Will You Do The Right Thing ... Even If It Costs You?
Video can’t be displayed
This video is not available.
Sermon Transcript
Auto-generated by YouTube
good morning if you're new here Among Us my name is Jean and I serve here at C3 Church as your pastor so I just want to start by thanking Tony Johnson he did a very good job last week you can call him Tony when he's here if you see him at work you should call him Deputy that's a good idea but anyway he's not working when he's here but he's working a lot so he took some time out of his schedule to give me a weekend I don't often get a weekend I get maybe a day off if I'm really fortunate so we got a weekend in the midst of all that is going on and so we know what's going on with hurricane Ian so just a quick uh update for you guys real fast uh we're good our neighborhood is good so praise God he kept the power on at this building that's pretty much the whole thing it went out like during the wind event but we came right back on so we helped our neighbors we did a lot of relief efforts we had guys awesome people go around the whole neighborhood and ask everybody how they were doing what they needed and if they needed anything a sea food water whatever it was we had it we even had chainsaws ready to go and so this neighborhood was up and running pretty quick and I like to think God had a lot to do with that using us as the hands and feet so now we're in the stage where we're reaching out so we were over prepared Heather and if you know us that's us so we have tarps and water and everything all year we're thinking that this is probably going to happen and so we get all kinds of stuff but we have too much stuff now so now I'm calling all my Ministry Partners my mission Partners up and I'm saying what do you need we have stuff but what keeps happening is people are so generous people keep bringing more stuff which is not a bad thing so if you know or you know anyone or you need a meal we have two refrigerators filled with pre-packaged meals so if you know anyone who might need it or you just have a heart to say you know what I'm going to drive to Fort Myers or somewhere where it's bad give me 10 of them I'll take them good just make sure you say Jesus sent me and then that's it right so no selfies online but anyway if you need to do that go go do that we have tons of extra food there's like bags of food like grocery bags of food and so all these Ministry Partners they just keep giving me stuff so plenty of it and we have food upstairs let's Fellowship together afterwards um yeah that's it so if you want any part of those efforts come see me I just want to thank everyone who's been Faithfully giving that helps but now it's gone up so we need a little extra help if you can give it it's a very fluid situation so a lot of people will think you know like oh they must need this and they'll bring like a ton of this but I don't need that I have too much of that and so I know what everyone needs and so it's fluid some days it's food some days it's diapers some days it's this it just changes all the time and I have to be able to work on the fly so thank you if you give that's awesome if you haven't yet been giving now is a good time to start because we could use the help we are pushing those efforts out to be a light in this community so I'm proud to say we did that real quick um it comes up in the announcements sometimes excuse me but the Bible study questions they follow the sermon they actually go right along with the sermon so if you download our app C3 Naples in any app store you can go to Media then the Bible study questions and you can pretty much follow along I made some like easier ones this week for themes you go to lunch afterwards with your family or your friends and you can kind of go through and review the sermon it's in there now so you don't have to wait till Wednesday to get that with that being said let's get to the sermon so I like my stories and I heard a story of a pastor who was doing his work in a city that wasn't like spread out like ours ours is like a horizontal City it has a lot of square miles his city was like a vertical City think Manhattan right a couple square miles big tall buildings everyone piled up on top of one another so it's kind of like that now in a city like that if you're a pastor you may not need a car right you take public transportation maybe you can walk to where you're going and then there's the bus so there's like a lot of different ways a cab a lot of different ways you can get to different places so there's this past they're pastoring in the city and he's taking the bus all the time but then he starts thinking the car might be nice all right because when I get on the bus everyone starts talking to me and I can't concentrate on my sermons or whatever but then he thinks on the other hand maybe I should be on the bus talking to people so it's kind of like this he's having this push and pull the car gas insurance car payment I don't need that bus is cheaper but at the same time their convenience is so he finally gives it to God and he says I'm just gonna let the Lord show me if he wants to I mean I have a car I'll have a car something will happen right so he's seeking a sign now gets on the bus he has this on his mind he gives the bus driver a 10. clearly too much for where he's going it's like two or three dollars for where he's going bus driver hands on the change but now he has more than 10. bus driver gave him like twice three times the amount of change back