The Mind of Christ #2 - Dulling of the Mind Pt.1 - Dr. Eric Walsh

i'm betty jo and amen has really blessed my life in a lot of ways one of them is the readings that we've done together the prayer that we've had and just the personal experience that other people share about how they have incorporated the gospel into their work with patients specifically and the other day i was seeing a patient and she was telling me about another provider that she really liked and had had good experiences with and she said usually she prays with me but she didn't pray with me the last time she said i wonder if it's because i'm a different religion and we both kind of laughed and i said no would you like me to talk to her and she said no i'm going to talk to her myself and i said that's great and then i would urge any of you who are considering being a part of amen to really think about it because it's going to join you with other people who are passionate about sharing the good news of jesus and his soon coming and also the health message because our best commodity for any of us is our health good evening glam micronesia uh army family and tonight again this is a day two of my friends and i'm going to introduce a good friend of mine and doctor walsh and dr olish is a physician the family physician and also he's a public health doctor and he stopped as a associate pastor before and now he is all over the world speaking and the international speaker to be and and i heard he went to india and australia many places well actually he went through the zoom meeting as well and uh we are so glad that he's joined with us and uh we are for the technology as well and over there in the uh connecticut uh east coast is like still 4 30 in the morning but he can still connect with us so uh thank you dr ors to uh join us again and i'm gonna uh open up with the prayer and then i'm gonna pass the time to dr let's pray father in him thank you so much for the privilege that we can learn and we can hear your work tonight and note please uh strength and his mind and also his spirit and so that he can speak your word to us and uh help us to open our heart so that we can't understand your message to in each one of us in just amen tonight topic is uh dueling of the mind and dr time is yours thank you that sushi good to see you uh good to be back with everyone tonight um and um just praising god uh for this opportunity to be with you all again um so let me get right into this we have a lot to discuss tonight um and this is the dulling of the mind part one and uh we'll do the second part tomorrow night uh and uh again a whole lot to discuss so uh let's get right into this our scripture reading for tonight is taken from ecclesiastes chapter seven ecclesiastes chapter seven starting at verse 5 ecclesiastes 7 and verse 5. the bible says it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools so our message again tonight dulling the mind part one from our series this week uh the mind of christ let's pray father god we thank you for this opportunity to study your word we thank you for this opportunity to fellowship lord i just ask once again lord that you send your holy spirit and that lord you just fill this time with truth um and with power lord you speak you uh illuminate the words uh father and you stay with the technology as we do this lord so that lord your people might be blessed this is our prayer in jesus name amen all right so we're gonna jump to the book of daniel chapter three um and as some background of course um in daniel chapter one daniel and the three hebrew boys are um challenged with eating of the king's meat and drinking his wine and they refuse instead they drink water and eat pulse this starts them off uh in the right direction by daniel chapter two nebuchadnezzar has a vision um and no one can interpret it and uh he is quite impressed with daniel's ability to not only interpret the dream but daniel is able to tell him the dream he cannot um but he cannot remember and uh it is the basis of a lot of our prophecy but babylon being the head of gold and nebuchadnezzar in his vision where this where we'll show you should get more into the into the image in a second but he see this image is given of him of the head of gold and nebuchadnezzar's head over heels in love he loves the power he loves the idea that his kingdom is so incredible um that he eventually goes to make a real life version of this image that he saw in his in the dream but he makes the whole thing of gold a symbol that he is looking to be in power forever he wants his kingdom to last forever almost in defiance of what god told him in the vision so daniel chapter 3 in verse 1 says nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold whose height was three score cubits and the breath thereof six cubits he set it up in the plain of dura in the province of babylon now that would probably be as high as 90 feet tall a pretty pretty extensive uh m statue and even to this day on the plains of durham i should have found a picture of it uh there there's a rectangular rectilinear mound uh that sits on the plane of dura to this day it is about uh 25 feet high um and it's an exact square of about 46 feet at the base um and and so um heslop says this but it seems like it would almost been the pedestal of a colossal statue so there are there's some archaeological or maybe some archaeological evidence of this statue actually um when you look at it so this is the bible a little picture of babylonian empire um very powerful empire they were uh battling with the assyrian empire for a while but the syrian empire was actually taken out by god uh hezekiah prayed and one angel destroyed 180 000 of their soldiers and that pretty much uh they never really recovered from that without assyria babylon rose to incredible dominance um and they were very intelligent people um a sophisticated society systems of financial trade interest investing uh babylon had all of that and with it came great riches and power um to the babylonians and of course to the babylonian king and to this day some of those institutions and ways of money-making and economy exist uh and even to this day the influence even of the of the false worship systems of babylon still influenced the world today of course they had the hanging gardens and they had built many things babylon was a beautiful beautiful city um the symbol was the lion and babylon was one of those places where it was it was almost mythical to visit the city of babylon unless of course you were one of the captives and uh the