Today's culture does not want you to pursue God. In Daniel 1, we see how the Babylonians tried to stop Daniel from pursuing the Lord by influencing him through their culture. In this episode, Brody talks through the parallels between Daniel 1 and what is going on in society today.
God has called us to live at peace in the world but not with the world. Daniel resolved to stay faithful to the Lord even when no one around him was. Let’s be faithful and stand for what Jesus stands for.
Resources:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Today's culture does not want you to pursue God. In Daniel 1, we see how the Babylonians tried to stop Daniel from pursuing the Lord by influencing him through their culture. In this episode, Brody talks through the parallels between Daniel 1 and what is going on in society today.
God has called us to live at peace in the world but not with the world. Daniel resolved to stay faithful to the Lord even when no one around him was. Let’s be faithful and stand for what Jesus stands for.
Resources:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Well, good morning, afternoon, evening, whatever it is for you, and I want to say thank you for tuning in and listening to. No Sanity Required this week. I'm going to talk briefly about Alistair Begg. He's in the evangelical news, especially in reform circles. I'm going to just give a couple of thoughts on his statements about attending a gay wedding. So what could go wrong with that? We usually don't get into, you know, big public issues, but it's no secret that he's someone that I really respect and love to listen to, and so I'm going to say a couple of things about that.
Speaker 1:And then today's, today's content, this week's content, is going to be out of Daniel, chapter one. We're going to consider some parallels in Daniel one and what happened to those boys that were carried off into exile. Parallel that with what we're seeing happen in our own society right now and and the assault and the attack that's that's occurring to so many young people, teenagers in particular propaganda, brainwashing, just the movement of a radical and progressive sexual revolution that is trying to literally undo what Christ has established in creation. Maybe think about and talk briefly about how we should respond and react to that, as as believers. I don't have anyone with me today. This is the kind of content that I really like talking over with a couple of other folks on on the podcast. You know someone like John Rulo, but just heavy thoughts and some stuff that's rolling around in my mind, in my heart right now that I want to share with you. So thank you for being here, for listening to no sanity required. So grateful that you're here. Let's jump into it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no sanity required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:Back in 2021 at our college retreat. By the way, we just recently had our annual college retreat. I think a lot of our listeners here at NSR will probably have listened to that teaching content because we posted it's already been posted, but in 2021, we did a pretty deep dive into Daniel, chapter one and two, daniel Daniel chapter one primarily, and, and we looked at the sort of the, the revolutionary nature of what the Babylonians were doing to the sons of Judah, daniel and his friends, and I want to talk about it just briefly and I want to read some excerpts from a message that I did at that conference and what kind of brought this up is. I was, I was very recently in in the last couple weeks, I've been in multiple conversations with people about this and then also just spoke at a church two Sundays ago down in South Georgia Some new friends and new church fellowship that I was excited to get to go and share and speak and and had a lot of snowboard supporters and friends that came to that service that day and spoke on Daniel, daniel, chapter one.
Speaker 1:And I want to share those thoughts with you because I think there is a strong parallel between what happens in Daniel chapter one and what's happening in our society right now. I think there's an easy parallel to draw, and I don't want to over what's the word, I don't want to, oh, like I don't want to completely mis contextualize what's happening in Daniel one, but at the same time, I think there are some stark parallels that you can't you can't help but but draw, and so I want to just point your attention to that, and one of the reasons being I've heard people say things recently like and when I say recently, I mean over the last couple of years say things like something like you know, we this, this is unprecedented. We've never seen what's happening in our society right now. We've never seen anything like this before, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. We're seeing things happen in our society right now that we've never seen in our society. You know what I mean, but I wouldn't say that it's unprecedented in history. You know, the writer of Ecclesiastes said there's nothing new under the sun. So anytime we can look back at a different time in history and learn from someone else, especially those who were faithful to the Lord, then I think it's helpful for us to look back, see how they responded, see how people that have gone before us, saints that have gone before us, survived similar cultural revolutions or sexual revolutions, and I want to consider Daniel.
