocean City

Views: 1,466

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: KD0umCxJ89E

Length: 51min 40sec (3100 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020