{"id":18378,"date":"2016-11-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/daniel-003-the-blessings-of-overcoming-the-world-part-2\/"},"modified":"2016-11-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T06:00:00","slug":"daniel-003-the-blessings-of-overcoming-the-world-part-2","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/daniel-003-the-blessings-of-overcoming-the-world-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel 003: The Blessings of Overcoming the World – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[72],"series_event":[467],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18378","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-daniel","series_event-daniel","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Daniel 003: The Blessings of Overcoming the World - Part 2","sermon_date":"20161127","sermon_month":"11","sermon_year":"2016","sermon_notes":4077,"sermon_slides":4079,"sermon_mp3":4087,"sermon_id":"1127161138105","series_or_event":467,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":72,"chapter_and_verse":"1:8-16","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nSUGAR LAND BIBLE CHURCH\n\nLesson 3, The Blessings of Overcoming the World, Part 2, Daniel 1:8- 16\n\nNovember 27, 2016,\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0 If we could take our Bibles and open them to the Book of Daniel, chapter 1, verse 8.\u00a0 I trust everybody had a great thanksgiving.\u00a0 I was thinking about this, if the rapture were to occur today the Lord\u2019s going to have to work extra hard to pull us off the earth with all of that turkey and everything that we inhaled.\n\nDaniel 1:8; the title of our message this morning is The Blessings of Overcoming the World, Part 2.\u00a0 I want to thank Jim McGowan for subbing in last week; and I have just come off a travel schedule that almost killed me (to be honest with you).\u00a0 My wife said are you looking at your calendar, this was late October, and I said no.\u00a0 She says well you need to look at it because it\u2019s going to be kind of rough.\u00a0 So here we go; I went to Minnesota, a conference there, then I went to Oklahoma City to do an interview on Bible Prophecy, from there I went to Albuquerque, New Mexico, another conference.\u00a0 And last week I was in Boston, Massachusetts so I\u2019m tired, let\u2019s close in prayer.\u00a0 [Laughter]\u00a0 I told people I was going to Boston, Massachusetts and they said what are you doing there, is anything spiritual going on in Massachusetts?\n\nAnd it\u2019s funny how the Lord works; you know the least places you\u2019d expect Him, this is a group of Haitian believers and I was asked to speak at their 19th<\/sup> anniversary for their church, it must have been a church of 2,000-3,000 people.\u00a0 And somehow they had gotten my videos online about the book of Revelation so they had been watching those, they had been using those in their leadership class and I thought to myself, now I could not have orchestrated anything like this; here I am in Massachusetts, you know, the blue with the blue states, if you know what I\u2019m getting at here, and here is this group of Haitian believers, I had to speak through an interpreter and they all love the Bible, they love Bible prophecy, they knew about me and so I\u2019m like WOW, Lord, You really orchestrated this well.\u00a0\u00a0 [clapping]\u00a0 To me it\u2019s neat, and I kind of went up there with sort of a Jonah grumbling attitude, you know, and I have to have my attitude corrected, like Lord forgive me for shrinking You.\u00a0 So you just never know what God is going to do.\n\nWell, here we are in the book of Daniel and we are in our third lesson in the book of Daniel.\u00a0 Of course the book of Daniel is really about a terrible period of time for the nation of Israel.\u00a0 They have been torn out of their homeland and they\u2019re plummeted into a time period that the theologians call the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 The temple is about to be destroyed, they have no reigning king on David\u2019s throne.\u00a0 They have been exported about 350 miles to the east and they are in a place of captivity.\u00a0 And how do you live for God in the midst of those circumstances?\u00a0 What is the prophetic blueprint of God during these circumstances.\u00a0 And this is why God raised up the prophet Daniel, to explain this time period prophetically, and also to teach Israel how they are to live in the midst of paganism.\n\nSo the whole point of it is to encourage Judah by emphasizing the fact that God is sovereign and God is in control during this time of captivity.\u00a0 So you may feel like that in your life, you\u2019ve been ripped out of comfortable circumstances, or you\u2019ve been laid off from a job, or maybe there\u2019s some kind of economic or income shortfall in your life and you want to know, is God still there?\u00a0 And what we discover in this book is God not only is there but this is His opportunity that He seeks to show up in our lives in terms of His sovereignty.\n\nThe book of Daniel, as we talked about, has two parts to it; chapters 1-7 is the history; chapters 8-12 is prophecy and we are just inching our way into the first section of the book (history) where we come to chapter 1 which is really an introductory chapter.\u00a0 The rest of the book really doesn\u2019t make sense until we understand the crisis that God\u2019s people are in in chapter 1.\u00a0 So we have Daniel\u2019s circumstances, verses 1-2;\u00a0 Daniel\u2019s selection, verses 3-7; Daniel\u2019s dedication, verses 8-16; Daniel\u2019s blessing, verses 17-21.\u00a0 That\u2019s sort of a rough outline of the chapters as we go through it.\n\nWe\u2019ve already studied verses 1-2, Daniel\u2019s circumstances.\u00a0 There is a man named Nebuchadnezzar who is running Babylon at this time; this guy, as we\u2019re going to see, has major anger management issues.\u00a0 He is a dictator and his goal is to come against Jerusalem in three waves; the first is in 605 B.C., the second is in 597 B.C., the third is in 586 B.C.\u00a0 So when we open the pages of the book of Daniel the first wave, there in 605 B.C., has happened .\u00a0 Nebuchadnezzar has come, not to destroy the city in the sanctuary yet, he will do that, but he\u2019s come for the best and the brightest.\u00a0 And he basically takes the best and the brightest of Judah and he begins to brainwash them; he begins to indoctrinate them into Babylonian thinking, because his strategy, as we have seen and will see, is to get the best and the brightest on his team.\u00a0 And if you get the best and the brightest on your team you can talk the rest of the group to coming along peaceably.\n\nSo Nebuchadnezzar was nobody\u2019s fool, he knew exactly what he was doing and there is a specific strategy that he is at work implementing.\u00a0 The year is the third year of Jehoiakim, Daniel 1:1, which makes Daniel about 15 years of age when he is taken into captivity and he begins to be brainwashed by this man, Nebuchadnezzar.