Have you ever been in trouble?
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Have you ever needed some help?
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The world is
facing a lot of trouble.
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And it's going to need
help from the fourth man.
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Welcome to our series
on, The Incomparable Jesus.
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And we're going to look
today at these great prophecies,
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the revelation of
Jesus Himself about Himself.
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But we're going to start,
actually, in the book of Daniel.
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A story you know well.
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Israel had gotten
itself into a lot of trouble.
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And for some reason
it just kept resisting
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and resisting the
goodness of God, until finally
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idolatry had taken over.
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Idolatry is a terrible thing.
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If you look at the
history of idolatry,
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you'll find they end up even
sacrificing their own children.
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Can you believe it? So terrible.
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So finally, God called a
heathen power; Nebuchadnezzar.
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And Nebuchadnezzar
came in with his army
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and basically
destroyed Jerusalem.
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We won't get
into all the details.
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In that destruction, he took
with him at lot of Israelites.
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Four of them, Daniel,
Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-Nego,
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decided to be
faithful to the God of heaven.
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And it wasn't long before
they were faced with a crisis.
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And when the first meal
came out, the first meal,
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it was loaded with stuff
they were not supposed to eat.
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And so Daniel looked
at the butler and he said,
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"Look, we can't eat that."
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And the Butler
said, "What do you mean?"
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He said, "Look, if
you don't look good,
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if I don't take good care of
you, the king will have my neck
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if you end up looking poor."
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Because they had
been enrolled now into
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the university of Babylon.
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And they were going to
be in that for three years
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and be educated to
help the kingdom of Babylon.
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But Daniel said, "Look, just
test us for ten days, ten days."
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And for those ten
days they were tested with
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just vegetables and water.
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How about that for a diet?
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Well, it must have
been a very good diet,
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because at the end of
ten days they looked great.
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And at the end of three years
they were ten times smarter
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than all the Chaldeans
that went to school with them;
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the magicians, the soothsayers,
and those kinds of people.
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But it wasn't long
before another crisis came up.
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A crisis that God
Himself initiated.
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A dream given to
King Nebuchadnezzar.
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No doubt he had been concerned
about what would happen
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when he passed away.
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Because, you know,
everybody dies at some point
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if you live in this world.
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Even kings are not exempt.
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And so somewhere along
the line God gave him a dream.
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A dream that he couldn't
remember all the details of.
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Knew what the dream was,
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but couldn't
remember all the details.
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And so he called in his
soothsayers and his magicians.
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You know, the kind
of people that you see
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on the television today.
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And our world is just
filled with witchcraft,
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and astrology, and horoscopes.
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These were the people that
invented that kind of stuff.
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So he calls them in.
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And he says, "I had
this terrible dream.
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I've got to know the
interpretation of it."
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And they said, "Fine,
king, just tell us the dream."
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And he says, "No, no, no, no.
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I want to find out
if you guys are real.
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I'm tired of all the spin
doctoring that you give me.
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You're spin doctoring.
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And so I'll tell you
what I really would like."
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He says, "You
tell me what I dreamed,
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and then I'll know you can tell
me the interpretation of it."
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They were just flabbergasted.
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They said, "No, nobody
has ever done that before."
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And he got angry.
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He said, "Listen, if you've got
connections with the gods..."
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I'm paraphrasing here.
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Putting a little bit of
my own conjecture in it.
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"If you know all these gods
and these supernatural things
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that you tell me you
have connections with,
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you ought to be able
to come up with the dream
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and tell me what I dreamed.
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And if you do that, I'll
know that the interpretation
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is not just a spin."
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Of course, they were in trouble.
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Got mad, decided that
he would just destroy them.
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"They're just a bunch of fakes."
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And so he sent out his soldiers.
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They began killing the wise men.
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And they showed up to
Daniel and his three friends.
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Of course, Daniel's
three friends didn't believe in
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magic, and they
didn't believe in witchcraft.
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They believed in
the God of heaven.
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He was their source of wisdom
and He was the one they trusted.
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Daniel went into the king
and he says, "Look, give me,
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just give me some time."
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So the king gave him one night.
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They had quite a
prayer meeting that night.
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Before it was over God
showed Daniel the dream.
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A dream that
showed a great image.
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It's simple, and yet profound.
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And it's still being fulfilled
today, believe it or not.
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We've lived through the history
of it for the past 2000 years.
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Actually 2600 years.
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A head of gold
on this big image,
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arms and chest of silver,
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and of course thighs
of brass, legs of iron,
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feet of iron and part of clay.
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And then
astoundingly, astoundingly,
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a huge rock is
cut out without hands.
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Which tells you
it's supernatural.
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It doesn't come from earth.
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And it strikes the
image, grinds it to powder,
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and blows it away.
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And then this
rock fills the earth.
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Daniel, as he explains
the dream to the king, says,
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"This dream, or this
rock, is the kingdom of God
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that's going to be set up.
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And it will
never, ever pass away."
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The king was astounded.
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He got down, actually
got down in front of Daniel
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and paid him
respect, and said, "Your God,
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your God is the God of gods,
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because He has done this
marvelous, marvelous thing of
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telling you what my dream was."
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Well, it would be nice
if the story ended there
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and
Nebuchadnezzar just accepted it.
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But you know, it
didn't end there.
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The Chaldeans,
well you can guess.
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They were jealous.
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They weren't just
a little bit jealous.
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And they had
something on their mind.
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They had another weapon.
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And they went to
the king and they said,
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"King, you can't just
make this proclamation about
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Daniel and his three friends."
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By the way, they
gained in influence.
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"You can't just make that
proclamation about these guys."
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They said, "Look, you
have to understand something.
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The dream has
your kingdom ending.