Speaker 1:But before we get into Daniel one, I want to go back to a story that occurred about a hundred years before Daniel, chapter one, and you can read about that story in I think there's actually two places that that story is told. One is in Second Kings 20 and one is in Isaiah 39. I'm going to look at the Isaiah 39 version. This is about a hundred years before Daniel occurs and so if you're, if you're into history and timelines are important to you, they are to me, I think they're very important. We should pay attention.
Speaker 1:Isaiah was writing, predicting and foretelling the, the, the captivity that the people of Judah would be carried into. And, in a larger historical context, the nation of Israel was divided into multiple tribes, twelve or thirteen, depending on how you slice it, say a dozen, dozen or so smaller people, groups, and then the, the, the one that was kind of the large southern tribe was, was the tribe of Judah, and now in our country there's a. There's a big internal conflict, kind of a civil I don't want to say civil war but something that that has the the makings of that and that surrounding that, the Texas border crisis. You've got a state in Texas that's kind of going head to head with the federal government and and but it's different because you've got there, I think there's 25 states with Republican governors who have said, yeah, we'll support Texas, and so there's there's a more even divide.
Speaker 1:But in Israel there had been a civil war that had divided the tribe of Judah, the southern, most peoples in Israel, with all of the northern tribes, and the tribes to the north had been carried off into cap. They had been attacked by this nation of people. It wasn't even like a nation, it was like a. It was a large mass of, like an alliance of people called the Assyrians, and the Assyrians had had long descended and had roots in the opposition to what God was doing through Israel, and they, they conquered the northern tribes. So they, they had conquered them, they had enslaved them, they had taken over their property and their land and their cities, and the southern tribe of Judah had maintained some autonomy. It had kind of. It was like Judah had been its own nation. They had, they had survived, they had, in the course of their history, they had had seven kings that were faithful to the Lord, and I think, if I remember correctly, the northern kingdom of Israel had no faithful kings. Other kings were just like turds, you know, they were like worshiping demons and had turned against the Lord. And so Judah was the southern kingdom that had at times had been faithful to the Lord.
Speaker 1:But there was this king and his name was Hezekiah and he had been sick. Hezekiah got real sick and he was basically going to die, and this prophet named Isaiah came to Hezekiah and he said you know, hezekiah was praying, asking the Lord to spare his life, and then Isaiah gave him the news that God was going to spare his life. It says in Isaiah 38 says then this message came to Isaiah from Yahweh. Go back to Hezekiah and tell him this is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, says I've heard your prayers and seen your tears. I will add 15 years to your life and I'll rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. Yes, I will defend this city, and this is the sign from the Lord to prove that he will do as he promised. I will cause the sun shadow to move 10 steps backwards on the sundial of Ahaz. So the shadow on the sundial, move backwards 10 steps. It's a crazy story. I love it.
Speaker 1:And then at the end, then Isaiah sort of erupts into poetic praise and he worships the Lord and thanks Him. So you got this king. This king was dying and he pleads with the Lord and the prophet comes and gives him this word that, hey, god's going to extend your life for 15 years, he's going to spare your life. You're going to get well, you're going to get a cancer or this, whatever it was, you know this illness, this pneumonia or this, whatever. You're going to be healed and you're going to get to live for 15 more years and so has a cash, just so you know, thankful, and and he, he worships the Lord and he gives thanks to the Lord.
Speaker 1:There's this one point in the story that we just read it's crazy that literally the Lord causes the sun to go backwards. You know, obviously we know the sun's not going backwards, but he reverses the earth's rotation on its axis. And that's not the first time God did that, you know, he did it one other time before that, and so that's a cool. That's kind of a story within itself. But then Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah is the prophet of the Lord. So the, the holy man, the prophet, comes to the king. He says hey, I prayed. God says you're going to live 15 more years and here's going to be this miraculous sign. And then the sign happens.