\u00a0 \u00a0[Daniel 1:1, \u201cIn the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.\u201d]\n\nThe location of where the children of Israel are taken to is in that circle to the east, 350 miles to the east, a place called Shinar in Hebrew.\u00a0 The Greeks called that place Mesopotamia, which means between the rivers.\u00a0 It\u2019s an area of an infamous past, the tower of Babel once stood there.\u00a0 It\u2019s an area of an infamous present, Daniel and his friends are taken there, and when we get into the subject of the book of Revelation and we discover the destruction of Babylon yet future, a great topic which we won\u2019t be getting into today, we discover it\u2019s an area of future destiny as well.\n\nSo there is a selection process, verses 3-7, where Nebuchadnezzar there in wave one comes for the best and the brightest.\u00a0 Daniel is a teenager, along with his three friends, are taken into that first wave and they\u2019re put through an intense program.\u00a0 There are entrance requirements into this program; he came, Nebuchadnezzar did, for the best looking (physical), the smartest (mental) and those with social skills because they had to be fit for serving in the king\u2019s court.\n\nVerse 4 describes the course of study that these folks went through; they are being brainwashed, not in the Law of God, not in Genesis through the end of the Old Testament, not in the things of God but in the literature of the Chaldeans, a pagan education.\u00a0 And this is to go on for three\u00a0 years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And Nebuchadnezzar, actually during this time period, verse 5, provides finances, financial support, tuition free education, we might put it that way, for these youths as they are going into this system where Nebuchadnezzar is seeking to alter their worldview.\u00a0 [Daniel 1:5, \u201cThe king appointed for them a daily ration from the king\u2019s choice food and from the wine which he drank, and appointed<\/em> that they should be educated three years, at the end of which they were to enter the king\u2019s personal service.\u201d]\n\nAnd Nebuchadnezzar is so arrogant that he actually takes the name of Daniel and his three friends and he gives them different names.\u00a0 Their original Hebrew names, and this is why I had Ed read this, I wanted to see how he pronounced all these.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the original Hebrew names.\u00a0 Daniel, which means God is my judge.\u00a0 Hananiah, which means Yahweh is gracious.\u00a0 Mishael, which means who is what God is?\u00a0 And Azariah, which means Yahweh has helped.\n\nAnd you read that and you immediately know something about these four youths and the families they came from.\u00a0 Every name that these youths were given reflected something of God\u2019s character, so obviously these youths came from homes that took God very seriously.\u00a0 They were homes that honored the great Hebrew Shema, which means listen, where God told the nation of Israel all the way back in the time of Moses, Deuteronomy 6:6-7, that they are to teach truth to their children, when they rise up, when they lie down, when they walk along the way.\u00a0 [Deuteronomy 6:6-7, \u201cThese words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [7] You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.\u201d]\u00a0 They were probably parents that were building their hopes on Proverbs 22:6, which says, \u201cTrain up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart thereof,\u201d from that path.\n\nSo the pattern of God is for spiritual truth to be passed from one generation to the next, through the parent\/child relationship.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing here about a youth pastor doing it, although we love youth pastors.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing here about a Christian college doing it, although we love Christian colleges.\u00a0 The pattern of God is for truth to be disseminated, not just in content but in terms of role modeling from parent to child.\u00a0 And if that\u2019s not happening in somebody\u2019s home a church or a Christian college is just playing catch up.\u00a0 The only thing a church, a youth program, a college, a Christian college, can do is reinforce what is happening in the home.\u00a0 You see, this is the job that parents cannot out source.\u00a0 This is something that God gave to the family structure.\n\nAnd obviously these families had done just that, as is evidenced by the name of these four\u00a0 youths.\u00a0 And now payday is coming because these youths find themselves in a circumstance where they\u2019re going to have to stand for God.\u00a0 They\u2019re not in Sunday School any longer, they\u2019re in a pagan environment and are these youths going to stand for God in the midst of hostile circumstances.\u00a0 Payday comes as we see these youths standing for God in difficult times.\n\nYou can think of the pride, it\u2019s not recorded in the Bible but the pride that those parents and grandparents felt as these children are not out making their own decisions.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s university, sitting under professors with PhD\u2019s telling them that the Bible is filled with myths, being around their peers saying let\u2019s go party let\u2019s go drinking, let\u2019s go do drugs.\u00a0 And they\u2019re not acquiescing to the world system.\n\nNebuchadnezzar, though, comes along and he does not like these names at all so he renames these youths; we don\u2019t really know the names, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; those are Jewish names.\u00a0 For whatever reason those names haven\u2019t stuck with us as remembering these youths but we do know these pagan names for some reason.\u00a0 They\u2019re given there in verse 7.\u00a0 Daniel\u2019s name is changed to Belshazzar, which means lady protect the king.\u00a0 Then the names of the three youths, his three friends, are changed to Shadrach, which means I am fearful of God, not respectful of God but fearful of God.\u00a0 Meshach which means I am of little account.\u00a0 And then Abed-nego which means servant of Nebo.\u00a0 Nebo was part of the Babylonian pantheon.\u00a0 The Babylonians were polytheistic and one of the key gods that they served was this god, (little g) named Nebo.\n\nAnd you see very clearly what Nebuchadnezzar is doing; he\u2019s saying I don\u2019t like\u00a0 your roots, I don\u2019t like your family, I don\u2019t like your tradition, I don\u2019t like where you came from so I am going to get you completely on my team and I\u2019m going to do so by even claiming ownership of you.\u00a0 Because in the Bible when somebody names something that is a sigh that the person doing the naming owns the very thing being named.\u00a0 That is the whole significance of God allowing Adam to name the animals in Genesis 2:19.\u00a0 [Genesis 2:19, \u201cOut of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.\u201d]\u00a0 It talks there about the animals that God brought to Adam; Adam was given the task of naming these animals.