Participants: Pr. E.C. Polite
Series Code: HG
Program Code: HG000002
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00:45 You are God
00:52 The only Sovereign God 00:59 The only living God 01:09 Everlasting, ever loving 01:18 Ever living God 01:25 The only sovereign God 01:36 The only living God 01:44 Everlasting, ever loving 01:53 Ever living God 02:02 The only sovereign God 02:11 The only living God 02:20 Everlasting, ever loving 02:28 Ever living God 02:46 There is a name that I love 02:52 to proclaim 02:56 Master, Savior, Jesus 03:06 No name compares 03:12 To its awesome refrain 03:16 Jesus, we reverence your Name 03:22 with our praise 03:26 Jesus we reverence your Name 03:38 Oh Jesus, 03:42 Oh, oh, oh, Jesus 03:51 Your name is awesome 03:55 And greatly exalted 04:04 Jesus. Oh, Oh, Jesus 04:19 Jesus, we reverence Your Name 04:25 with our praise 04:29 Jesus we reverence Your Name 04:51 Your Name 05:24 Jesus we reverence Your Name 05:39 Your Name 05:51 We worship You 06:04 How I love Jesus 06:17 How I love Jesus 06:22 Jesus 06:27 Let me tell you why I love Him 06:37 Because He first loved me 06:42 loved me. 07:08 Praise unto 07:18 the Lord 07:27 Oh, oh-oh 07:31 Sing praise 07:37 Unto 07:44 the Lord 07:50 For He is 07:58 He is Good 08:04 For He is 08:11 He is good 08:20 Praise the Lord God 08:26 Forever 08:29 and ever 08:38 For His mercy endureth forever 08:45 His mercy endureth forever 08:51 His mercy endureth forever 08:58 His mercy endureth forever 09:04 His mercy endureth forever 09:11 His mercy endureth forever 09:17 His mercy endureth forever 09:37 His mercy endureth forever 09:44 His mercy endureth forever 09:50 His mercy endureth forever 10:10 His mercy endureth forever 10:15 His mercy endureth forever 10:22 His mercy endureth forever 10:29 His mercy endureth forever 10:35 His mercy endureth forever 10:39 And ever 10:44 His mercy endureth forever 10:51 His mercy endureth forever 10:57 His mercy endureth forever 11:02 Forever 11:04 And ever 11:19 Forever more 11:25 Forever more 11:33 Forever 11:37 Applause 11:49 Daniel, the 4th chapter; verses 28 through 34 12:02 Daniel 4, verses 28 through 34 12:10 There you'll find these words. 13:50 I thought today we would speak on the subject 13:52 Diary of a Mad Black Man. 14:04 One of the things I enjoyed growing up in my home 14:08 was having four sisters. 14:13 They say that confession is good for the soul. 14:17 So I'm about to confess some thing and have a good soul today 14:21 I knew at some point in all of my sisters' lives 14:26 they were going to keep a diary 14:34 It was my purpose in life 14:40 to figure out was it the top drawer 14:42 the middle drawer or the bottom drawer. 14:45 If I searched the dresser and it wasn't in the drawers 14:49 I knew to lift up the mattress 14:55 But one way or another I was going to find it because 14:58 inquiring minds want to know. 15:04 I will be kind enough not to tell you what I found. 15:08 They'd shoot me if I did, I learned a lot. 15:15 But we don't have to go searching for the diary 15:20 of this man for he opens it up himself 15:24 in Daniel the 4th chapter. Mind you it was not intended 15:29 to be a diary initially. It was supposed to be 15:33 a proclamation. But somehow along the way, the thoughts 15:39 of his mind shifted and the words changed and it became 15:44 an open diary for all those who live today. 15:49 Notice the first verse of chapter 4. Nebuchadnezzar 15:55 the king, unto who? All people nations and languages that dwell 16:04 in all the earth, peace be multiplied unto you. 16:12 Understand that he is the most mentioned gentile king in the 16:17 Word of God. He reigns approximately for 43 years 16:23 His story speaks to his rise in power. His fall from grace 16:31 and his restoration through repentance. The first 6 chapters 16:36 of Daniel are historical in nature while the final six 16:40 are prophetic. But of those first six chapters he occupies 16:46 a prominent place in the first 5 chapters of Daniel. He's 16:52 somebody special. The Babylonian empire can trace its beginnings 16:59 all the way back to Genesis the 10th chapter. Turn there with me 17:04 quickly, Genesis 10th chapter. And notice here something 17:09 regarding the ancestry of Babylon starting with verse 1. 17:15 Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah. Who were they? 17:21 Shem, Ham and Japheth. Look down at verse 6. 