goes back to his scene with it and starts thinking is this a sign oh this could be God saying I should have more money or I should more stuff this might be a sign so here's what we do a lot of people do that right this is a sign because it's incredibly convenient for me so he starts measuring it with this and then realizes oh right this guy made a mistake I'm capitalizing on that this could be like stealing in a way so he realized he feels bad he waits for a stop he goes to get off the bus and he just hands the bus driver all the money just just take it listen you gave me twice as much as I needed I shouldn't have even sat there on it I should have gave it back to you immediately I'm so sorry forgive me I apologize but here's all the money back pay it forward bus driver no that wasn't a mistake at all pastor I didn't get to the punch yet hold on let's go no mistake Pastor now see he was like wait a minute where in this story did I tell the bus driver that was a pastor so the bus drivers now accomplished something that's near impossible he got a pastor to shut up I mean so that's it that's amazing you can all laugh it was pretty amazing feat right he's like wait a minute we're friends I deserve it so the bus driver capitalizes on this moment of silence no he's not a bus driver and he says again no it was no mistake Pastor you see I was at your church last Sunday and I just wanted to see if you practice what you preached will we do the right thing even if it costs us small illustration there so that's kind of the theme today we're going to see but it'll take me a little bit to get there this is one of these days where I am left with this much material and I got to figure out how to get it to this much material so I tried to do my best you're gonna have to work with me so let's do a recap here so that we know where we're at if you're new it'll kind of explain to you what we're doing we're in the rest of the story but if you know the Bible Well you know that it's not chronological they're they're in sections right so you have your Taurus and your history section your poetry section your profit section and so if you want to do it chronological you have to kind of like for example take the profits and go and put them back in the History Section that's how you do it just like that with the noise and everything so that's what we've been doing I'm taking all these profits we're putting them kind of where they belong but we've seen that even the prophets themselves they're not chronological even within the book themselves and so you're like why and I'm going to show you why today one just one example and so when we go back we say in the fall remember of Judah Jerusalem and you had certain before that there's like a couple different sieges and with jehoiah chin certain prophets get taken away Ezekiel and Daniel right they go away and so they're in captivity certain ones like Jeremiah stay and so we've kind of been jumping back and forth like that so we looked at Ezekiel we looked at Daniel for just a little bit we definitely looked at Jeremiah so going back to Daniel we're going to come back to Daniel now we looked at Daniel we had remember the diet the Daniel diet people like to do that for what 10 days but I showed you three years if you're being serious about it you had the interpretation of the dream and then you had the three young men in the fire and so the idea was well we go from fad Christianity to fire Christianity and so we're following that idea if you work your way through Daniel you see certain themes come up and they follow one another very nicely and so that's what we're going to do but here's the problem it's not in order so you have to kind of figure out by the king's name or where you're at what order it's in so I made a chart there we go all right so no more jokes about the chart I didn't make the cartoon I didn't make the chart so I'm responsible for the material If it's incorrect anyway I think it's right but Daniel's interesting because when you think about Daniel you should think about him being taken away into captivity when he's like a teenager just like that he's probably a real young guy right there and Daniel goes over a long period of time so you have different Kings in Nebuchadnezzar right so we saw the king of Babylon then belshazzar his successor then you have Darius the Mead and then Cyrus this gets really complicated and if you're not like a big fan of History it will just like blow your mind it's difficult because what's happening is all these different Empires are coming and going and coming and going and there's different Kings and they have different deals with one another and so this media Persia thing is complicated so a lot of people just kind of go think of them like the same thing and we'll make it easy they're not and even when we're going to look at some of these like predictions these prophecies you'll see that the medes they're not really mentioned here in the section so you're seeing four kingdoms so they're kind of almost the same-ish but you can see what's going on here and I can't see that far if I didn't put one here but I think I got it so you're going to start in chapter seven did I get that right you can't see it chapter seven and eight you know you can't see either that's not blind leading the blind nevermind too many too many tangents right so seven and eight did I get it right am I good five and six and then nine that's how we're gonna go so that's kind of how it goes if we're trying to get