\n\nWell, why did God assign that task to Adam?\u00a0 \u00a0For the simple reason that when God originally created the human race He gave them authority over the animals.\u00a0 The animals are not there to listen to, they\u2019re not there to worship, they\u2019re there to be ruled over, not on a belligerent way but in a stewardship way.\u00a0 And that is the whole purpose of allowing Adam to name these various animals.\u00a0 So when Nebuchadnezzar comes in and renames these four youths what Nebuchadnezzar is saying is God is not in control, I\u2019m in control.\u00a0 The rest of the book of Daniel simply says this: Nebuchadnezzar, you\u2019re wrong, you\u2019re not in control of anything.\u00a0\u00a0 You may think you\u2019re in control but you have so little control over things, heaven\u00a0 understands it but you don\u2019t understand it.\n\nNow when we begin to get into a subject like this people say well, why doesn\u2019t the pastor talk about something relevant?\u00a0 I mean, who cares about this naming and who cares about what happened way back in the 6th<\/sup> century B.C.\u00a0 Who cares about Nebuchadnezzar?\u00a0 Who cares about this renaming?\u00a0 And the reason that this is relevant is because this is the very claim that the world system is placing over you as I speak.\u00a0 We are living in the devil\u2019s world.\u00a0 That will not change until the Second Advent of Christ, when the kingdom of this world becomes the Kingdom of our God and His Christ.\u00a0 This is why Satan is called the ruler of this world, John 12:31; the god of this world, 2 Corinthians 4:4; the prince and power of the atmosphere, Ephesians 2:2, the whole world lies in the lap of the wicked one, 1 John 5:19.\n\n[John 12:31, \u201cNow judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2 Corinthians 4:4, \u201cin whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.\u201d\u00a0 John 12:31, \u201cNow judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2 Corinthians 4:4, \u201cin whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ephesians 2:2, \u201cin which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I John 5:19, \u201cWe know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.\u201d]\n\nIn fact, Jesus was offered, by the devil, the kingdoms of this world, Luke 4:5-8, and the devil said this: I will give you all this domain and its glory for it has been handed over to me and I can give it to whomever I wish.\u00a0 [Luke 4:5, \u201cAnd he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. [6] And the devil said to Him, \u2018I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. [7] \u2018Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.\u2019\u00a0 [8] Jesus answered him, \u2018It is written, \u2018YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.\u2019\u201d]\n\nAnd Jesus never said to Satan well, that\u2019s not true, because it is true.\u00a0 So we are living, to a very large extent, in a world system that is hostile to God, exactly the kind of circumstances that Daniel and his three friends found themselves in.\n\nHow does this world system operate.\u00a0 How does it operate in the life of the child of God?\u00a0 And here is the strategy:\u00a0 the world system seeks conformity.\u00a0 John describes the world system this way in 1 John 2:16, \u201cFor all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.\u201d\u00a0 The world wants you to think the way it thinks in the area of lust of the flesh, lust of the eye and the pride of life.\u00a0 And every single day of my life as a Christian the world is trying to conform my thinking to its pattern of thought.\n\nThis is why Romans 12:2 says \u201cDo not be conformed to this world,\u201d I personally like the Philips translation of this, it says, \u201cDo not let the world squeeze you into its mold.\u201d\u00a0 Every time you watch TV, every time you pick up the newspaper, many times in conversation, many times you surf the internet, what is happening is the world is seeking to change the way you think.\u00a0 And the world wants to conform us into its image.\u00a0 And guess what happens to the child of God when we become conformed to the thinking of this world; our effectiveness is neutralized.\u00a0 What made Jesus so attractive to people was that He was different.\u00a0 His thinking was different. \u00a0His speech was different.\u00a0 His philosophy of life was different\u00a0 and people were attracted to Him on account of that.\n\nThink if Jesus just fit in with everybody else; think how His ministry would have been short-circuited.\u00a0 I\u2019m reminded of Lot, how\u2019s this for a sermon title: Are your lot like Lot?\u00a0 Lot, we know was a believer, it says it there in 2 Peter 2:7-8.\u00a0 [2 Peter 2:7-8, \u201cand if<\/em> He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men [8] (for by what he saw and heard that<\/em> righteous man, while living among them, felt his<\/em> righteous soul tormented day after day by their<\/em> lawless deeds).\u201d] \u00a0\u00a0But he just fit in with the crowd there in Sodom and Gomorrah.\u00a0 In fact, there\u2019s very little difference between Lot\u2019s life and the practitioners of all of the immorality that was taking place in that terrible city that God was destroyed called Sodom and Gomorrah.\u00a0 And then Lot learns that the city is going to be destroyed and Lot gets spiritual.\u00a0 He starts to preach a sermon of sorts; he tells his in-laws get up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city.\u00a0 And this is the reaction that his in-laws and family had towards him.\u00a0 \u201cBut he\u201d that\u2019s Lot, \u201cappeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting.\u201d\n\n[Genesis 19:14, \u201cLot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, \u2018Up, get out of this place, for the LORD will destroy the city.\u2019 But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting.\u201d]\n\nOh, there he goes again, goofing around again, kidding around again, even though the man is dead serious and talking about spiritual things.\u00a0 He had no lifestyle to back up his claims spiritually and consequently he was molded into the attitude of the world and he lost his authority to speak to the world.\u00a0 Beloved, when we\u2019re just like the world we lose our prophetic voice to the world because the world sees no backup or lifestyle to accommodate our teaching and our sermons.\u00a0 And this is why Satan\u2019s strategy in the life of the child of God is conformity.\n\nThis is why the book of James tells us, in James 1:27 that we ought to keep ourselves unstained by the world.\u00a0 [James 1:27, \u201cPure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.\u201d]\u00a0 Does that describe your life?\u00a0 Are you under God\u2019s providence and resources keeping your resources unstained by the world.\u00a0 That\u2019s what God wants.\u00a0 Satan, of course, orchestrating the world system wants the opposite.\n\nAnd you say can you be a little bit more specific?