Speaker 1:And then Isaiah says okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to make an ointment from figs and then, when you put it over these sores that are on your body and I don't know what you know these sore sores were, but he had, he had some sort of, you know, I don't know if it was leprosy, I don't know but but this illness that he had, that was killing him, had created, like, some visual problems, like I mean, he had, he had bowls or sores or something like that. And so they put this ointment made out of figs, like a paste or an ointment, and they put it on the wall and then, like, that's how they treat it. And so Isaiah gives the word, but then he also gives action. There's another cool illustration there where it's like, yeah, he, by faith, he trusted that God would heal him. The word of the Lord came through Isaiah, that God would heal him. He did heal him, but there was action for them to take, you know, using medication or whatever kind of a cool little picture there. And so then Hezekiah's life is spared.
Speaker 1:Okay, that gets us to the point of the story that I want to talk about today. And remember this is 100 years before the story of Daniel Soon. After this, meridac Baladan, son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent Hezekiah his best wishes and a gift. So the king of Babylon, which at this point is sort of this upstart, just rising up nation, and the king sends well wishes to Hezekiah. He's like sending him gifts. He's like I heard you were sick, I heard you got better. Hezekiah was so excited. Then the king sends this by way of like an envoy, so a group of representatives of the king of Babylon, this guy, meridac. They come to Judah and Hezekiah is there and he's well, and they give him gifts and they're like hey, our king said to tell you congratulations on being healed or, you know, on your recovery, and so that's kind of the setting. And then Hezekiah is so thrilled with this.
Speaker 1:I don't know the reason why he does this. Most commentators say it was arrogance, but it says he was delighted with the Babylonian envoys and he showed them everything in the treasure houses the silver, the gold, the spices, the aromatic oils. He also took them to see his armory and showed them everything in his royal treasures. There's nothing in his palace or kingdom that he didn't show him. So Hezekiah shows off all that he's got. He shows them like the things that God had given them and he basically really shows them the inner workings of the people of Judah.
Speaker 1:And so then Isaiah comes to him and he's like why did you do that? Why'd you show these guys this stuff? And he's like, who were they? He said, well, they came from Babylon. He's like why did you show them your palace? He said I showed them everything I own. I showed them the treasuries and everything. And Isaiah is like, why did you do that? Like, what? Like why would you do that? And there's this tension between them and you realize Hezekiah shouldn't have done that, he shouldn't have shown them. Basically, he compromises what God has done it. And so I think the representation there is compromise. Hezekiah compromises and he makes peace with an enemy of God, but not on God's terms. He should strive to live at peace with the world, but only on God's terms.
Speaker 1:And so I said earlier that I was going to bring up Alistair Begg and I'm not going to say much about it. I'm just going to say this Alistair Begg has been very influential in my life because I don't listen to a lot of preachers, but he's one that I listen to. And again, I don't listen to a lot of sermons, I don't listen to a whole lot of sermons, maybe one a week I'll listen to when I'm preaching at Red Oak, which is about once a month. After I've prepared my sermon, I'll go listen to a couple of other guys preach that text. Just to make sure I'm not off base, make sure that I'm. You know, I'm synced up and usually the guys that I'm listening to will have been using the same study tools that I'm using, and so a lot of times there's close similarities and, anyway, alistair Begg's one of those guys.
Speaker 1:But Alistair Begg is being criticized big time right now because he made a statement and I think it was maybe he was saying it to his church. But he said he did a scenario where, like, there's this lady and her grandson is getting married to a dude, it's a gay wedding, same sex wedding and Alistair Begg advised the lady that she should go to the wedding and she should give him a gift. But the caveat was. He was saying he said does your, does your grandson know that you're a Christian? And she said, yeah, does he know how you feel about same sex marriage? And she said, yes, he knows I don't approve of this. He knows my conviction about what I believe biblical marriage and sexuality should be One man, one woman, marriage for life is. You know God's plan that the same sex marriage goes against my personal conviction, and so you know the common thing that people have taught in in in recent years and probably forever.