17:27 And the sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Cainan 17:35 Look at verse 8. And Cush begat who? Nimrod. He began to be a 17:42 mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord 17:47 wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before 17:51 the Lord, verse 10 and the beginning of his kingdom was 17:55 what? Babel or Babylon. You will notice that he is the 18:04 the descendant of Ham. And Ham is the progenitor 18:11 or the forefather of people of color. 18:23 Black folk. And so when we look back down through antiquity 18:26 and see some of the great archeological finds and the 18:30 inventions, bless your hearts, they weren't made by Steve Jobs. 18:37 They were made by people of color. 18:42 And so as we fast forward to Daniel 4, we recognize that as 18:48 the ancestry has gone on and continued to Daniel 4, we're 18:53 looking now, we're reading the diary of a colored man. 19:00 70 years later here he comes. Here he is on the stage of 19:08 human history. Verses 2-3 say I thought it good to show what 19:15 everybody, I don't hear you. The signs and wonders that 19:20 who? the High God hath wrought toward me, verse 3, how great 19:27 are His signs and how mighty His wonders. His kingdom is what 19:33 an everlasting kingdom and His dominion is from generation 19:39 to generation. He lifts up for us his purpose for writing 19:45 is to share how the Most High has moved in his own life 19:51 and to declare before all those who come after him 19:55 that God Almighty is God all by Himself 20:02 and unless they get that basic principle 20:07 they may have something difficult to go through. 20:11 Notice verse 4, 20:14 I Nebuchadnezzar 20:17 was at rest 20:20 in my house 20:22 flourishing in what? In my palace. Here he is, kicking back 20:34 chillin, that's right. Sitting there with a cold one 20:44 thinking about everything that he has accomplished, he has 20:48 conquered Syria, he has conquered Phoenicia, he has 20:51 conquered Judea, he has conquered Egypt, he has 20:55 conquered Arabia and now he can enjoy the peace and 21:00 prosperity of all his conquests. 21:04 Babylon is one of the most famed and fabulous cities 21:08 of the then known world. It was probably only surpassed by 21:13 the glory of Thebes which by this time had been destroyed. 21:17 The circumference around Babylon is estimated depending on 21:21 who you read between 10-15 miles in its circumference. Now 21:26 that might seem small comparatively today but in those 21:30 days it was a very large city that was considered 21:34 a metropolitan. There were two walls that surrounded Babylon 21:38 one called the outer wall and one called the inner wall. 21:42 And I'm told that the walls were so wide that 5 chariots 21:47 could ride side by side with each other and not fall off 21:52 the wall. A magnificent structure. He built some 53 22:00 temples, 955 smaller sanctuaries 384 street altars, 3 palaces 22:08 one in the North that he considered his summer home. 22:12 Then there's one in the central part of the city 22:16 which was called his Trophy Room, where all of the 22:21 artifacts and spoils of victory were put on display there. 22:25 Then there was the Southern Palace which was supposed to be 22:30 the official residence of the King. In that residence 22:34 was a throne. Listen to the dimensions of his throne room 22:37 173 feet long, 57 feet wide and 66 feet high. 22:47 It is believed that it was in this throne room that Belshazzar 22:53 threw his party and then got scared at his own party 23:00 because a hand showed up by itself at the party, 23:04 stuck itself out from the super natural darkness and began to 23:09 inscribe graffiti on the wall which said the party is over. 23:19 It was here on this wall adjacent to the Southern palace 23:24 was a structure that houses what we know today as the famed 23:30 Hanging Gardens of Babylon. 23:32 One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, Babylon 23:38 Nebuchadnezzar built this particular vaulted structure 23:42 it was 7 tiers high because of the fact that his wife 23:47 Emmatasi was from Media, the daughter of the King of Media 23:52 and she missed her homeland and all of the verdurous 23:55 surroundings of the Medes and because Babylon didn't seem to 24:01 have a whole lot of trees and verdure he decided to build 24:06 the hanging gardens that grew from off of the roof structure 24:10 Way back then they had a pipe system, a sprinkler system 24:14 if you will, that brought the water up from the Euphrates 24:18 River and sprinkled it all throughout the Hanging Gardens. 