\u00a0 I mean, how does Satan exactly do this?\u00a0 And here\u2019s his target over and over again; it is the mind, because the Bible says in Proverbs 23:7, \u201cFor as he thinks within himself, so he is.\u201d\u00a0 If Satan can control the mind and maybe you won\u2019t give him all of your mind, maybe\u00a0 you\u2019ll just give him 50% of your mind, or 10% of your mind; he\u2019ll take whatever he can get because he knows that if he has an inroad into the mind he has great influence and sway over the course and direction of your life because of the power that God has given to the human mind.\n\nThis is why Romans 12:2 says we ought to renew the mind.\u00a0 Ephesians 6:17 says we ought to put on the helmet of salvation.\u00a0 What does the helmet guard?\u00a0 The head or the mind.\u00a0 \u00a0[Romans 12:2, \u201cAnd do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.\u201d\u00a0 Ephesians 6:17, \u201cAnd take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:\u201d]\n\nAnd how critical this is, to be in a process where your mind is being renewed day by day as the Bible says.\u00a0 You know, the 9-11 hijackers, they didn\u2019t have to get control of the whole airplane; they just had to get control over the place where the pilot sits and controls the vehicle.\u00a0 They don\u2019t have to control every square inch of the airplane; you just control the place of influence or the center of influence and you control the plane.\u00a0 See?\u00a0 And this is why the devil is targeting the mind because once the mind is under his sway or influence he controls you to a large extent.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why there is so much in the Bible about guarding the mind and protecting the mind.\u00a0 And how important it is to have a church atmosphere body where\u00a0 you can come and sit under the teaching of the Word of God and have your mind renewed, reprogramed.\n\nI was there in Boston, Massachusetts driving around, having a sense of direction is not necessarily my spiritual gift, let\u2019s put it that way, and I had the Google maps and when I got off course it just shouted these words to me, or word, \u201crecalibrating,\u201d take a wrong turn, \u201crecalibrating.\u201d\u00a0 And I started to think about that, that is pretty good instructions for the Christian, \u201crecalibrating,\u201d because before I got saved my mind thought a particular way and I dragged a lot of baggage into my Christian life and how significant it is to get into the Word of God and have my mind recalibrated, reprogramed so that it thinks the way God thinks.\u00a0 I can\u2019t get that in and of myself; it has to be through a perpetual exposure to the Word of God.\u00a0 That should be happening in our daily devotional life; it should be happening in this church; I pray that it\u2019s happening now even as I speak.\u00a0 This is why the book of Hebrews, chapter 10 and verse 25 says, \u201cnot forsaking our own assembling together\u2026\u201d because in church the spiritual gifts are in operation, one of which is the gift of pastor-teacher which is the ability to explain the Bible in a way that\u2019s meaningful and understandable to the average Christian and that contributes to the recalibrating process.\n\nWhat Nebuchadnezzar and Satan indirectly through Nebuchadnezzar is going after in these four youths is their minds.\u00a0 And I want you to understand something: the youth of America are under today tremendous propaganda.\u00a0 I graduated from high school in 1985, it was bad when I went through school and\u00a0 yet it\u2019s nothing compared to what the youth of America are facing\u2026 perpetual propaganda.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t put these slides up here to belittle public school teachers; my mother was a public school teacher, my aunt was actually the Texas teacher of the year out here in Texas a few years back.\u00a0 I understand the difficulty and the hard work that goes into being such a teacher.\u00a0 But what I\u2019m here to tell you is that the system itself is a mind-controlled system.\u00a0 And there are good people in that system, no doubt.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t change the philosophy that is being dictated to them constantly.\n\nAbraham Lincoln, a quote typically attributed to him puts it this way: \u201cThe philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.\u201d \u00a0The power of education!\u00a0 This is exactly what Nebuchadnezzar is tapping into here in Daniel 1.\n\nCharles Francis Potter, in 1930, a humanist, said this: \u201cEducation is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism.\u201d Humanism, of course, is the worship of self instead of God.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026every public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-school teachers, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?\u201d\u00a0 [Charles Francis Potter, Humanism: A New Religion<\/em> (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), 128]\n\nIt\u2019s interesting that those that are on the other side of the issue than ourselves telegraph to us what they\u2019re going to do.\u00a0 I would say that this was the blueprint outlined by Charles Frances Potter, the humanist, back in 1930.\u00a0 We are going to take over public schools and we are going to use those schools as indoctrination mills to steal away your children.\u00a0 And you look at a church like this and we have a lot of gray haired people, don\u2019t we.\u00a0 Amen to that, at least we still have hair; we ought to respect the gray head.\u00a0 But in church after church after church that I go to I always wonder where are the young people?\u00a0 Where is the youth.\u00a0 Well, there\u2019s an answer to that: there\u2019s a strategy that Satan has been at work at for many, many decades.\u00a0 That\u2019s the name of the game.\u00a0 I\u2019m bringing this up to contemporize the book of Daniel.\u00a0 The very conflict that Daniel was in is the same kind of conflict that the youth of America are in today.\n\nHere is a quote from Chester M. Pierce, a Harvard psychiatrist and he says: \u201cEvery child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill\u201d why is that, \u201cbecause he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity<\/u>. It\u2019s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well by creating the international child of the future<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 [Chester M. Pierce, Harvard psychiatrist, speaking as an expert in public education at the 1973 International Education Seminar.]\n\nThat\u2019s an astounding quote, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 These kids that are coming to us, they are mentally ill.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Well, they love mom and dad; they love Jesus and they love the United States so you school teachers fix them.\u00a0 A quote from 1973.