captivity of judah lasted for 70 years as jeremiah the prophet predicted uh daniel and the three hebrew boys went in the first siege of babylon somewhere around 605 bc and you can see that they you couldn't just go straight across the desert take the shortest cut here you had to go up and all the way around the fertile crescent uh to babylon and it was you can only imagine daniel and the three hebrew boys of course were princes they were uh descendants of royalty um and it would have been you know unimaginable unimaginable the things that they would have had to go through in order to get to babylon it would have been a very difficult thing of course here's nebuchadnezzar himself um in a form of a bust um he was a a great king um and the bible gives a lot of detail into his life especially how he um converted over eventually under the influence of the captives which is one of the most phenomenal stories in the bible in my opinion but of course the head of gold uh was babylon um in this vision that he had in daniel chapter two the um arm shoulder torso was a middle-person empire grease the midsection was a bronze the legs room the feet mixed with iron and clay went into modern day europe um and to some extent really even the the rise and power of america which is then of course um reflect again reflected more in detail in revelation chapter 13 the rise of america um and so the story goes daniel 3 and 3 and verse 2 then nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes the governors the captains the judges the treasurers the councillors the sheriffs and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which nebuchadnezzar the king had set up so he sets up this thing he brings all of the leadership all of the influential people to come to the dedication of this image that nebuchadnezzar has made verse 3 it says then the princes the governors and captains the judges and treasurers the councillors the sheriffs and all the rulers of the provinces were gathered together into the dedication of the image that nebuchadnezzar the king had set up and they stood before the image that nebuchadnezzar had set up so they got there they're in the plane of dura they're standing before this great image the sheriffs the counselors all the rulers everyone is there uh in verse four then a herald crowd aloud to you it is commanded o people nations and languages that at the time when you hear the sound of the cornet the flute the harp the book the sultry the dulcimer and all kinds of music you fall down and worship the golden image that nebuchadnezzar the king have set up music is instrumental in this process a false worship and in verse 6 it says and whoso falleth not down in worship shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace so the the image is set up the rulers and leaders are there the captives of israel are there um everyone is brought out this is uh nebuchadnezzar's high time they begin to play music to get people um ready to worship and the punishment for not worshiping is that you'd be thrown into a fiery furnace now they the babylonians had a lot of furnaces and the reason they had all these furnaces because the stone was not readily available to build within babylon so they had to bake brick um so they had furnaces and so um the brick was used pretty extensively um brick normally would be cured at about a thousand degrees centigrade but a babylonian brick kiln might have operated even hotter some scholars think up to 1300 centigrade um and it would make a colorful uh um they put a colorful glaze on it so they could it would really ornate really beautiful really decorative to show you how interesting it is this is an actual stone and nebuchadnezzar would stamp his name on every stone so the buildings basically said nebuchadnezzar all over them um on each in individual brick and then the bricks would be colored and they would have you know beautiful appearance so it says here therefore at the time when all the people heard the sound of the cornet flute harp sack but sultry and all kinds of music all the people the nations and the languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that nebuchadnezzar the king had set up if you could imagine the size of this concert the influence of music to prepare people to bow there were people from all over the empire many of whom already had their gods and so um this was a new god that they would have to a new image they would have to bow down and do and so it's almost as if to prepare their minds to worship this music was played now music has an interesting influence on the human brain i always say music bypasses the frontal lobe it doesn't mean that there's some the music does something much different than a lot of other forms of of such of sensory input what what i mean by that is that when when you listen to music multiple parts of the brain have to light up as you can see here in order to process music well and then the frontal lobe has to make sense of it so it the frontal lobe has like the final work but that means that the music is already in the message can get in before you get a chance to process it that's what's important so when you play music it can have powerful influences on people music is is a great tool for good or for evil and i should have put some slides up on this and you have to remember in the spiritual realm satan according to the book of ezekiel he is built with pipes and tabats lucifer was a living breathing musical instrument uh the head of the heavenly choirs he would lead worship in heaven he he knows music better than anyone on earth um and he uses music to take his advantage um some people think music is just music and it's harmless but there's a lot of ways that you can tell in your in simple ways in life music has great power there's a reason nebuchadnezzar played music before he asked them to worship well music um simultaneously stimulates the left and the right hemisphere of the brain it boosts learning and information intake therefore augmenting cognitive skills in fact when you play music someone can learn something um five times better five times more efficiently um it boosts learning up to five times that is powerful so this is why when children are little we sing them songs for them to learn uh probably most famously is are the abcs a b c d e f g why do we do that we do that because it's a way to stick that into your mind in fact even as adults if i can't remember what letter comes after another one i almost have to sing that song that's how powerful just putting something to melody is