this chronologically correct so what I'm going to do for you guys is I'm going to start and I'm basically just going to explain seven and eight to you I could have just like forwarded my notes a little bit and then seven would have been there I had to ask you instead anyway not everything I say makes sense hopefully this will so here's what happens Daniel has a dream and he writes it down so I sleep in or he's in bed he writes down this dream he sees a great storm coming and up out of the water come four beasts right so uh he's probably in his late 60s here if you're doing the timeline so he's an older man there's a lot of time has gone by just view it like that old man now now these four beasts you're gonna it should actually bring to mind remember the Colossus or the different types of metal that represented the kingdoms in chapter two think that right so different things represent these different coming and going kingdoms so lion comes up Wings they're pulled off standing like a human that's Babylon right there bear represents the Persians he has three ribs in his mouth represents the territories that the Persians took over Babylon Lydia and Egypt the leopard again the leper has wings wings just mean speed right so with great speed Alexander the Great plowed everybody over right he defeats the Persians and everything the four wings they're just again sections we see like different numbers of things in their mouth or different things taken off or divided they're just sections that Greece took over now the fourth Beast is when it gets really confusing and people will go back and forth and speculate it's not helpful it has iron teeth right so this is this is probably two things happening here Rome right because Rome took over the Greeks that would be the next successive Kingdom and I'll tell you a little bit about about what's going to happen here but it says ten horns whenever you see horns in the Bible usually it means like a king or a kingdom look that's what it means so Ten Kings Ten Kings are gonna go by here and then you probably have a jump in time and so when you're reading you might have been confused reading Mark 13 or Matthew 24 where Jesus talks about when he's going to come back and they're like wait a minute he clearly said that some of you will still be alive when this happens but yeah you know so what he's doing and Scholars will call it like an ABAB pattern I said Jesus is going then near future far future near future and he'll just keep doing that and so sometimes this is what happens Revelation kind of does that this kind of does that a little so he'll take like a jump in time and it's hard to detect when that happens but if you read it very carefully very carefully you can kind of get when this is going on so what happens is there's a little horn it's a future ruler again this is where people debate a little bit we're not really going to get into that because I don't want you to miss the theme so then you're going to see his future ruler he's doing all these bad things then the anointed one comes then the son of man comes Jesus so this is the Messiah coming back so it has to be a jump in time it's not about a nearer future than that he says the Messiah Reigns Messianic prophecy here and it's about the future time if we turn the page Daniel 8 I'm just going to move through these two things we can if you want to ask me questions Bible study we can do that um again during belshazzar's Reign it says now the third year so early in his right now it's the third year of belshazzar's Reign uh Daniel saw another Vision so this is kind of a funny one in a way it's some strange imagery she's a ram and a ram has two horns one horn longer than the other and you should get this idea about the ram that it's complacent that's the idea here because now this goat comes out of nowhere and he's going so fast that his feet aren't touching the ground he has one horn between his eyes and Rams the the the the the Ram he they go yeah I just confused myself the ram Ram's the goat I hope I have that right did I get it right and tramples him right he's he's done he finishes them but the one horn breaks off and now you get four horns now it's pretty clear what this is about uh what goes on now is is in the midst of this so he has the vision but then Gabriel comes and he's I'm going to tell you the vision and then Daniel's like passes out because he's afraid of the Angel so then he explains the vision he does what I did there I put them both together for you so what it's clearly about is and if you know anything about history Alexander the Great he dies really young and then four of his generals take over for him and so these are probably the fault for horns but out of one of the empires the seleucid Empire comes this other guy he's really bad King Antiochus comes out of that now I don't have time for it but we can kind of nerd out at bible study this is really interesting if you're within this series because here's what you have you have the Jewish people they're like wedged between Ptolemy that dynasty just think like Egypt and then this seleucid dynasty that's what's happening in between now is there so much here the ptolemies were the ones who ordered the making of the Septuagint the Greek Old Testament and that became the Bible of the early church it's a really interesting that that happened he brought the elders over right so to do this whole thing so anyway I'm gonna gotta suppress suppress the nerdness and move on so anyway here's what happens