\n\nAnother quote, John Dunphy wrote in a humanistic magazine, he says: \u201cI am convinced that the battle for humankind\u2019s future must be waged and won in the public school classrooms by teachers who correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call the Divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers.\u201d\u00a0 [John Dunphy, \u201cA Religion for the New Age,\u201d The Humanist<\/em>\u00a0 (January\/February 1983): 26]\u00a0 It won\u2019t be a Christian fundamentalism, it\u2019s be a secular fundamentalism.\n\nThis quote is so bad I don\u2019t even know if I should read it, but here we go: this is from Lawrence Krauss, he\u2019s an ASU Physics Professor, this is what he said on you tube regarding parents that homeschool their children and teach their children that evolution is not a scientific fact.\u00a0 What is the attitude of the educational establishment towards such parents.\u00a0\u00a0 He says, \u201cSure, it is mild child abuse\u2026We need to encourage our children to question freely and try to think for themselves.\u201d\u00a0 Which I\u2019m in favor of, by the way.\u00a0 \u201cAnything we do that counters that is unfair to them\u2026 If you\u2019re introducing it as reality, if you\u2019re telling your kids the world is 6,000 years old, and they shouldn\u2019t believe scientists because there is no way humans are related to other animals, and don\u2019t believe any of that stuff you learned in school, or take your kids of out of school because they are learning something, then it is like the Taliban at some level, which is an extreme form of child abuse...The Taliban doesn\u2019t want girls to be educated or people to be educated because if they do they\u2019ll understand the myths that they are learning are all\u201d and I won\u2019t give you that last word there because we\u2019re in church.\u00a0 [Lawrence Krauss, ASU Physics Professor, \u00a0www.youtube.com\/watch?v=K_ZDH5JzgPY\n\nWhat am I trying to get at here?\u00a0 What I\u2019m trying to get at here is not to get kids to think freely.\u00a0 I\u2019m not trying to argue education in and of itself is wrong, I\u2019ve got more degrees than a thermometer.\u00a0 I\u2019m a pro education guy.\u00a0 What I\u2019m getting at is there is an agenda to take one set of absolutist beliefs and replace them with another.\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s happening.\u00a0 That is brought up because I\u2019m trying to contemporize Daniel chapter 1.\u00a0 And by the way, in the minds of many of these people do you know that your kids don\u2019t belong to you?\u00a0 They belong to us.\n\nThis is Melissa Harris Perry, a former contributor to MSNBC, she says, \u201cSo part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole\u201d what? \u201ccommunities.\u201d\u00a0 [Melissa Harris Perry, MSNBC host www.youtube.com\/watch?v=N3qtpdSQox0<\/a>]\u00a0 Because after all, what does it take to raise a child, according to one politician?\u00a0 A village.\u00a0 This is an attack over and over again on the authority structure of Deuteronomy 6:6-7 that God established.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0[Deuteronomy 6:6-7, \u201cThese words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. [7] You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.\u201d]\n\nNow I do have a legal background, (don\u2019t hold that against me) so I read a lot of law journals.\u00a0 And I share some of these quotes with you just to show you how these people think.\u00a0 This is Kimberly Yuracko, who is a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law.\u00a0 Look at what she says about home schooling.\u00a0 \u201cThere must be legal and constitutional limits on the ability of home\u00adschooling parents \u2018to teach their children idiosyncratic and illiberal beliefs and values\u201d... [Government control must be exercised against] \u201cparents [who] want to teach against the enlightenment. ...Parental control over children\u2019s basic education flows from the state<\/em> (rather than vice versa).\u00a0 States delegate power over children\u2019s basic education to parents. . . .\u201d [Kimberly A. Yuracko, \u201cEducation Off the Grid\u2026\u201d, California Law Review 96<\/em> (February 2008) (She is a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law)]\n\nIt\u2019s not you parents that are in control; \u201cwe\u201d as the enlightened ones are in control.\u00a0 And just as you want\u00a0 your parents to honor the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob we\u2019re trying to reduce that, we\u2019re trying to annihilate that, we are trying to replace it with a second set of creeds of humanistic orientation.\n\nAnother \u00a0law professor, Catherine Ross, Professor at George Washington School of Law.\u00a0 She says: \u201cThis essay explores the choice many traditionalist Christian parents (both fundamentalist and evangelical) make to leave public schools in order to teach their children at home, thus in most instances escaping meaningful oversight....society need not and should not tolerate the inculcation of absolutist views that undermine toleration of difference....If a parent subscribes to an absolutist belief system premised on the notion that it was handed down by a creator, that it (like the Ten Commandments)<\/em> is etched in stone and that all other systems are wrong, the essential lessons of a civic education...often seem deeply challenging and suspect....Such \u2018private truths\u2019 have no place in the public arena, including the public schools<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 [Catherine Ross, \u201cFundamentalist Challenges to Core Democratic Values: Exit and Homeschooling\u201d, William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal<\/em> 18 (May 2010) (She is professor at George Washington Law School)]\n\nWe don\u2019t want the Ten Commandments here; we don\u2019t want the Bible here.\u00a0 We don\u2019t even want you to think that our kids belong to you anyway.\u00a0 This is the same circumstances that Daniel was under.\u00a0 This is what the youth in the United States of America are living under as I speak.\n\nOne more quote, Martha Fineman and Karen Worthington, law professors, say this: \u201cThe risk that parents or private schools unfairly impose hierarchical or oppressive beliefs on their children is magnified by the absence of state oversight or the application of any particular educational standards....Public education should be mandatory and universal<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 [Martha Fineman and Karen Worthington, What is Right for Children?\u00a0 The Competing Paradigms of Religion and Human Rights<\/em> (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2009).\n\nHave you noticed they want the kids at an earlier and earlier and earlier age, always.\u00a0 That\u2019s always the push, we\u2019ve got to get them when they\u2019re young; we\u2019ve got to get them when they\u2019re impressionable because this much we know, he who controls education controls the future.\n\nThis is what Nebuchadnezzar is imposing on these four Hebrew youths.