this is why church don't miss this this is why the hymns of the church will always be important um because those are songs that have powerful meaning put to music um doctrinal meaning um and you know i'll spoiler alert you guys on this one a lot of the modern christian music is devoid of that very emotional and some of it very appropriate you can sing it but it does a lot of it doesn't tie you to any commit you to any doctrinal truths part of the reason we sing songs in church is because it teaches us about god about christ about his word about his truth and music accelerates that learning and so the devil does not want that so you will notice as you go along music in church um has gotten less and less instructive less and less informative in its lyrical content more and more emotional and we'll talk about when music becomes emotional like this what does it actually do to a person um first samuel 16 and verse 23 and it came to pass when an evil spirit from god was upon saul that david took a harp and played with his hand so saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him now um god allowed these evil spirits to get to saul that's what that's what the text is saying in order to remove the evil spirits david would come in and he would play his harp why is this significant if you can play an evil spirit out of someone i have to ask your church does that mean music could play an evil spirit into someone um does it you know does music have the power to change the spiritual atmosphere around a person according to samuel 16 23 the christian would have to believe that this is true this means that what we listen to is critically important nebuchadnezzar knew to play music uh at the time of the dedication of his image because he knew he needed to bring the the um resistance um uh and the threshold down and those who did not believe in worshipping idols daniel and the three hebrew boys and of course daniel is missing in the story but the three hebrew boys would never bow down you know would not raise tabata unt to idols but they would not have been the only captives of jerusalem and jerusalem that were there yet they're the only ones ever mentioned as not having bowed the purpose of the music was to change the spiritual atmosphere allow people to think something isn't as bad as it is and um for those people who say that music has no power uh one of the tests that people say that you can try is to actually see if you can get a version of a movie without the music and see how different without this background score how much less emotional how how much less feeling a movie has a scary movie is nowhere near as scary without the music that builds to the scenes that they're trying to get you to be afraid in um and this is the way music works it can not only change the spiritual atmosphere it can change your emotional state move you from one state to another it's very powerful this is why uh solomon says in ecclesiastes chapter 7 that it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools it's better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools and so for a lot of us as christians we want music that's going to make us feel good but it might very well be the song fools it is better actually to hear the rebuke of the wise and i would to to kind of crystallize that i would say it's better to have the word preach straight to hear the full gospel all of its truth then to go into a worship situation where you are you are you're you know where everything is kind of mild and soft and and we don't get the hard truths um and this is one of the ways the devil is going to you know kind of continue leo decia in her sleep um and try and keep people from waking up making you have an emotional experience as nebuchadnezzar was trying to do without any real transformative preaching teaching doctrine in song or word it's better to hear the rebuke of the wise it's better to be rebuked better to get your toes stepped on in church when you hear a sermon that that speaks to your situation and rebukes your wrong doing and calls you to repentance than to hear the song of fools that is so comfortable and so wonderful that you are not moved into that place so how does music affect us otherwise well music and health um an emotional response of the secretion of immune boosting hormones is um induced by certain music so we know that music can release serotonin make you feel more satisfied it can really release dopamine to make to give you a little bit of a feeling of euphoria and even adrenaline if the music is hype enough give you energy and kind of uh get you up but it says here music decreases the stress-related hormone cortisol the increased levels of which have weakened the immune system hence the chances of illness get reduced so if you play the right music good music um and probably any music you enjoy to some extent would do this uh regardless of the type of music but it would bring down your stress levels make you feel more relaxed cortisol when it's high we'll talk more about this as we go through the week cortisol levels when they're high your body gets cortisol resistant in your immune system because it's cortisol's job to keep the inflammatory aspects of the immune system at bay when you get cortisol resistance because you're always stressed out you can't control an inflammatory process and you become inflamed internally by your own stress this is one of the reasons why as i said yesterday one of the most important aspects of the seven-day adventist health message is to trust in god because trusting in god reduces stress um so cortisol levels need to stay down music has the ability to mess with this uh and in a good way to bring the cortisol levels down so here's there's some experiments i'm going to mention you can you can look these up um yourself but it says the ability of mice to navigate a food maze was tested by continuously playing the music at low volumes to eliminate behavioral changes so they gave these mics they were three groups of mice uh one group uh was given like no music one group was given like classical music one group was given um different forms of like rock or or voodoo rhythms they call it um it says here those subjected to either silence or straw swaltz's had no problem with the maze with a little advantage to the ladder so those that had the waltzes the classical music actually did a little bit better those exposed to voodoo drumming performed worse and finally became cannibalistic hyperactive and aggressive and even too confused to complete the maze so the