24:21 You thought we were smart, 24:23 they were smart before we got the sprinkler system. 24:31 Man will do anything to make his woman happy, won't he? 24:36 I remember when we were living in Germany, mama took us to 24:41 a place in downtown Darmstadt, Germany, called Rusina Kapelle 24:47 which translated means the Russian Chapel. 24:50 And it was built by a man who had married a Russian Princess 24:54 who was homesick for Russia. And so he had acres of land 24:59 acres of soil transported there and built a chapel in the same 25:05 dome like architecture that she was familiar with in Russia 25:11 A man who knew what he has to do to please his woman, so 25:15 you ain't got a man like that you need to tell him, see ya! 25:26 What're you hangin around him for? 25:30 Y'all better get this women, you better get this sisters. 25:33 Get this. I'm giving you this for free. 25:37 It will cost you more in the divorce court. 25:45 The centre of Babylon's glory, however, was not the Hanging 25:49 Gardens, as magnificent as you think they are. 25:53 In fact, it was a temple tower called Etamanenke, and when we 26:00 translate Etamanenke, it simply means, The Foundation 26:04 of Heaven and Earth. It was part of the great Temple complex 26:10 Esagila, which also translates "He who raises the Head" 26:15 Keep those translations in mind, He who raises the Head. 26:20 The bricks outside the city walls were painted in yellow 26:27 The gates were made in the color of sky blue. 26:33 The palaces were built in bricks of rose, the temples were made 26:39 out of bricks of white. There was a river that flowed through 26:43 the center of the city. And as I describe all of this grandeur 26:48 to you, something ought to quicken your mind. 26:52 You've got a city that's almost square. You've got walls around 26:58 the city. You've got gates every 65 feet in the city. You got a 27:07 temple in there that calls itself the Foundation of Heaven 27:10 and Earth. You've got a king whose name means, I'm going to 27:15 protect my stone. His grand father's name Nimrod meant 27:21 'He shall rebel.' And in here you've got a temple system 27:26 called Esagila which means 'He that raises the Head'. He shall 27:31 bruise your heel but you shall bruise his head. There ought 27:36 to be something that goes off in your mind when you hear 27:40 the description of Babylon. I will ascend above the heights 27:44 of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. 27:49 Babylon was notorious for it's secret and mysterious religions 27:58 and cults. Things that have remained hidden even over the 28:06 civilizations. And here we find our king. Up on the roof, 28:15 walking around, looking at all this grandeur, and verse 31 28:23 says, verse 31 says, or 30 says "the king spake and said, 28:29 Is not this the great Babylon that I have built?" 28:38 This is significant. Because when we read verse 5, he says 28:44 in his diary, I had a dream. 28:49 You need to understand that in that area of the world, a dream 28:56 is very significant. In fact you can find some old black folk 29:00 today who put a whole lot of stock in a dream. 29:05 I grew up in a home where Mama had dreams. I got sick of her 29:09 dreamin. Because, I don't know why, but God would 29:17 reveal to her stuff I was doing. 29:26 You had already figured it out that that's a lie. Fool proof. 29:32 I'll never forget Dad brought me my first reel to reel 29:37 tape recorder. You know we didn't have cassettes back then. 29:49 I'll stay away from them folks, they're tryin hurt my feelings. 29:55 They were reel to reel. And I told Mama that I wasn't listenin 30:03 I wasn't recording any of the, what do they call that, RB? 30:07 Was it called RB back then? So there you go, 30:34 I was recording stuff on my new cassette, well not cassette 30:40 my reel to reel player. And Mama had a dream. 30:47 That I had been listening to the artists of that day. 30:53 Earth, Wind. Oh. 31:01 Average white band. Ohio. 31:11 What kind of church is this? Lord have mercy. 31:23 I better move on. You all will be thinking about all these 31:25 songs, I can't finish my sermon. 31:32 I wanted to tell Mama that I had been recording religious 31:36 music. But God had already revealed to her the decadence 31:42 that was on the tape and before I could get my light out Mama 31:46 took my recorder, threw it against the wall and broke it up 31:57 Now my Mama's here. Don't you all bother her. I love her. 32:01 She was looking out for my soul. Dreams were important. 