\u00a0 This is what is happening to your children, your grandchildren, and yet what is Daniel called to do in the midst of this?\u00a0 By the way, did you know that the average child, if they\u2019re in public education, will receive eleven thousand hours of classroom instruction.\u00a0 Think about that; the devil has eleven thousand hours to alter somebody\u2019s worldview.\u00a0 If there\u2019s ever a time we need to be preparing our children, praying for our children, the time is now.\u00a0 Would you not agree?\u00a0 And Daniel and his three friends are called to stand for God in the midst of this.\n\nAnd let me tell you something about the book of Daniel that we\u2019re going to be learning.\u00a0 Do you know what kind of life God blesses is the sanctified life, the life that is separate, the life that is different.\u00a0 Satan\u2019s agenda is conformity to neutralize your witness but what God blesses, what God uses is a life that doesn\u2019t fit the pattern of the age.\n\nPhilippians 2:15 says this: \u201cso that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.\u201d\u00a0 How can you be a light in the midst of darkness unless you\u2019re standing out in the midst of darkness.\u00a0 And yet that\u2019s the calling on Daniel, that\u2019s the calling on our children, that\u2019s the calling on our lives as well.\n\nI don\u2019t like to wear showy ties but I wore this one today and this is what it says at the bottom:\u00a0 \u201cThis world is not my home,\u201d and I saw that on the rack and I said that one\u2019s for today, if anybody reads it or appreciates it, \u201cThis world is not my home.\u201d\u00a0 We are called to live for God in Satan\u2019s world, not to make the world our home but to reach the world.\u00a0 That\u2019s the calling of the believer.\u00a0 That\u2019s the calling on Daniel.\n\nSo Daniel, now, as we move into verses 8-16 begins to exhibit dedication.\u00a0 This is where all of the training that he had at home from his godly parental upbringing starts to pay dividends at the age of 15.\u00a0 Do you notice that the devil, or Nebuchadnezzar, doesn\u2019t give these kids a break just because they\u2019re young?\u00a0 He\u2019s going after them because they are young, because they are impressionable.\u00a0 And\u00a0 yet a\u00a0 young person has the potential to stand for God.\u00a0 This dedication happens in two rounds; round one, verses 8-10, round two, verses 11-16.\n\nNotice what happens there in terms of Daniel\u2019s resolve.\u00a0 Daniel 1:8, \u201cBut Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank;\u201d notice that word \u201cdefile.\u201d\u00a0 Why would eating Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s diet in the mind of a devout Hebrew be defiling towards God?\u00a0 The answer goes all the way back to the book of Exodus, to the time of Moses, where God, through Moses said this in Exodus 34:15, \u201cotherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice.\u201d\u00a0 One of the things that you did not do as a devout Jew is you did not eat food sacrificed to idols, which is what the diet was that Nebuchadnezzar was giving to these youths. \u00a0To do so would be to contradict what God Himself decreed, going back to the time of Moses, to the book of Exodus.\n\nIn fact, this issue of a Jew not eating food sacrificed to idols was so important to them that when the age of the church started and they discovered that they were not under law any more but under grace, many of them still adhered to this guideline, even though they didn\u2019t have to, because it was part of who they were.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the whole context of Paul\u2019s teaching about the stronger brother not flaunting his spiritual freedom in the presence of the younger brother.\u00a0 Paul says I want you to\u00a0 understand that these Jews, they\u2019ve been under the Mosaic system for 1,500 years, and you need to have deference and respect to them concerning this exhortation not to eat food\u00a0 sacrificed to idols.\n\nVerse 8, \u201cBut Daniel made up his\u201d what? \u201chis mind\u2026\u201d where is the whole battle?\u00a0 The mind.\u00a0 How are you doing protecting your mind?\u00a0 [Daniel 1:8, \u201cBut Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank; so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself.\u201d]\n\nPhilippians 4:8 tells us how to protect our mind.\u00a0 It says, \u201cFinally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think on these things.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Should I read this book or not read this book?\u00a0 Should I watch this TV program or not watch this TV program?\u00a0 Should I take this class or not take this class?\u00a0 The Bible gives us a test; is it honorable?\u00a0 Is it right?\u00a0 Is it pure?\u00a0 Is it lovely?\u00a0 Is it of good report?\u00a0 Is it worthy of praise?\u00a0 Then go ahead and allow that into the arena of the mind.\u00a0 What a screening test that is.\n\nAnd you say well, wait a minute, pastor, don\u2019t you have bad thoughts?\u00a0 Of course I do, I have the same bad thoughts that you have.\u00a0 Well, how do you deal with\u00a0 those?\u00a0 As one theologian put it, you cannot stop the birds from flying over your head but you can certainly prevent them from building a nest in your hair.\u00a0 That\u2019s my answer.\u00a0 I have bad thoughts, negative thoughts, carnal thoughts all the time, I don\u2019t have a lot of control over that; what I have control over is am I going to entertain those thoughts?\u00a0 Am I going to dwell on those thoughts?\u00a0 Am I going to dismiss those thoughts or am I going to allow those thoughts to have entrance into the arena of the mind, because if that is happening then the battle is already lost.\n\nNumbers 13:33, it\u2019s a description of the children of Israel as they were about to take Canaan and they fell into fear because of unbelief and they lost a critical battle.\u00a0 They could have had Canaan within eleven days and yet God allowed them to wander around in the wilderness for forty years.\u00a0 Where was that battle lost?\u00a0 It was lost in the arena of the mind because this is what the Hebrews said in that generation. \u201cThere also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight,\u201d there\u2019s the whole problem, they stopped looking at their crisis from God\u2019s point of view and they looked at it from the human point of view.\u00a0 And they saw giants in the land and rather than seeing those giants through the lens of an all-powerful God, which had just brought them out of Egypt, given them the Mosaic Law, performed the ten plagues, rather than viewing their problem through that lens they got their eyes off God.\u00a0 They started analyzing their circumstances through their own power and they fell into fear.\u00a0 A whole generation that could have had Canaan lost because the battle was in the mind.\n\nThis is the significance there in verse 8 which says \u201cDaniel made up his mind.