music changed the way that the mice were able to see and and get through the maze but also messed with the mice's mind does music have this power according to what we read in the book of samuel yes it does um to to change the way people think but the way that the the study points it out it says the highly abnormal neuronal growth patterns with excessive dendrite branches growing out in all directions and having few connections with other neurons were found in the hippocampus region of the brains of these mice this region acts in learning and memory formation due to an increase in dendrite branching the messenger rna involved in memory formation also increased it meant that the brain tried to analyze the sound stimulus but failed so i i won't get into this deep into the signs of music but it's synchronous and dissynchronous and it seems as if if the music is this synchronous it it affects the brain in a different way in a notorious way and much of the music that the world listens to is in that uh dissynchronous pattern but it's more than just that it's not just the rhythms it's also the way the melodies are played it's what is said in a lot of the music um it's a combination of all of these things that affect the human mind here's another study this just to show you the power of music 60 patients were enrolled in a study soon after they were hospitalized for major strokes all received standard stroke care in addition a third of the patients were randomly assigned to listen to recorded music for at least one hour a day another third listened to audiobooks and the final group did not receive auditory stimulation after three months the verbal memory improved sixty percent in the music listeners as compared to 18 in audiobook group and 29 in the patients who did not receive auditory stimulation in addition the music listeners ability to perform and control mental operations a skill called focused attention improved by 17 while the other patients did not improve at all music is powerful some people say oh it's just music what these studies show you music can affect even the way the body heals after a stroke so can it be then used if it can be used for good can it be used for bad if it can be used to to develop um the mind after a stroke or redevelop i should say a mind after stroke what can it do to a mind that is still developing period well a 2006 study of almost 1500 teenagers found that teens who heavily heavily listened to music featuring featuring sexual subject matter are more likely to start having sex earlier than those who do not by a margin look at this church by a margin of almost two to one the study authors found that the pervasive message in such music that of st uh of studly carefree men and subservient sex object women is reinforced even if it isn't closely paid attention to this is what i mean by um quote unquote bypassing the frontal lobe even even um if it isn't paid attention to the music still has its effect on the mind we think that it really lowers kids inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful in terms of their decisions so i hope you get this that what music ultimately does is it lowers the inhibition can you imagine eve at the tree and the serpent dangling there the serpent being um how satan uh was able to to kind of get in front of eve i would imagine that you know we're told by the spirit of prophecy the serpent was very beautiful and his voice melodious but can you imagine how wonderfully musical that serpent probably sounded how it lowered the inhibition just the sound the musical sound of the serpent's voice if satan was in control um would have even further pulled eve in music has the ability to lower the threshold it with you'll do certain things and so of course you you think about something like a nightclub with the lights flashing with the music playing with the alcohol flowing inhibitions come way down um this is what the devil wants he wants to bring people to a place and he wants to reach the three hebrew boys and the modern day three hebrew boys are the children the young people of our churches he wants to influence them to bow down to idols and images that of that they have been trained and raised not to he wants them to worship themselves to just go after pleasure uh sexual pleasure um pleasure and chemicals like alcohol we'll talk more about that later on in the week as well this is satan's design plan to lure in the youth set them up and then have them drunk on the things of the world so that they are not paying attention this is why the bible says to be sober be sober be sober if music can release dopamine which gives you pleasure and serotonin which gives you satisfaction it's one of the ways that the devil can make you um a bit intoxicated to make you not be sober to not be vigilant as as the new testament writer writes to be sober to be vigilant for your adversary the devil walketh about like a roaming lion seeking whom he may devour but if you've got your headphones on and you're listening to stuff that is sending you in the opposite of direction of god and specifically here church if it has the power to influence you in the spiritual realm as it did saul this is one of the reasons i believe that many young people come to church and they can't stand church all week they've been listening to music that is introducing them to different uh to different spirits unholy spirits then we ask them to come to church and be in the presence of the holy spirit and speak of christ well the spirit they've been with all week doesn't want to be around the holy spirit and so you know a lot of young people come to church they can't stand can't even sit still in church because of what they've been exposed to all week um you know i've heard i've had young people when i was a pastor and who listened to people like marilyn manson who now of course um is in some serious trouble for um um alleged uh sexual abuse of women and all kinds of stuff but this guy was like a elder in the church of satan and if you listen to that music all week and you come to church church that church may not be a place you feel comfortable in music has a powerful effect not just the music itself but the music videos um a later study of such imagery and videos talking about sexual content and videos this one focusing on teen women and young girls confirmed the likelihood that frequent exposure may not only influence how girls see themselves with greater effect of the younger the girl is but also could actually affect their ability to have healthy relationships do