32:07 And the kind understood. He'd had a disturbing and distressing 32:12 dream. This wasn't the first time that he'd had a dream. 32:16 But this man had a fixation with his dreams that was a 32:21 little bit inordinate. He would have a dream, he would wake up 32:26 and forget about what the dream was and then ask somebody 32:31 you better tell me what I dreamt or I'm going to put you to death 32:39 That was a rough brother. 32:45 Here he is. He said he had a dream. 32:51 Daniel came and revealed the dream to him and let him know 32:57 exactly what he dreamt. But it was so horrifying to Daniel. 33:02 We're told that Daniel couldn't even give him an answer. 33:06 He stood there speechless for one hour. 33:11 Scared about what the dream revealed 33:16 And the king said, Dan, come on boy, tell me what I dreamt 33:20 Don't be sacred, tell me what I dreamt. 33:24 I'm not goin to hurt you. And so Daniel went over and said 33:29 The tree that you saw in your dream that covered the earth 33:35 and animals playing underneath its boughs and then you heard 33:40 the watcher saying, Cut the tree down but save the stump. 33:43 That tree is you. 33:51 The Lord is going to bring you down 33:55 because of the pride of your heart. 33:59 And you will eat grass like the beast of the field 34:06 At least the Lord was going to make him a beast 34:13 Your hair is going to grow out like feathers. 34:17 Of an eagle. Your fingers, your fingernails will grow nails that 34:24 that looks like a bird's claws. 34:28 Now he knew this was how the dream was gonna be interpreted 34:34 And look at something here in verse 27. Daniel says to him 34:41 Listen, this might help you. Delay this, it might. Wherefore 34:46 O king let my counsel be acceptable unto thee and break 34:50 off thy sins by righteousness and thy iniquities by doing what 34:57 showing mercy to the poor. If it may be a lengthening of what 35:02 thy tranquility. History tells us 35:09 that it was another year after that Nebuchadnezzar went 35:16 for a stroll on the roof looking at all the grandeur of Babylon 35:21 Opened his mouth to declare his greatness, Is not this 35:27 great Babylon I have built? And while the consonants and 35:33 and vowels were in his mouth 35:37 His words were interrupted by someone else's words 35:40 O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken. The kingdom is 35:48 departed from thee and they shall drive thee from men 35:52 and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field 35:55 They shall make thee to eat grass as the oxen and seven 35:59 times shall pass over thee until thou knowest that the Most High 36:04 ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever He 36:09 He will. The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar 36:20 Some commentators say he was stricken with a mental condition 36:26 called lycanthropy where an individual's reason leaves 36:31 them and they begin to think, believe, 36:34 and process like an animal. 36:39 No longer the great king, the great conqueror. Now he has 36:45 descended and deteriorated into an animal of the field. 36:52 What happened to this great man who built this great kingdom? 36:57 How did he fall into such a state of being. Instead of 37:02 us asking what happened to Nebuchadnezzar and how he 37:06 deteriorated to this animal like state, we ought to ask 37:09 our own selves the question, What happens to us 37:15 when we turn a deaf ear to the appeals of God? 37:18 What happens to us when we persist in our sins? 37:23 What happens to us when we no longer have an inclination 37:29 toward spiritual things? I want to lift up to you beloved 37:32 three things as to how we become animal like in spiritual terms. 37:38 Here's the first one, in Daniel 2. Daniel 2, verse 46. 37:44 and 47. Daniel 2, verses 46 and 47. 37:48 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and worshipped 37:54 Daniel and commanded that they should offer him oblation 37:59 and sweet odors unto him. The King answered unto Daniel 38:03 and said, Of a truth it is your God, what? A God of Gods 38:09 And what else, Lord of Kings. What else? A revealer of secrets 38:14 seeing thou couldst reveal this secret. Here's the first way. 38:21 The first way. You emerge into a spiritual animal like state. 