Speaker 1:But this has been a bigger issue and only been an issue in recent years, since same sex marriage became legal. They've said you shouldn't go to a wedding that you don't approve of, and especially one that's in direct conflict or contrast to who God is, and I think Alistair Begg makes the point. Well then, that means you can't go to any wedding that you don't think like a same sex wedding. You can't go to that. But you also couldn't go to a heterosexual wedding between a man and a woman If you didn't feel like it was God's will or whatever. I don't remember how he worded it, but anyway he made the point and he said look, if she knows how you stand, where you stand, or if he knows where you stand, your grandson then you should just go because it will show him that you love him. I think I might be butchering what he said. I listened to it one time, his statement. You should go and then you should also just be kind and loving and because you want to be an example and a representation of grace.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of people are freaking out on Alistair Begg and are saying that that's a compromise, that he's basically. I mean, people are throwing him under the bus and all I'm going to say about it is that I trust and believe that he is a man who is a man after God's heart. He is faithful in his preaching, he has led his ministry well and nobody's perfect and even if they are, whether they're perfect or not, even if you're not perfect I'm not perfect and Alistair Begg's not perfect then there are going to be times where we don't agree on things. But we need to extend grace to each other and whether you agree with Alistair Begg's statements or opinions on this or not, people need to chill out. They need to chill the heck out. It's not man. It's like I get so frustrated with the Reformed world man. Reformed people are so critical and aggressive and like. They're like like I don't know man, they're like overlords when it comes to they take like I get that we need to be defensive of orthodoxy and historical teaching and biblical doctrine. But, man, chill out. It's the same people that just blast away at that show the Chosen or they freak out over someone that believes that maybe speaking in tongues is okay. Like, just chill out.
Speaker 1:Alistair Begg's proven. Alistair Begg has proven that he believes in that the gospel is what drives our work in our ministry and he believes that Jesus came to save sinners and that his death on the cross Provided substitutionary atonement is an atoning where he believes and has proven himself as a gospel preacher. So give him a break if like, like, let's not be so critical. I know people are gonna say it's not just being critical. This is this is like defensive biblical doctrine. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1:Alistair Begg does not believe that same-sex marriage should be Promoted or celebrated. Like he's a. He believes in the biblical view of it's. Like he's just saying this grandmother, who probably, I would imagine, is at a stage in life where she's you know, she probably really considers her relationships. The older people get the more Contemplative they are of these things. She doesn't want to burn the bridge with her grandson Like I don't know who.
Speaker 1:Am I to say that Alistair Begg is is I mean, people just need to chill out. So that's my statement on it. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with what he's saying. I'm saying people need to chill out. So you may not have heard anything about this, but you can get a quick Google search, youtube search. You'll find it. Everybody is freaking out, but I bring that up and tie it to this to say that, without a doubt, you can. We can stand in opposition to the world's ideologies and not strive to live at peace with those ideologies. We can live at peace in the world, but we may not be able to live at peace with the world.
Speaker 1:And so this guy has a guy whatever's happening here he has compromised and Isaiah says man, you're trying to make peace with the Babylonians, they are in opposition and you'll see this, this, this is foreshadowing, I think a little bit. Well, it's not foreshadowing. It is a prophetic word that Isaiah is gonna speak. That's a word of judgment that has to do with when the Babylonian Empire would rise up over the next century. And here's what he says. Isaiah said that has a kind listen to this message from the Lord of Heaven's armies. The time is coming when everything in your palace, all the treasures stored up by your ancestors until now, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. Some of your very own sons will be taken away into exile. They will become Unix who will serve in the palace of Babylon's king. Then has a guy said to Isaiah the message you have given me from the Lord is good for. The king was thinking At least there will be peace and security during my lifetime. So there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 1:So Isaiah says to has a guy here's what's gonna happen. There's gonna be a time where You've got all these treasures and all these temple in this temple treasury that your ancestors have worked hard to Build up and preserve, and the Lord is blessed, you know has blessed in the building up of this stuff. But there's gonna be a time when all of this is gonna be carried off to Babylon. There won't be anything left, it's all gonna. And not only will all this stuff be carried off, but your sons or your descendants will be carried off. Babylon is gonna come here and take away all of our stuff and all of our sons as a nation. Even your sons are gonna be carried off and they will become Unix, who will serve in the palace of Babylon's king. What does that mean? They're gonna be castrated. They're going to be emasculated, they're gonna be desexualized, they're gonna be degendered and say what you want to? But about a castrated dude is is not a normal like, that's not a normal gender, right? So it's an assault on sexuality. This is what he's predicting. Then has a count. This is crazy.