though and this is just a quick note um if you have really educated yourself about the Bible you know that your great-granddaddy's Bible his KJV had some extra books in it there was like an Apocrypha in there and the reason they're in there is because right from the beginning of the early church they were in there with no delineation there's no like hey careful when you read these you might get set on fire there's nothing like that they're just all mixed in and even in Daniel I'll explain this to you probably the next message how there's just extra parts of Daniel it's just different and they have more stuff in it very interesting one of those stuffs is first and second Maccabees that was in there again the Protestant 16 level 11 King James Bible had these in there they were in there and there's a reason for that even if you're not thinking their scripture a really good reason for that because you can't understand Daniel unless you read at least First Maccabees you just can't do it you'll never get you'll have to just believe implicitly what somebody else tells you when you read this they tell the stories of this stuff happening also John 10 right so Jesus going to celebrate the Festival of dedication cares enough about it to go it's not in the Torah it's not in the law of Moses where is it Maccabees that's how you know about it they're celebrating Hanukkah it's a festival of dedication they do the lights because they only had enough oil for two lamps and it went eight days but this is Judah Maccabee so there's this guy Antiochus he stops the uh religious practices in the temple stop they built the gymnasium they do all this terrible stuff and when they they're in the gymnasium they're naked so there's a lot of stuff about circumcision and crazy stuff in there but anyway he stops it that's this guy then Judah Maccabees restores it and that's what Jesus is going to celebrate in the temple so interesting not a law of Moses holiday so you miss stuff and so there's an encouragement there take a look take a look at the extra books because it will educate you and you will better understand what's happening right here so this huge historical intersection is happening now there's so much going on so Antiochus is seen as an antichrist and the way you look at it correctly you have to kind of go he's uh Daniel we'll look at this later he's representing or foreshadowing something as well right so there's two things going on here it's a near then time and then afar then time so here we're going to get to the Crux of our story so software update is waiting to install don't you love that I turn it on early I'm like trying to read scriptures here go away so we're going to get to two stories one you know better than the other I'm betting um so the first one ties to the second one a lot of you guys probably know this story you could probably like make your way through it Daniel and the Lion's Den we're going to take a few of these stories and I'm going to try to show you things that you might not have seen before and it's kind of interesting so a good tour guide right so if he's experienced and he's been on the tour a bazillion times right so like the new guy's gonna go oh look at the elephant you know look at the giraffe you know but the guy who's been there for a while is going to be like do you see that little deer and everyone's like no and that's the point you see so here I'm gonna stop and let you see it so that's what I'm trying to do give you these little little hidden Easter eggs in here they're kind of hard to find so the first one Daniel 5 1. many years later so you see what's going on here there the time King belshazzar gave a great feast for one thousand of his Nobles and he drank wine with them while belshazzar was drinking wine he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem he wanted to drink from them with his Nobles his wives and his concubines they brought these gold cups taken from the temple the house of God in Jerusalem and the King and his Nobles his wives concubines drank from them while they drank from them they praised their Idols made of gold silver bronze iron wood and stone suddenly they saw the fingers of a human hand riding on the plaster wall of the king's Palace near the lampstand the king himself saw the hand as it wrote and his face turned pale with fright his knees knocked together in fear and his legs gave way beneath him so he starts freaking out what does he do let's call in The Magicians astrologers and chanters these people and see if they can figure it out and he makes like a deal with him he's like anyone who can do this I'll give you purple robe the gold chain and make you the third highest person in the kingdom and they can't do it now pause button if you like reading the Bible a lot like me here's a cool exercise to do Genesis 37 through 50 read it read the Joseph account and then read all of Daniel try to do that within like a short time frame I do it in a day maybe for you it's a week whatever it is just do that you're gonna see so many cool similarities to me and my thinking Joseph is like a foreshadowing of Daniel that's really cool keep going Gene anyway so here's the thing the queen mother comes in and she's like I know about this guy he can interpret dreams he has the spirit of the Gods in him so it's kind of an interesting statement okay get him so they get Daniel and here's where it's confusing because this king is belshazzar but Daniel has like another name beltashazar it's like you know so