you see that the study co-author stacey hust of the edward r murrow college of communication said essentially when women perceive this heterosexual scripting that's in the media this can affect influence or inform how they think men and women should behave toward one another could it be the part of the reason we have such trouble with relationships is many of us have grown up on misogynistic rock and roll hip-hop rap music um even dancehall reggae music we have grown up on music forms uh even even the um reggaeton spanish music that that makes women objects and men uh simply to conquest the women um it you know and so the music videos that they make with people like cardi b and these people um they just they just they they they make a woman simply a collection of body parts and and and the young girl growing up that doesn't feel like she looks like or or fits in you know her her self-image can be damaged you know she can think that men should have a certain type of role in a relationship rather than the kind of partnership that god calls for in a scripture between husband and wife and it can affect them the music and think about it the human brain does not finish developing until around 25 years of old so when an 11 year old 12 year old 7 year old 13 year old girl is listening to this music her mind and its plasticity is being formed and shaped to believe lies about her own body lies about relationships lies about how men should treat her all of that and and giving you this this this very um surreal concept of romantic love not grounded in the realities of what it takes to make a relationship work music has that power it can dull the mind we talk just about how powerful the mind is the wrong kind of music can limit how you see life and how you do things so how does the media impact uh the impact immediate uh impact of media use on children and youth as i said the amount of violence on television is on the rise the average child sees twelve thousand violent acts on television every year including many depictions of murder and rape more than one thousand studies confirm that exposure to heavy doses of television violence increases aggressive behavior particularly in boys other studies link television or newspaper publicity of suicides to increase suicide risk there is a real problem here the spirit of prophecy says that by beholding we become changed by beholding we become change so seeing these things actually begins to impress upon our minds we'll show you more on that in a little while but you know we are all visually very captivated and this is probably like a one of the super stores a big screen tv and a little kid just walks right up into the face of this cartoon character which looks so realistic more realistic than the cartoons of old um but to become visually captivated it's difficult for a child to go to school and pay attention um as we transition from talking about music now to television and and media it's difficult for a child to to go to school and pay attention but this is what the teacher's competing with all of the different pixels on the television they go in and out the fr a frame on television lasts mere seconds eight to 12 seconds so when you go to school and the teacher just stands there for an hour it's nowhere near as captivating and can probably lead as we'll see to some attention deficit issues um for young people uh especially children uh and male children a lot of research has been done around television viewing and children remember we're talking about dulling the mind now and adam lipson a neurosurgeon with igea brain and spine says one of the best studies is from tohu tohoku university in japan they noted thickening of the frontal polar cortex which is related to verbal reasoning ability and also correlated with a drop in iq in proportion of the number of hours of television watching that's profound he says in addition they noted thickening in the visual cortex in the occipital lobe and in the hypothalamus which may correlate with aggression studies involving adults have tied television watching to type 2 diabetes depression and even crime adds lipson many of the studies report adverse effects with television watching greater than one hour a day he says so if you do watch television you want to make sure you average according to this study less than an hour a day um it obviously makes a strong argument that maybe no television is better um but it shows you that it's not without impact nebuchadnezzar wanted to make sure that he entertained the crowd um before he did anything um you know and there are many stories in the bible like this but in this story he plays the music he gets the crowd entertained um he sets up the image it's a all of the senses are involved and does and all of what nebuchadnezzar did does not have the power that a television screen or a computer screen has in order to influence a mind this says here there have been eeg electroencephalogram studies demonstrate that television watching converts the brain from beta wave activity to alpha waves which are associated with a daydreaming state and reduced use of critical thinking skills so music is one way that you can get influence the mind without people being really aware of it television is another way if you watch television what they teach what they what they espouse what the story lines tend to lead you to believe because you got to remember somebody is producing executive producing directing writing television shows most of them have an agenda there's something they want you to walk away especially in this day age of activism uh they wanted to walk away believing something of reinforcing a belief and so there's a lot of push in it and what the studies show is that your brain actually goes into like a daydreaming state where you are less able to put up the critical firewall in order to protect yourself so if you're watching shows for example that promote evolution you know even good shows on on you know on the nature channels and stuff um you know some of that is going to slip in you know if you keep hearing it over and over and over again that millions and millions of years ago this happened a million million years ago that happened you know your critical thinking skills just aren't there for the entire time eric braverman founder and president of path foundation in new york a non-profit research organization devoted to brain health is a little more blunt and i got to cut out some of what he said he basically said the tv you know turns your brain into like pudding but he doesn't