Speaker 1:Has casted Isaiah. The message You've given me from the Lord is good, for the king was thinking at least there will be peace and security in my life. He's like. He's like, well, god's word is good and at least it's gonna happen a hundred years from now, I'm not gonna have to worry about it. So the guys like this is like a. I don't even know what to do with his response, but he's basically saying, well, I don't have to worry about it, it's not my problem. So a hundred years go by, ish, and you know a century or so, and change or whatever.
Speaker 1:And then this guy, king Jehoiakim, is reigning in Judah and he is a king who is a descendant of Hezekiah, and so he's reigning in Judah, and Then the king of Babylon comes to Jerusalem and besieges it, and that king of Babylon Conquers Jehoiakim, the king of Judah. This is a hundred years after the word to Hezekiah, and there they take all the stuff from the temple, they capture and take all that, and then they take all these boys, and they take the best boys, in in Babylon I mean in in Judah and carry them to Babylon, which is hundreds of miles, and March them to Babylon and they fulfill the prophecy that Isaiah had made to Hezekiah. They carry them to Babylon, they castrate them and did they immerse them in the Babylonian educational system. They're going to brainwash them. So they de-gender them and they're going to brainwash them, but they're taking the most promising intellectual minds from Judah. These are, these are those who have trained and learned in the house of the king and the in the seminary school of the king, and they're going to brainwash them.
Speaker 1:This is literally a picture of progressive Christianity getting in bed with progressive liberalism in the world today and assaulting Christianity from within orthodox, historic Christianity. So you know it was like. Well, you expect the world to attack Christianity, but what we're seeing now is an attack internally. Look at what's happened in the Methodist Church. The United Methodist Church has split wide open because the conservative Methodists who have held to the historic teachings of John Wesley, charles Wesley and the Methodist Church have been, have been outed, they've been booted. You can, you can say they chose to leave or there was a riff or a split, but they've been. They've been pushed out and they've, and most of them then have left.
Speaker 1:And what's left in the United Methodist Church is either progressive, radical, demonic, lost, evil, diabolical people that are not, they are not drenched in the blood of Jesus, they are not going to heaven when they die. They have abandoned. I mean, all you got to do is read the scripture and see the kind of judgment that is passed on this type of religious movement. It is condemned. They have ostracized the faithful within the Methodist nomination. Now, praise God, the faithful are, are going to remain faithful, and they'll grow and strengthen as a remnant. There's, there's quite, quite a lot of Methodist churches that come to Snowbird annually, that have, that have left that radical, progressive new Methodism and they've started. You know, the global Methodist Church is starting to to get has gotten a lot of traction over the last few years and we have several churches that come here that have major leadership influence in that denomination.
Speaker 1:But the point I'm making is it's not. You know, you go back to the 80s and in the Soviet Union, behind the Iron Curtain, there was an attack on Christianity from communism. You look at politics up until 20 years ago there was an attack on Christian freedom from liberal you know politicians. What we've got now is this merge You've got political and religious voices who profess to be Christian, who are deconstructing, disemboweling, trying to the Church of Jesus Christ in our society, in our country. And I'm going to tell you what it ain't going to happen, not on our watch, not in our generation.
Speaker 1:We're going to fight. There's too many people that are saying no. We will fight for King Jesus to remain enthroned in our churches. And Jesus is enthroned no matter what. All of creation is under his authority. We're going to be preaching on that, on the authority of Jesus. It's the main teaching focus of SWO 24 coming up this summer.