anyway we're just going to stick with Daniel we're not going to use that other name and so he makes in the same offer I'll give you the purple robes the gold chain third highest in the Kingdom Daniel he's interesting keep your gifts are given to someone else but I'll tell you the dream and so he goes on this thing really criticizing him quite a bit he's like your predecessor Nebuchadnezzar he got arrogant he reminds him about a previous thing that happened to him he humbled that King and sent him out into like the Wilderness of the fields and he was eating grass like a cow his hair grows really long and his nails are like birds claws it says look God had to Humble him you knew about this yet you're going to take these things and worship stuff well you take the the now the temple had all these things that they took out of the temples now these people are in possession of the temple the gold cups all this nice stuff and you're gonna like just defame this stuff like what to your gold idols and so this is the whole thing he's telling him you're dis acknowledging the god that gave you breath that put breath in your lungs so this is what the writing means tikle and Parson your days have been numbered you've been weighed and you don't measure up and so now your kingdom is going to be divided and in very short order he's rewarded like he gets the purple Daniel gets a purple rolled gold chain third highest person in the whole Kingdom like real fast and it just says and then that very night the King was killed that's it Darius the meat now brings us to that King so Darius takes over needs Persians close but Darius the mede takes over in his position Daniel 6 1 Darius the Mead decided to divide the kingdom into 120 provinces see and he appointed a high officer to rule over each province the king also chose Daniel and two others as administrators to supervise the high officers and protect the king's interests Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all the other administrators and high officers because of Daniel's great ability the king made plans to place him over the entire Empire I think Joseph then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government Affairs but they couldn't find anything to criticize or condemn he was faithful always responsible and completely trustworthy so they concluded our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel will be in connection with the rules of his religion so here's what happens so you think Joseph if you know the Joseph account well it's like oh yeah so when you do things well you will get haters so that's what's going to happen so not that it's a problem that Joseph or Daniel are kind of like overachievers but I've noticed in life you don't even have to be an overachiever if you just do things kind of right like people hate you so if that you know just be encouraged by Daniel and Joseph maybe it's at work or something like that or in your life you know people just criticize you haters so he's got haters now and so they decide to hatch this plan they're going to go to Darius and he's going to they're going to like remind him like you know uh isn't anything you put in writing like it's set in stone essentially you can't change it yeah sure so they're like okay let's make a 30-day law that says in the next 30 days nobody can pray to anyone else no other gods nobody but you of course well Perry's gonna be like signed like that's kind of cool right so I'm God they're going to pray to me Daniel hears about it but still he goes up to his room opens the window faces Jerusalem prays three times a day well he's seen doing it the officials go back and say Daniel broke the law and doesn't it say that anyone breaks the law they're going to get thrown into the lion pit or the lion then yeah but what did it say about he wants to elevate Daniel so this is a problem he's like oh no I like this guy so he spends all day trying to like come up with something because remember anything you sign it can't be broken can't come up with anything they come back they really hate Daniel they come back to remind them look throw a gun lines so they do it now pay attention a couple interesting things so they do it they're all a stone in front of the pit or the Lion's Den and they seal it and if you're getting like a literal version they seal it with the king's Signet ring and with the other Nobles this is a sealed deal remember that so this guy can't sleep at night so he can't sleep you don't eat anything he's having a hard time and he gets up real early in the morning and I even get up he just he goes out to the Lion's Den and he calls out to Daniel Daniel that the god whom you serve rescue you from the Lions right pay attention Daniel first thing he says long live the king that's interesting so and if you're reading it in the Greek Old Testament it's like fraternity forever it's like long long long time so may the King live forever for eternity is a better translation then he acknowledged it most of you know that other part right so somebody left that line out last time you heard the story right but here's the thing he acknowledges the Lord sent an angel to shut the mouths of the Lions and you've heard that then what happens it throws the officials right in instead the one who inflicts the punishment on you will get the punishment before their feet hit the ground the Lions will tear them up then interesting Darius like Nebuchadnezzar before him becomes a god worshiper isn't that interesting Praises God his kingdom