say it so nicely he says television mesmerizes people and turns them into intellectual spectators it feeds passivity and makes you less engaged in fact the way i tell it to young people is you're watching other people get rich and a lot of times you your the energy you take to watch other people get rich means you don't get anything you you you're not advancing in life so here it says research has long established the teens who watch movies or listen to music that glamorizes drinking drug use or violence tend to engage in those behaviors themselves a 2012 study shows that movies influence teen sexual attitudes and behaviors as well the study published in psychological science found that the more teens were exposed to sexual content in movies the earlier they started having sex and the likelier they were to have casual unprotected sex so not only does the music push kids to have sex early the movies do and if you've seen a movie in the last 30 years you know most of them promote uh pretty reckless um sexual behavior you know if even if you move out of the christian realm where you should wait until you're married which is of god's standard i mean even there's no idea around protecting yourself against sexually transmitted infections there's no talk of often of even can consent uh i mean it it really lowers the bar around uh sexual intimacy and damage um the damage is greatly the concept of purity um and in television movies do that so how does the bible describe it listen to how the bible describe isaiah 33 15 says he that walks upright walks righteously and speaks uprightly he that despises the gain of oppressions that shakes his hands from holding of bribes that stops his ears from hearing of blood and shuts his eyes from seeing evil the last two pieces of this i'm going to give you what the reward for such a person is here in a second the last two pieces of it says that you should stop your ears from hearing of blood that is listening to music that is violent and detrimental listening to anything that is violent and detrimental you should shut your eyes from seeing evil how many times when we watch television are we actually watching evil well here are consequences he says if you isaiah said if you don't do these things you will dwell on high your place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks bread shall be given to you his water shall be sure and look at verse 17 it says thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty they shall behold the land that is very far off i want you to get that what you watch today may impact whether or not you see the king later you might see a television show today but it may cause you to not see the lord in his elevated state at a later time that is what there's almost like a warning in isaiah you know you'd have to believe the name any real understanding of what radio television cds streaming music um uh netflix hulu and all these other services but he would never have understood the power that would come in what we hear or see yet he gives the warning way back then that what we hear see can impact how we see eternity here's what uh eleanor white says satan's plan for your mind satan stands ready to infatuate the mind and soul to pursue a course directly contrary to god's expressed will that he may separate that soul from god and he interposes his temptations and gains control over the mind and the heart's affections this is satan's studied plan to lead souls to turn from one mighty and counsel to the persuasion of minds who have no love for god no love for the truth he wants you to put your mind satan wants you to put your mind in a place where it is under the influence of individuals who do not love god and do not love the truth that's what nebuchadnezzar was doing when he played the music trying to get the influence of these minds away from the god of heaven for those who had come out of jerusalem and judah um to get the everyone else to a mindset that he himself nebuchadnezzar was a god um and that is still happening today we talk about hollywood stars well in the scripture who are the stars the scripture says that the third part of the stars fell from heaven if you're a star on earth um you know it's almost a statement of of being a fallen angel get the influence of these stars um i i was listening i was listening to something yesterday they were saying that we are no longer in the age of information we are now in the age of influence we'll talk more about social media later on in the week but literally we're being everyone's being constantly influenced even the news the news is meaningless you know it's really just the opinions of the of the channel that it isn't the actual news you don't know what's actually going on you're just hearing cnn's side of it or fox news side of it or or msnbc side of it or bbc's you're not getting straight news anymore everything is about influencing us and this is biblically and prophetically accurate you will receive the market obesity in your forehead or in your hand as we talked about yesterday why because those who have been influenced they may not make a conscious decision to to receive the mark of the beast but in their hand in order to keep their their money going and their families fed they're going to follow that influence because that is how they're going to survive uh so uh if you're not able to critically think today if you're not able to to study god's word and analyze it for yourself the scripture says to study the show yourself approved unto god if you're not doing that these influences from the media will turn your mind down it will dull your mind move your mind away from being like the mind of christ and and put you in a position to receive the mark of the beast because you won't be able to put up the mental fight to choose what god would have you to do so we'll finish the story here daniel 3 and verse 8 wherefore at that time certain chaldeans came there and accused the jews is the fun part of the talk they spake and said to the king of nebuchadnezzar king live forever thou o king has made a decree that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet flute harp sackbutt sultry and dulcimer and all kinds of music shall fall down and worship the golden image and whoever does not fall down in worship that should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace he says in verse 12 of daniel 3 there are certain jews whom thou has set over the affairs of the province of babylon shadrach meshach and abednego these men o king have not regarded thee they