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Do you really... Oh
king, live forever."
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You can hear them
flattering the king.
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"Do you really want
your kingdom to end?
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Besides, king, you
know, they may set up,
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they may set up insurrection."
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Now this isn't
actually said in the Scriptures,
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but you can certainly understand
the conjecture of that.
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"They might set
up an insurrection,
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based on this
dream, against you.
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We can't have that, king.
We've got to do something."
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"Well what should we do?"
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I can just image
King Nebuchadnezzar asking
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these Chaldeans that
he had depended on so much
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but had not been
able to produce the dream.
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And they said, "Well,
we have a fix for it."
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And I think they must have
inspired the king to this idea
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of a great image.
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And it's pretty
brilliant what they did.
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Now this image was like he
saw in the dream, no doubt.
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And it didn't have four
metals, it had one metal.
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Gold from head to toe.
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Because Daniel had said in his
dream, "Oh King Nebuchadnezzar,
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you are the head of gold.
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Or your kingdom
is the head of gold."
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But this was from
head to foot gold.
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And then he called in all
the leadership from all over
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the world, and they gathered.
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This was a big deal.
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This was not a small thing.
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They gathered there.
This was pretty simple.
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Everybody had heard
about the dream of Daniel,
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but this was the
counteraction to it.
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And King Nebuchadnezzar
and his Chaldean friends
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were going to send a
message to the whole empire
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that nobody was going
to rebel against this king.
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So he said, "I want to
know that you're loyal.
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I want to know that
you think that this kingdom
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is going to last forever."
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This earthly kingdom.
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By the way, that's
what the world wants.
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An earthly kingdom.
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An earthly kingdom.
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So he says, "You guys are
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going to
demonstrate your loyalty here.
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And so you bow down
before this golden image
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and I'll know that
you're going to be loyal to me."
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Well of course,
when the music played,
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there were three that didn't.
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And there were
some Chaldeans there.
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Chaldeans who said
to King Nebuchadnezzar,
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"King Nebuchadnezzar,
there are certain Jews
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certain Jews..."
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Daniel 3:12, I'm
going to read it.
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"There are certain Jews whom
you have set over the affairs
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of the province of Babylon."
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Certain Jews.
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And then they went on to
say, "O king, they have not
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paid due regard to you.
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They do not serve your
gods or worship the golden image
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that you have set up."
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"What!" I can hear the king say.
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"What!
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You mean they haven't,
they haven't gone along with me?
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You mean they had the
audacity to stand there
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when the music
played and everybody is
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suppose to go along?"
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By the way, I think
there were a lot of Jews
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who bowed down to that image.
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These men were certain Jews.
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They were faithful Jews.
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They were faithful
because they trusted
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the Lord with their life.
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And they believed the dream.
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The believed that this world
is not going to last forever.
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They believed that the
God of heaven was going to
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set up a kingdom someday
that would go into all eternity.
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And that's what they
really looked forward to,
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was a kingdom that
would never, ever end.
00:10:59.62\00:11:03.93
Now it's very interesting
what these Chaldeans said
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to our young friends.
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Or two the king
about our young friends.
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He said, "They do
not serve your gods
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nor worship the golden
image that you have set up."
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Let me just say this.
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They got this right.
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Worship and
service goes together.
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A lot of people take the
name of Jesus on their lips.
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They praise Jesus. And
they should praise Jesus.
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Everybody should praise Jesus.
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He's the incomparable Jesus.
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There's no one like Him.
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But they don't understand
something very crucial.
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Jesus doesn't
want just your praise.
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He wants your service.
00:11:49.10\00:11:51.11
Worship and service go together.
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You can give all the
lip praise you want to God,
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but if you serve somebody
else, you haven't worshiped God.
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So worship and
service go together.
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They got that right.
They understood it well.
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And by the way, when you
get to the book of Revelation,
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Jesus reveals Himself,
this is the thing that He wants.
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He wants not only your worship,
He also wants your service.
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Your loyalty to Him.
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Loyalty means so much to Jesus.
00:12:22.10\00:12:24.41
It means so very much.
00:12:24.97\00:12:26.31
So they said, "They
do not serve your gods
00:12:26.34\00:12:28.88
nor worship the golden
image that you have set up."
00:12:28.98\00:12:32.68
Now these pagan gods, no doubt,
00:12:32.71\00:12:34.75
were backed up
by satanic powers.
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I don't have any
doubt that these Chaldeans,
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and soothsayers, and
magicians, and so forth,
00:12:39.65\00:12:43.32
they were getting communication
from supernatural powers.
00:12:43.46\00:12:48.13
But what were these
supernatural powers saying?
00:12:48.36\00:12:51.07
They were appealing to
the carnal nature of man,
00:12:51.10\00:12:53.80
to the selfish nature of man.
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To the nature of man
that says, "I want all power.
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I want my
kingdom to last forever."
00:12:57.71\00:12:59.37
But Daniel's dream goes against
the selfish nature of man
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and says that God is
going to do away with this world
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and set up a kingdom, a
kingdom, that will last forever.
00:13:05.58\00:13:11.59
A kingdom in which God
will not only be worshiped,
00:13:12.22\00:13:16.22
but He will be served.
00:13:16.69\00:13:18.23
When we come
back in a few moments,
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we're going to
pick up our story.
00:13:20.53\00:13:22.33
Because this ends
very fascinatingly
00:13:22.46\00:13:26.47
as we watch the
fourth Man as He moves
00:13:26.57\00:13:30.44
to save His three
faithful servants.
00:13:30.47\00:13:34.31
Servants who not only
worship Him with their lips,
00:13:34.51\00:13:37.85
but they worship
Him with their hearts,
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and with their obedience,
and with their actions.
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We'll be right back.
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