will have no end and then he's like everybody should worship Daniel's God makes that the decree very interesting so here's the thing Daniel when you just back up and think about what we would do or not for God you look at them Daniel is a man of incredible incredible integrity no you keep the stuff right unbelievable both of these stories they go together they both involved Daniel having incredible integrity but also telling or doing something it's the king this king is not going to like this right your days are numbered so you know in our language you know right because and Parson right you're not going to say that to anybody so in our language think about it you know it's like going to someone with Incredible Authority and power his kings are not like rulers here in America today right you don't have to get anything approved that's it what he says goes just as we saw it signing in Allah good it's done so imagine going to somebody who has power like that and saying you know what your time's up you're out soon you're going to be gone and you know what you didn't measure up you're terrible at what you do and then all that you've worked for is going to be divvied up that's it not it right I don't want to be that messenger I'm probably going to get shot so he does that incredible Integrity calls him out reminds him about you know anyway so here's the thing doing what is right no matter what it costs is always Daniel's priority think about it if it means losing everything he just pre-gives it up even if it gets him killed think about it so here's the thing during what we've been going through let's think about recent times some of us have learned a lesson about the futility of stuff I hope and not putting our trust in that I hope as Christians where is our hope the song in Jesus and that that's it not Jesus and here's my backup plan no that's it if you believe you know where you're going and we see what happens literally when they get swept away that's why Jesus he ends The Sermon on the Mount with that one who builds on my foundation with the Torrance and the flood waters rise and crash against that house because it's built on my Bedrock it won't collapse but anyone who builds on sinking sand it'll come down with a crash and he drops the mic That's How It Ends leaving you something to think about think about that that is when our foundation is revealed that is when and it's okay you know just I have no one in mind as I say this no one in mind so it's not about you just but man I can tell a lot about a Christian right and we have fear and that's okay that is okay it's okay I get scared of some stuff like Tony Johnson I think he told you guys I don't like germs right so anyway throwing me under the bus don't buy me hand sanitizer I don't need it but anyway I don't like stuff either right there's certain things that I don't like but at the end of the day you know I kind of reconcile it with Christ and go stop it you know what I mean like my hope is in Jesus I'm good I am good right so let's just work towards really strengthening that foundation so if we went through that storm maybe you lost stuff you know okay are we gonna learn this time right let's learn look for those who have built their faith on the Bedrock of Christ look their faith is a firm foundation that's it you don't worry so much about all the stuff on the news and all the other stuff I have a compassion and a heart for people of course so I go out and help them right I don't go ah on my way there they don't need that they don't need that they need like it's gonna be okay because Jesus so a question arises from Daniel today do you love God enough to always do what is right even if it costs you dearly might not be stuff it could be a job you're telling your boss or doing what is right and I'm going to get to a little side point in a second but don't you to always have that type of integrity no matter what like Jesus says if it costs you your family you know will you always abide by my commands that's a good question it's a really good question now here's the sidebar and I just I just I said it on purpose and a lot of people leave this out and I hate it foreign they will take the Daniel praying thing to like point to some kind of Civil Disobedience right it's like it's like when people do that I'm like you missed the whole point because of your attitude problem that's really what happens there right so Daniel's he defied the king he's afraid I'm like you got to get your attitude in check because think about it think he has been so respectful to this King that he wants to place him like the top he's doing his job better than anybody else the king holds him in very high esteem and what else what does he say the lines and experience long live the king interesting so just a note there there's a lot of respect for this King yes he makes his point but there's some boundaries there to these points many leave that part out here's the thing we talked about this so I'll do it sure Daniel typifies Romans 12 worship he is Romans 12. what does it say be a Living Sacrifice to others that is worship he typifies that literally sacrificing himself and we saw that when we look yes but it's a Continuing Story yeah they have their Wars and all this other stuff but keep reading keep reading look at how Jesus defines it we saw Peter defined it right honoring people and sacrificing yourself for them that's worship honoring everybody including the emperor burning you alive that is First Peter we see that in