serve not thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou has set up i like what this says because i want to be a certain jew i want to be a certain christian i want to be the one that stands the one that stands out in the crowd there i'm sure there were many people from jerusalem who knew they shouldn't bow to this image that pretended to you know um um you know hypothetically bend down and tie their shoes or or act as if they you know just were kneeling but they caved in and there were only three certain jews jews who already had something to lose according to text here they already had been set up over affairs of the province of babylon not bowing meant that they lost money influence in a foreign land where they had been taken captive as young men yet they stood firm to the principles of god will you be able to stand like this in a time of trouble 13 then nebuchadnezzar and his rage and fury commanded to bring shadrach meshach and abednego and they brought these men before the kings they went and grabbed them bring them before the king nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them is it true oh shadrach meshach and abednego do not ye serve my gods in the works of the golden image which i have set up obviously there are other statues of the gods there as well and if you almost can hear the hurt and nebuchadnezzar's voice wait a minute didn't i give you guys position aren't you guys in favor with me and you would do this and embarrass me in front of everyone not bow down why won't you worship my gods why aren't you uh worshiping the golden image which i set up remember this is it's all about worship it's all about worship that's what the market of beast is about it's about worship the seal of living god verse 15 he wants to give them a second chance so in verse 15 he says now if you be ready that at that time when you hear the sound of the music you fall down and worship the image which i have made well but if you worship not you'll be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace he says listen i can give you another chance bow down worship you'll be fine but if you don't worship you'll be thrown in the into the fiery furnace the last phrase here is powerful nebuchadnezzar says and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands never can i say if your god was going to deliver you you wouldn't be here you would never have been taken captive i wouldn't have sacked jerusalem and walked out with the the holy articles out of your temple which god is going to deliver you if he didn't deliver you in jerusalem if he didn't deliver you in the in your own land would he deliver you now who's this guy that's going to deliver you you'd better bow down you better have some sense time is running out but shadrach meshach and abednego answered and said to the king oh nebuchadnezzar we are not careful to entity in this matter some christians are too careful some christians are so careful they don't want to offend anybody they have made the gospel of jesus christ into the equivalent of a spiritual twinkie no spiritual nutritional value whatsoever it is no longer the sprouted grain bread that god designed it to be it is no longer the rich fruit with all of its phytonutrients it is now just empty hollow food-like substance spiritual food-like substance we'll talk more about food and stuff later on in the week you can't be at some point you can't be careful there's a line you cross when somebody's got to stand up and say thus saith the lord this is what god says this is the way that we will go you can't dance around a thing forever and unfortunately there are those who believe that somehow we as christians will be able to continue to live and never offend anyone we're going to show you some evidences of the attacks that are coming against the adventist church you're going to have to learn to stand up verse 17 if it be so a god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace he says they make it clear listen we're not worried because our god can deliver us and then they say and he will deliver us out of nine handle king and i don't believe that's just talking about the three hebrew boys i think he there understand the prophecy that nebuchadnezzar will not rule forever and that they will not be in um babylon forever but verse 18 is powerful he says but if not even if god chooses not to deliver us be it known unto the o king that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden images thou has set up i love this they say listen our god can he will deliver us but guess what even if he decided not to deliver us we would never serve your gods we would choose death over dishonoring our god powerful stuff now nebuchadnezzar is furious verse 19 then was nebuchadnezzar full of fury the bible says in the form of his vices was changed against shadrach meshach and abednego he had him he had a more sympathetic tone he was trying to convince them kindly in order for him nor them to be embarrassed but when they say listen we're not careful how we answer you the bible says his vice has changed the way he his face was even formed was different towards shadrach meshach and abednego therefore he spake and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was once to be heated so they tried to heat the furnace up more and more and more and he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind shadrach meshach and abednego and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace then these men were bound in their coats their holes and then their hats and then their other other and in their other garments were cast into the midst of a burning firefighter so they didn't take off the clothes so that the clothes would actually work as an incendiary agent so that they would they would burn faster they they just they had this thing all set up they won't throw them in the furnace and there's some scholars who argue that throwing them into the furnace was a way to almost like sacrifice them to the to the babylonian gods remember furnaces were very important because they had to make the brick for all of nebuchadnezzar's building campaigns so they take them and they throw them and they're fully bound and fully in their clothes therefore because the king's commandment was urgent and the furnace exceedingly hot the flames of the fire slew those men that took up shadrach meshach and abednego it was so bad so hot so terrible that even the soldiers these mighty men who grabbed them and threw them in the fire they dropped dead that was the first sign the first miracle