\u201d\u00a0 Daniel 1, as we\u2019re going to see in this book, because he had discipline over the arena of the mind.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice here that it says \u201cDaniel made up his mind.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, before the crisis hit he had an action plan.\u00a0\u00a0 You know where you\u2019re weak, I know where I\u2019m weak.\u00a0 I know how Satan works on me; you know how Satan works on you.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same thing he does all the time; he just brings the same weapon against you over and over again because he knows that\u2019s where you\u2019re vulnerable.\n\nI think it\u2019s time we smarted\u00a0 up a little bit; we have some action steps in place so when the satanic weapon comes forth I will know how to resist it.\u00a0 Well, gee, I\u2019m really struggling with pornography; okay, then put some locks on your computer.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t you get rid of some of your cable subscriptions?\u00a0 You have an action plan ahead of time so that when the temptation comes you\u2019ve headed it off at the pass.\u00a0 Those who fail to plan, as the saying goes, plan to what?\u00a0 Fail!\u00a0 If you make a godly plan on how to protect your mind I guarantee the Lord will bless you, the Lord will help you.\u00a0 But many times we don\u2019t have an action plan, we act as victims and we\u2019re just hit with the same issue over and over again and before you know it we are neutralized.\n\nNotice that Daniel didn\u2019t just have a plan but it went into action.\u00a0 Verse 8, \u201cDaniel made up his mind so that he would not defile himself with the king\u2019s choice food or with the wine that he drank so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself.\u201d\u00a0 We move from a plan to a course of action which begins to take the form of permission requested from the king\u2019s officials.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to eat this food so here\u2019s my plan that I\u2019m implementing so that I don\u2019t have to eat it; I will ask the commander\u2019s permission to not have to eat the food.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the resolve turning into the request and notice the commander\u2019s response.\n\nVerse 9, \u201cNow\u201d what? \u201cGod,\u201d I love those two words.\u00a0 \u201cNow God granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials,\u201d God was with Daniel because the type of life that God blesses is the sanctified life.\u00a0 God wants us to win more than we want to win.\u00a0 God wants to use us more than we want to be used.\u00a0 And you start taking a few steps towards God and you\u2019ll be astonished at how God will bridge almost heaven and earth to help us in the midst of difficulty.\u00a0 This is how God is going to preserve a remnant in this dark and difficult time called the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 He\u2019s going to bless and He\u2019s going to work through sanctified vessels and sanctified lives.\n\nYou see, the Mosaic Law taught Israel how they were to live in the land; now they\u2019re outside of the land.\u00a0 What do they do now?\u00a0 They follow the example of Daniel.\u00a0 They follow the example of Daniel\u2019s three friends, which is simply this: you put God first, always.\u00a0 And you entrust the circumstances of your life to God.\u00a0 That\u2019s how God is going to do this, this is how God is going to work.\n\nLook at the concern of the commander, verse 10, \u201cand the commander of the officials said to Daniel, \u2018I am afraid of my lord the king, who has appointed your food and your drink; for why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the youths who are your own age?\u201d\u00a0 Now the commander that\u2019s in charge of Daniel has a crisis to face and he says you know, if I go with your dietary plan instead of Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s dietary plan my job is on the line because Nebuchadnezzar is going to come back and he\u2019s going to find you in a less healthy circumstance.\u00a0 And what this king is really asking is the very question that we ask all of the time when we have to make a decision: do God\u2019s ways really work?\u00a0 Do they work or do they not work?\u00a0 God is telling me to do one thing, the world is telling me to do something else.\u00a0 All of my friends are saying sex outside of marriage and before marriage is the way to go.\u00a0 God is saying something different.\u00a0 And we have these crises where we have to make a decision and what is really in the back of our minds is, is God\u2019s way right, is it going to work?\u00a0 And what we discover here is God\u2019s ways work.\u00a0 Godliness works!\u00a0 Can I give you another phrase?\u00a0 Godliness is cheaper!\u00a0 Try that on for conversation sometime.\n\nNotice verse 10, \u201cThen you would make me forfeit my head to the king.\u201d\u00a0 This is life-threatening here; this is not a casual disagreement about diet.\u00a0 Daniel was stepping out in faith, not as an old man but as a very young person.\u00a0 And his life was on the line and the king\u2019s edict was at hand and the commander\u2019s life was on the line.\u00a0 Notice this second round here in verses 11-16.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at verses 11-13 first.\n\n\u201cBut Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, [12] \u2018Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. [13] Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king\u2019s choice food; and deal with your servants according to what you see.\u201d\u00a0 Notice that Daniel is persistent, he doesn\u2019t hit a little bit of resistance and say well, I guess it\u2019s not God\u2019s will, which is what we\u2019re like many times.\u00a0 We pursue God and then there\u2019s a little bit of resistance and we say well, I must be outside of the will of God.\u00a0 Nonsense!\u00a0 Every time you pursue God there\u2019s going to be resistance because the devil doesn\u2019t want you to pursue God so he\u2019s trying to discourage you.\n\nDaniel\u2019s life is on the line; the commander\u2019s life is on the line.\u00a0 There\u2019s a crisis; are God\u2019s ways best or not?\u00a0 And Daniel, you\u2019ll notice, has complete confidence in the ways of God.\u00a0 He is not wavering, he is not, as the book of James says, \u201cdouble-minded,\u201d is it going to work, is it not going to work.\u00a0 No, God said it, I believe it and that what?\u00a0 That settles it.\n\nAnd then we move from there to the commander\u2019s response, verse 14, \u201cSo he listened to them in this matter and tested them for ten days.\u201d\u00a0 Why would the commander listen to a 15 year old?\u00a0 For the same reason a college professor will listen to a college student if God is with that college student.\u00a0 For the same reason an employer will listen to an employee if God is with that employee.\u00a0 We know from verse 9 that God was with Daniel; God\u2019s favor was upon Daniel, just like His favor is upon you.