38:28 You ignore a convinced mind. 38:34 Ignore a convinced mind. You heard what he said, didn't you? 38:41 You know what this is about. He had just had a dream 38:44 in Daniel 2. And God showed him the image of what? 38:51 Talk to me, Daniel 2. 38:56 Great image, isn't that right? Great metal man. 39:00 And it looked interesting. The head was made of what? 39:05 What about the breast and arms? 39:09 What about the belly and thighs? 39:13 What about the legs, what about the feet? 39:17 Iron mixed with clay. And as he beheld this image 39:22 he saw something supernatural happen. 39:26 What was it? He saw a stone that was what? 39:31 Cut out from a mountain by some excavators, is that right? 39:35 No! With unseen hands. And what happened to the stone? 39:40 It hit the image in the feet, the statue came down 39:47 and that stone became what? A great mountain and filled 39:52 the whole earth. And Daniel told him 39:58 You are the head of gold. The kingdoms that shall come 40:03 after you are Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome 40:08 and then the kingdom will be divided. But in the days of 40:12 these kings the God of Heaven will set up His kingdom 40:14 and His kingdom will know no end. That was the stone O King. 40:20 And to that Nebuchadnezzar responds, Your God is bad 40:27 I'm convinced of that. But how often beloved, how often 40:33 are we convinced about the goodness and the greatness of 40:37 God and yet we still turn to do our own thing? 40:42 Despite the miracle He wrought in our life, turn to Daniel 3 40:50 Daniel 3, verses 29 and 30. Daniel 3, verse 29 and 30. 40:57 We deteriorate into a spiritual animal state by first of all 41:03 ignoring a convinced mind. What's the next thing we do? 41:06 Daniel 3:29-30. Therefore I make a decree that every people 41:11 nation and language which speak anything amiss against the God 41:16 of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego shall be cut in pieces 41:22 and what else should happen? 41:29 Then the King, did what? Promoted Shadrach, Meshach 41:36 and Abednego in the province. 41:41 Here's the second thing that occurs. How we deteriorate 41:44 spiritually into spiritual animals. 41:48 By ignoring a convicted mind. 41:53 The first step was to ignore a convinced mind. The second 41:57 thing is to ignore a convicted mind. 42:02 You will recall that this particular declaration comes 42:05 on tail end of the fiery furnace experience. 42:09 In Daniel 2 we saw that image made out of multiple metals. 42:14 But on the plain of Dura we see something else occur 42:19 Nebuchadnezzar decides I'm going to recreate that image 42:23 but it's going to look slightly different. I'm going to do a 42:26 remix to it. Instead of me just being the head of gold 42:32 what am I going to do? I'm going to make the entire image 42:37 out of gold. He was declaring before the world, My kingdom 42:44 is the one that's going to be here forever. It's not gonna be 42:47 anybody else after me and there certainly won't be a stone 42:51 kingdom to come into play. And so he sets up this statue 42:55 and then he declares that when the trumpets start to play 42:58 that everybody there should do what? Bow down and worship 43:05 the image. Do you hear anything prophetic in that? 43:08 There's a day coming when the trumpets will play again 43:11 and the command will be to bow down or die. And the consequence 43:18 was that you were going to be thrown into a fiery furnace. 43:25 There were three brothers who decided they ain't doin that. 43:33 I'm going to stand right here. 43:37 Anytime a believer stands up for Christ, somebody always 43:43 notices. I can remember, I can remember just last year or so 43:51 when we had the experience of the Word to save. And there was 43:54 a lady who was baptized in our meeting named Erica Davis, 43:57 do you remember that? Do you remember Erica? 44:00 The reason why Erica came to the meeting was because 44:03 she noticed something different about one of her co-workers 44:08 Gerald Bruce, one of the deacons in this church. 44:14 If you stand up straight, if you walk correct, if you speak 44:22 right, if you treat folk the way they should be treated 44:26 folk are going to notice there is a difference about you 44:30 and it's going to testify even when you're not giving a 44:34 Bible Study. Your life will be an epistle read of all men. 44:41 And so here they are, here they are, the three epistles. 