and these three men shadrach meshach and abednego fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery fires they throw them in they fall down but the bible says in verse 24 nebuchadnezzar the king is astonished he got up in haste and spake and said unto the counters did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire they said okay that's true yes we did daniel 3 and verse 25 says he answered and said lo i see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire and they have no hurt and the form of the fourth is like the son of god powerful and i believe when they were taken and thrown into this fiery furnace and the fire burned what bound them and nothing else let me tell you something god is going to send some of us into the fiery trials of life you're going to have to stand for god under difficult circumstances but what god will allow to happen is he will keep you from the fire and destroy what was binding you he will set you free in your trial these men are there and here's the thing sometimes the only way you really get to meet god really get to have an experience with god is to meet him in the fire by the time this is all over the three hebrew boys had a better relationship with god than they had before and of course they they were able to meet with the pre-incarnate christ in the fire powerful story powerful stuff christ still meets you in the fire of your trials sometimes we're trying to avoid the trial but it is actually the trial itself that gives us the nexus the opportunity to meet with him when i was in guam i was going through a fiery trial at the time and it gave me an opportunity to meet with god while the trial was going on while the difficulty was still going on i had a chance to spend time with god and i would not ever ask for that time to be taken away to undo how things went daniel 3 verse 27 and the princes governors and captains the king's councils being gathered together saw these men a pool upon whose bodies of fire had no power nor was a hair of their head singed neither were their coats changed no the smell of fire had passed on them so what nebuchadnezzar brought in all the dignitaries to make a point that he was the greatest in the universe that he was the head of gold not a whole image of gold and by the time it was all over god took what nebuchadnezzar the the stage that nebuchadnezzar had set god took it and used it as an opportunity to introduce the entire uh babylonian empire all the people of influence in the empire to introduce them to the power of jehovah see they thought jehovah had no power because they were taken captive the people of judah and of jerusalem but that was because they had sinned those that stood up for god still had his protection and this was the way to show it it's like in the new testament when paul goes before nero and nero has all of the um all of the the dignitaries from all over the roman empire and paul preaches a powerful sermon that's um the you know second timothy uh the whole book of second timothy is written from the vantage of when paul is in prison uh dealing with that situation god will sometimes put you into trouble and draw the world around so that the world would see how powerful god is and even in our small parts of our lives god still does this daniel 3 verse 28 then nebuchadnezzar spake and said blessed be the god shadrach meshach and abednego who have sent his angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him and have changed the king's word and yielded their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any god except their own god he says listen he said he says they trusted in god and have changed the king's word king said listen man i can't go against this god now remember it was nebuchadnezzar said who is this god that shall deliver you now saying listen they've changed my word i believe as time comes to an end there will be an outpouring of the holy spirit the latter rain and i believe god's people are going to we're going to see miraculous manifestations of the holy spirit we've got to begin to prepare for god to work miracles man's minds have become so uh calcitrant against the truth that i believe it will take supernatural manifestation for many to come to know god nebuchadnezzar said they yield to their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any god except their own god 3 29 says therefore i make a decree that every people nation and language which speak anything amiss against the god of shadrach meshach and abednego shall be cut in pieces and their house shall be made a dunghill and look at this the god he didn't know before he says because there is no other god that can deliver after this sort then the king promoted shadrach meshach and abednego in the province of babylon they went from because they were willing to lose everything and go into the fire they were promoted and the whole empire was left to honor god why were they able to do this because they had sharp minds because they had given their lives to christ in such a way that they would not compromise what we notice um the media music television wants to do is to dull the mind we'll talk we're going to do another section on dull in the mind tomorrow what they want to do is dull the mind so that you get to a place where you um accept whatever is being told to you and that you will be willing to bow to the idols of this day i challenge your church i challenge you to take your the calling and election given you seriously because jesus is soon to return will you stand in the fires of this world let's pray father god thank you lord for the instruction in your word and for the story of the three hebrew boys i pray in a special way lord that we would stand as they did we would shield our minds from the influences of this world and music and entertainment that would draw us away from you help us to raise our children that way and to conduct our even our church services that way that you are glorified always and in all things this is our prayer in jesus's name amen amen thank you doctor olish what a a powerful message tonight and thank you for joining us tonight and please uh join us tomorrow night again in same same time and until then and see you and tomorrow and bye bye you

Channel: AMEN Guam-Micronesia

Views: 944

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: adventist medical evangelism network, power of the mind, mental health, mental performance, adventist, health, music, media

Id: 10w1q99LJy0

Length: 61min 12sec (3672 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021