\u00a0 And consequently the commander is now listening to a 15 year old.\n\nAnd look at the results, I love this, verses 15-16, \u201cAt the end of ten days their appearance seemed better and they were fatter\u201d now I like that kind of diet there, the fatter you are the more healthy you are, where do I sign up for that one?\u00a0 \u201cAt the end of ten days their appearance seemed better and they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the king\u2019s choice food.\u201d\u00a0 Do God\u2019s ways really work?\u00a0 They did work.\u00a0 Let\u2019s try it out for ten days and see how it works; those that follow God\u2019s ways came way out ahead, which makes sense, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 If God designed the world wouldn\u2019t He understand something about diet, and food and what kind of foods are healthy and what kind are not healthy?\u00a0 God would certainly understand that having designed the digestive system, the dietary system as a whole.\u00a0 God\u2019s ways worked!\u00a0 God\u2019s commandments are there for us!\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 God is not some big Meany in the sky trying to wreck\u00a0 your life; He\u2019s trying to bless you.\n\nDeuteronomy 10:13 says, \u201cand to keep the LORD\u2019S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?\u201d\u00a0 These laws are there for you.\u00a0 But what about people that live outside of the laws of God? How does it go for them?\u00a0 Living outside of the laws of God and the principles of God and the knowledge of God is like saying to a red light, I\u2019m bothered by this red light; this red light is an annoyance and it\u2019s an encumbrance on my lifestyle.\u00a0 I hate this red light.\u00a0 So you know what?\u00a0 Any time I see a red light I\u2019m just going to run the red light.\u00a0 Well, we know how that\u2019s going to end;\u00a0 you\u2019re going to get hurt, you\u2019re going to hurt somebody else because the red light is not there to make you feel good, it\u2019s there for you own good.\u00a0 I can look at a red light and have my feelings hurt by it but that doesn\u2019t matter, the red light is there for my benefit.\u00a0 The red light is there for my protection.\n\nGod, in His Word gives us sexual standards, financial standards, relational standards, and we look at these things as nuisances when in reality those are the very things that are there to benefit us and protect us.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how many things in my life I have been spared from simply because as a sixteen year old, at the time I placed my faith in Christ I started to try to live to the best of my ability according to the Bible.\u00a0 How many sexually transmitted diseases, financial nightmares, all kinds of things that I have been protected from simply by following what God says.\u00a0 And have you ever gone to those thirty year reunions, forty year reunions, fifty year reunions where you see all your buddies.\u00a0 Have you seen their lives?\u00a0 Suddenly you\u2019re the envy of the room because they\u2019re experiencing all of these consequences which could have been avoidable simply by following the dictates and the edicts of God.\n\nProverbs 13:15 says, \u201cBut the way of the treacherous is hard,\u201d if you\u2019re treacherous or a lawbreaker your way is hard because \u201cthe wages of sin is\u201d what? \u201cdeath.\u201d\u00a0 Godliness is cheaper!\u00a0 Godliness is more efficient!\u00a0 Godliness is less expensive!\u00a0 In fact, listen to this, I ran into a study last night as I was preparing for this and this particular academic study tried to document the financial toll on the United States of America because of divorce and unwed pregnancies.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not here to put anybody under judgment, if there\u2019s a divorce or an unwed pregnancy in their background here\u2019s simply to state a fact.\u00a0 This study tried to document what does it cost the United States of America every single year because of the reality of divorce and because of the reality of unwed pregnancies?\u00a0 Do you know what the conclusion is?\u00a0 It cost the United States\u2026 I was shocked to learn this, 112 billion with a \u201cb\u201d dollars annually\u2026112 billion dollars annually in cost simply because of divorce, all of the costs involved, and simply because of unwed pregnancies, all of the costs involved.\u00a0 I mean, 112 billion dollars, you could practically balance the budget, couldn\u2019t you, with some of that?\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s like real money, 112 billion dollars.\u00a0 Godliness works.\u00a0 Godliness is cheaper.\n\nAnd then verse 16, I was hoping to make it down to verse 21 but time is escaping me so we will conclude here with verse 16, \u201cSo the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink, and kept giving them vegetables.\u201d\u00a0 The commander says this works, I see results.\u00a0 I\u2019m in!\u00a0 to the point where he was even willing to risk his own life because he saw that the principles of God work.\u00a0 Others recognize it when we walk with God.\u00a0 When we walk with God and do things God\u2019s way people are observing, people are watching.\u00a0 Your co-workers are watching.\u00a0\u00a0 Your unsaved family members are watching.\u00a0 Your unsaved neighbors are watching.\n\nWhat are they watching for exactly?\u00a0 The same question that the commander had, does this stuff really work?\u00a0 And as people see the principles of God working in your life that\u2019s a pretty good advertisement for God, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Do you know why God doesn\u2019t use a lot of us?\u00a0 Because we\u2019re terrible advertisements.\u00a0 Our lives are in rebellion many times against God; we have not submitted to God in certain things and God is simply embarrassed many times and so he doesn\u2019t allow us to be the vessel or the vehicle or the evangelist that He wants us to be.\u00a0 God is blessing the sanctified life.\u00a0 He blesses Daniel.\n\nHow do you live for God in a pagan society?\u00a0 You put God first, you trust Him from crisis to crisis and you entrust the results of your life to God.\u00a0 Next week we\u2019ll see three blessings that showed up in these four youths because they did things God\u2019s way: knowledge, they passed their exam and God gave them longevity.\n\nShall we pray.\u00a0 Father, we\u2019re grateful for the book of Daniel although it\u2019s written back in the sixth century it speaks to our lives today.\u00a0 Help us to realize that the warfare that we find ourselves in; help us to trust Your ways as best and walk with You this week.\u00a0 Convict us, Lord, where we fall short and encourage us and empower us so that we might walk in\u00a0 your principles, precepts and statutes.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We lift these things up to You, in Jesus name.\u00a0 And God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t