Speaker 1:But but I mean, what I want you to know as a listener to this podcast is it doesn't matter what what society does, what what secularism does to infiltrate and invade the church. There is a remnant there. We, as the faithful, will stand for what Jesus stood for and stands for and has called us to stand for when he built, when he began to build his kingdom and his church, and the gates of hell are not going to prevail against that and this. So. So what's happening in progressive quote unquote Christianity is a brainwashing, a washing out of doctrine and orthodoxy, and that's what was happening in Babylon. Babylon was attacking the bodies and minds of the sons of Judah and we are seeing the bodies and minds of our sons and daughters being attacked in our society right now and people who are so called Christians and velvet mouthed, soft-tongued preachers who are not preachers at all. They are diabolical, false prophets. In the United Methodist Church and in the Baptist Church and in the community church and in you name it, you can pick it there are people who have infiltrated the pulpits in our society right now and in the world that we live in, there are churches who are representing the same spirit that was represented in Babylon when the sons of Judah were carried off there. And I'll tell you this snowbird wilderness outfitters will stand as a city on a hill and will shine the light of doctrinal faithfulness and historic Christian teaching and biblical orthodoxy into the hearts and illuminate the minds of the teenagers and the young men and women that come here 12,000 this year. We're going to say what God's word says. We're going to go against what society is pushing. We're going to stand against the influences of a demonic force and movement that's seeking to ravage and rob an entire generation. We're not going to stand for it. We are not going to stand for it, god.
Speaker 1:I believe God raised this ministry, snubbered wilderness outfitters, up for such a time as this. I believe, I believe that God established this ministry in the 1990s, well before the sexual revolution was gained in the traction that we've seen it gain, and established us with a clear mission and vision to be allied in the darkness, and that's why God's blessing it. And, by the way, $500,000 is what's now come in since we started raising money to try to try to build out our next phase of our infrastructure development so that we can go from 12,000 to 18,000 as quick as possible, because we're turning away literally thousands of students every year. That's another conversation, but I gave a report a few weeks ago and God has blessed and given more energy since then. God is doing a work through this ministry to push back against the lies of Satan and the influences within the church of Jesus Christ, where progressive demonic leaders have crept in. So here we are in Daniel one, daniel and Hananiah and Michail and Azariah this is Daniel and then Shadrach, meshach and Abednego are carried off because they are smart, they're intelligent, they're seminary trained, they've been to Christian school, they've been, they've tested out at a high level in all academic subjects math, the math, science and the history and English worlds. You know they've done well. But then also in doctrine and theology, these guys are squared away. These are some young dudes, teenage dudes, that are like, poised to be the next influence, pastors and leaders in the nation of Judah. And boom, they're snatched up. The Babylonians castrate them, march them several hundred miles and then immerse them into a Babylonian brainwashing system at the Babylonian University. So with that, I'm simply going to read for the next 20 minutes something that I wrote in the form of a transcript that sort of serve as the basis for this sermon, and then we're going to link the sermon from when I preached this at the 2021 college retreat. We'll have that link in the episode notes.
Speaker 1:All right, daniel, chapter one. In this chapter I want you to pay attention to three times that the words God gave is used as a thematic and consistent part of the flow of this. So even in this story, god is providentially working During the third year. So we started here. During the third year of King Jehoiachim's reign in Judah, king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord gave him victory over King Jehoiachim of Judah and permitted him to take some of the sacred objects from the temple of God. So Nebuchadnezzar took them back to the land of Babylonia and placed them in the treasure house of his God.
Speaker 1:Then the King ordered Ashpanaz, his chief of staff, to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah, the royal, judah's royal family and other noble families who have been brought to Babylon as captives. Select only strong, healthy and good looking young men, he said. Make sure they're well versed in every branch of learning, gifted with knowledge and good judgment, and are suited to serve in the royal palace. So here we've got a description of these boys that they're sharp, they're athletic, they're handsome, they're highly educated, they're probably multilingual, they're well versed in every branch of learning and they're high IQ individuals. He said these are the ones that are suited to serve in our. We're not going to kill them or enslave them. We're going to use them in our personal agenda as a nation. Train these young men in the language and literature of Babylon, in other words, brainwashing. The king assigned them a daily ration of food and wine from his own kitchens. They were to be trained for three years and then they would enter the royal service.
Speaker 1:Daniel, hanon and I and Mishael Azariah were four of the young men chosen, all from the tribe of Judah. The chief of staff renamed them with these Babylonian names Daniel was called Balthashezar, hanon and I was called Shadrach. Mishael was called Meshach. Azariah was called Abednego, but Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. They are.