44:45 Standing up. Men coming to grab them to throw them into the 44:50 fiery furnace. Ah? They get in there. And the heathen king 44:56 he has a theophany. He says, 44:59 I thought we threw three men in the furnace 45:07 I see 4 men and the 4th man looks like, who told him that? 45:18 Because God's people ought to look different. God's people 45:22 ought to be distinguishable from everybody else. 45:25 Remember now, he is the King of an empire that has over 45:30 300 gods. But yet he can look in the furnace and say, 45:36 there's something different about this God. 45:38 He doesn't look like any other God I've seen before. 45:43 This must be the Son of God. He was convicted 45:48 to the point that he had Shadrach, Meshach 45:53 and Abednego to come out of the furnace. Did you ever 45:57 think to yourself why he didn't ask all 4 of them to come out? 46:12 Anybody that can show up in fire, you can stay. 46:17 But he was convicted that this God was above all other gods 46:23 there was something special about him. Look at the 3rd step 46:26 The 3rd step in Daniel 4. Daniel 4, verse 27 and 28. 46:33 Wherefore King let my counsel be acceptable unto thee 46:36 and put off thy sins by righteousness and thy iniquities 46:39 by showing mercy to the poor if it maybe a lengthening of 46:44 thy tranquility. Verse 28, All this came upon the King 46:48 Nebuchadnezzar. Here's the 3rd step. In descending or 46:53 deteriorating into an animal like state in spiritual terms 46:56 First, you ignore a convinced mind. Second you ignore a 47:00 convicted mind. Third, you ignore a converted mind. 47:05 Remember now that after Daniel gives him the interpretation 47:10 to this dream and says you might be able to delay 47:14 this animal thing if you will just stop your sinning 47:20 and start taking care of the poor. 47:23 Stop thinking about YOU 47:28 and start thinking about others. Stop focusing 47:33 on your narcissistic desires and start thinking about 47:39 the charitable needs of those who live around you. If, If, 47:45 The word IF is in there, isn't it? If you do this he says 47:48 it might prolong the outcome. 47:53 Nebuchadnezzar was so converted by this message that we find out 47:59 that he obeyed what Daniel said for only one year. 48:05 And after that one year? 48:10 PRIDE sprung up again. 48:17 Paul tells us that we ought to have a funeral 48:22 for ourselves how often? 48:26 He said, I die daily. 48:33 Because just when you think that old man is gone 48:37 just when you think the taste is gone out of your mouth 48:43 Just when you think you've got your spending under control 48:47 Just when you think you've broken it off 48:51 Just when you think you don't have to snort anymore 48:58 You'll wake up one day and find yourself back 49:04 where you used to be. That's why it's so important for us 49:10 to not wake up in the morning and try to trust ourselves, 49:16 Our Scripture lesson says, We can't put trust in man. 49:20 That's not just talking about other men. That's talking about 49:24 us too. The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? 49:32 That question begs the answer you can't even know it. 49:37 And it's your old heart. 49:41 He had a convinced mind, he had a convicted mind 49:46 he had a converted mind and yet look at him in the field 49:54 grass between his teeth, hair all down his body 50:00 nails long and unkempt. 50:06 Let me tell you something about God. 50:08 I'm bringing this to a close. I asked you a question 50:12 at the beginning of this message. What was it? 50:18 How far will God go to save us? 50:24 God will allow us to deteriorate to the lowest state of living 50:29 but yet even in that low state of living, notice He was going 50:35 to live how long out there? Talk to me. 50:39 Seven years. That means that 7 winters were going to come too. 50:45 But yet he let hair grow like eagles' feathers 50:51 to keep him warm so he would not die of frost bite. 50:57 Being in the field he wouldn't be the only beast out there 51:00 There would be other beasts out there. Don't you think they 51:04 might try to attack him? And so the Lord let him grow claws. 51:15 So that he could protect himself because God knew that one day 51:20 his reason would return to him. The Bible says that he was 51:26 in the field and one day he decided to look up 51:31 to the heavens. Understand something beloved. 51:34 Beasts don't look up. 51:38 Only people look up. And when he looked up 51:45 his understanding came back and all before this he wanted 51:52 to build an empire that men could look at him and praise him 51:57 but as soon as his understanding came back, he said, look at it 52:02 again, look at it again. I bless the Most High, I praise and 52:08 honor Him. It sounds like a testimony service to me 52:11 that liveth forever whose dominion is an everlasting 52:15 dominion and His kingdom is from generation to generation. 52:20 Notice something here. Notice something here, look at me 52:23 when he began to go into this testimony service 52:27 and began to praise Him, he had not made it back to the palace 52:33 and gotten cleaned up yet. 52:40 Are you listening to me? All too often when we sink and 52:46 deteriorate into a low state of being we want to wait until we 52:51 stop doing this, wait until we stop doing that, wait until I 52:55 stop drinking. Wait until I get away from her, wait until I 53:00 get away from him. Wait until I turn in my tithe, wait until I 53:04 break this snortin, wait until I stop these bad habits 53:09 but the moment the understanding comes into your mind and the 53:14 Holy Ghost impresses you that there's a God who takes care 53:18 of you, there's a God who loves you, there's a God who wants 53:21 to save you, there's a God who's looking for you; at that moment 53:26 before you stop anything He expects you to look up 53:29 and praise Him. Praise Him for keeping you alive. 53:33 Praise Him for your right mind, praise Him for your health 53:38 praise Him for the whole, praise Him for your family, praise Him 53:43 for your job. Praise Him for everything you've got even if 53:48 you don't have it. Because for the child of God 53:54 the Bible tells us, No good thing will He withhold from them 54:00 that walketh uprightly. 54:08 The Bible doesn't ever tell us what happened after this. 54:17 But history tells us that, Nebuchadnezzar after he came 54:21 out from the field only sat on the throne two more years. 54:26 And he died. But there is no record after this 54:32 that he ever went back into an animal like state again. 54:38 His heart was fixed, his mind made up. 54:45 He had a convinced mind, he had a convicted mind 54:50 he had a converted mind. He understood that Daniel's God 54:57 had more wisdom than anybody else's god. He understood that 55:01 Daniel's God had more power than any other god. He understood 55:05 that Daniel's God had more authority than any other 55:09 person's god. What is God trying to say to Eddie Polite today? 55:16 What is God trying to say to Pat Reed today? What is God 55:21 trying to say to Orville Brown today? What is God trying to 55:25 say to Gloria Price today? What is God trying to say to 55:29 Michael Brown today? He's simply trying to tell us 55:34 that I'll do whatever is necessary to save you. 55:37 I won't stop at nothing. I gave my life for you. 55:42 I value the sacrifice I gave for you. And so I've got to 55:47 do what is necessary so that no body will ever say I didn't try. 55:55 The diary of a mad black man is the diary of many of us today. 56:04 Can't you remember what you used to be? 56:07 Don't you remember when you first gave your heart to Jesus? 56:11 You remember the joy you used to have? You remember how you 56:16 used to stay up all night and read the Word. 56:19 You know how you used to walk up to strangers 56:22 and just testify, even though they could tell you that you 56:28 were crazy. You still did it. 56:32 You remember the fire that was shut up in you? 56:35 And like Pasha the king trying to shut Jeremiah by slapping his 56:41 mouth shut and Jeremiah saying it's like fire sharp in my bones 56:46 I can't keep it to myself. Gotta tell somebody 56:50 what Jesus has done for me. But along the way 56:55 the fire has gone out. You don't have the same passion that you 57:01 used to. Maybe because you've fallen and descended into 57:07 such a low spiritual animal like state. You've lost your zeal 57:13 you've lost your inspiration. You've lost your love for truth 57:18 and now like Nebuchadnezzar you find yourself in a forest 57:23 full of trouble and you're asking, What is God doing to me? 57:28 Why is all of this going on in my life? What did I do so 57:33 wrong that I've got to be out here groveling like an animal? 57:39 Instead of looking at it as if the glass is half empty 57:46 why not look at it as if it's half full? 57:49 God is trying to save you. |
Revised 2016-03-23