Speaker 1:This is an erasing of their identity. They are castrated, they're to be brainwashed and they are. Their old name is erased and removed. You, you, we're cutting you off from your family lineage. We're cutting you off from your national identity. We're cutting you off from your association with Yahweh, the God of Israel. See it, see the parallels to what's happening today. It's turning away at catastrophic rates from the, the historic teachings of Christianity. Just add that we recently taught on this in the story of Noah at the college retreat this year, the college conference. God's always going to preserve a remnant. There will be a remnant of faithful young men and young women in every generation. But Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king.
Speaker 1:He was the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods. Now God had given the chief of staff both respect and affection for Daniel. There's a there's, there's. We said it's going to say God gave. So there it is God gave. If you go back to verse two, it said the Lord gave Nebuchadnezzar victory over King Jehoiachem. Verse nine God gave the chief of staff respect and affection for Daniel. So we're seeing this, this theme form that, the underlying reminder that God's the one who's in control. God gave. But he responded I'm afraid of my Lord, the king, who has ordered that you eat this food and wine If you become pale and thin compared to the other youths to your age, I'm afraid the king will have me beheaded.
Speaker 1:Daniel spoke with the attendant who had been appointed by the chief of staff to look after Daniel. Han and I, mishael and Azari, please test us for 10 days on a diet of vegetables and water. Daniel said At the end of the 10 days, see how we look compared to the other young men who are eating the king's food. Then make your decision in light of what you see. The attendant agreed to Daniel's suggestion and tested them for 10 days. At the end of the 10 days, daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who have been eating the food assigned by the king. So after that the attendant fed them only vegetables instead of the food and wine provided for the others.
Speaker 1:God gave these four young men an unusual aptitude for understanding every aspect of literature and wisdom, and God gave Daniel the special ability to interpret the meanings of visions and dreams. When the training period ordered by the king was completed, the chief of staff brought all the young men to King Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them and no one impressed him as much as Daniel, hanonah, mishael and Azur'ay. So they entered the royal service. Neither the king consulted them in any matter requiring wisdom and balanced judgment. He found them ten times more capable than any of the magicians and enchanters in his entire kingdom. Daniel remained in the royal service until the first year of the reign of King Cyrus.
Speaker 1:So there's Daniel, chapter one laid out, and it is an intense and sobering like, if you let your imagination go there Our sons and daughters, the teenagers that will attend Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters this year imagine them being carried off. I've heard commentators say imagine them being carried off by North Korea or Iran, you know something like that. I say imagine them being carried off by militant LGBTQ activists and then brainwashing and emasculating them and and re-gendering them. That's that's. That's what we're talking about. That's what we're talking about Kind of a combination of those two things a major government takeover, but also an ideological takeover. There's a lot of parallels and I don't want to understate or overstate it, but that's just the reality, and so we're going to pause here.
Speaker 1:The next episode we're going to jump in. We're going to walk through. This is kind of a two part thing. We're going to walk through the parallels and the applications. We're going to, verse by verse, walk through this, this passage, and I hope it'll be helpful. So we stop there because if we don't, this thing will be an hour and a half episode and that's not what we're going for. So we'll get the. The next episode is going to get dropped right behind this one, so it's a two episode week.
Speaker 1:We talk about rolling, we're rolling up up in here it's, it's. It's cold and nasty and there's not. And it's snowy and rainy, and it's sleet this morning and snow on the mountain. It's not anything else I'd rather be doing than sitting here unpacking God's truth. But hopefully the application will be clear as we continue to walk through this.
Speaker 1:Again, we'll link the sermon to this text, but in the next episode I'm going to dive into the text. So thanks for tuning in, thanks for being a faithful listener to no sanity required. That means a lot to us. Please pray for us as we head on charge into an advancing and coaching culture that's trying to rob and rape and steal and pillage and and emasculate and castrate and undermine the authority of God's word in the hearts and bodies and minds of our, of this generation of young people. We're going to teach him that God loves him, he has a plan for him and the cross of Christ Jesus is is what makes all of that possible, that we can receive the grace of God that brings salvation and live as God's sons and daughters, as God's people in a wicked generation. Heavy stuff, but what needs to be talked about. So we're going to unpack it. Thanks again, y'all have an awesome day and we'll see you in the next episode.
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