Revelation we saw Paul most honorable Festus right he knew how to get the point across the right way and Daniel is willing to lose everything even sacrificing himself and think about it it's so amazing that he turns this person from wanting to be worshiped calling himself a God to worshiping Daniel's God and we saw the Saints back in the day the early church fathers who got the point guess they read their Bibles a little bit that's what they did look at polycarp look that up polycarp look him up that's what he did fed the people were about to kill him it says the soldiers were converted by it they just couldn't believe it they're like this must be real because who would do that exactly that's how we do it we don't do it by complaining by crying but one looking like we have no faith at all nope our postures firm in Christ that's how we should be now here's an interesting thing we see a pre-figure in Daniel of what happens to Jesus in the New Testament this is where I really had to contain myself I'm going to encourage you to read John 11. actually read like John 8 through read all of John there you go that's better so I'm going to tell you another story you might know I'm connected to Daniel and connect it to Jesus hopefully I'll accomplish that today but I want to point out again a few little nuggets on the tour bus for you so okay so here's the thing so you have the account of Lazarus in general now you guys know that right and you say rise up and you sing that song about Lazarus and all this other stuff but there's more to it than that like one person listens to the way FM so you got it okay thank you so there's a song about Lazarus but that's all you get right you know like leatherers come out and Mommy comes out of the Tomb and that's what you think of but there's so much going on in the background of this that I want to try to like invite you into it I'm going to stop the tour bus say look there's a rare animal that you normally don't see so you need to go back and think about John 8 what he says them you guys are children of your father they're like we're the children of Abraham Jesus says to him no you're not no you're not your father's the devil that's your father so he's teeing off on these people and he says before Abraham was I am and so he's he's making himself the burning bush in Exodus three so I am the I am and so they try to Stone him they want to kill him this is used when anyone says Jesus didn't say it was God aren't wrong they wanted to kill him for it so you get to chapter 10 I mentioned right the Festival of dedication they used to call it the Festival of Maccabees just so you know it wasn't a bad word in the Jewish tradition so that's what he's celebrating and then he says that he's the son of God right he's making that point again I don't want to Stone him right he's calling himself God they affirm it we get to chapter 11. and so you got to think about that what he's doing is he's going back and forth between Bethany so if you're looking at a map and now there's a map person but Bethany would be in the South so it's by Jerusalem and Bethany is like right next door and so they're going back and forth to Jerusalem and they're staying in Bethany right so if it's too expensive in Jerusalem but these are for the mandatory festivals like the Festival of booths right so we saw that in chapter nine so back and forth back and forth type of thing or seven right seven so he's going away in the North like by Galilee like the Sea of Galilee there where everything started John the Baptist all this other stuff right so back and forth so he's up North now he's traveled away from the festival now and he gets word from Martha and Mary in Bethany in the South right next to Jerusalem that their brother is sick so they're like come heal him right they've seen these healings and stuff heal him up and so you know he waits on it for two days a lot of people only think about that but it's an important to State he makes he's like no I'm going to wait he's thinking so that Lazarus dies some of that my glory so he notices he's gotta let Lazarus die so that everyone can see him raise him from the dead so there's some back and forth about that within the back and forth I want to point something out it's really crazy so finally you know he says okay let's go to Bethany right it's right near where he just almost got stoned so like rocks thrown at him careful so anyway I got a break every comic relief in here it's for me not you so anyway so they're like you know no Jesus they just tried to stop on you a couple days ago you're crazy right and so he gives us a little speech but here's what's interesting finally they know they're going and they could get killed and Thomas says this John 11 16 Thomas nicknamed the twin zithimus said to his fellow disciples let's go too and die with Jesus now in an effort and this is what I think to reconcile a character that we've placed pretty hard on Thomas if you listen to some audio versions they do something that makes me laugh they go okay let's go die with Jesus it doesn't read that way in the Greek at all I don't sense that I don't get its own of sarcasm I get okay let's go die with Jesus that's the tone in the original interesting huh so let's keep the bus going and I want to talk about someone else well so yeah let's talk about someone else so they go right so there's a bunch of back and forth but guess who comes out to greet Jesus Martha huh maybe you know the story Martha Martha right Mary has all she needs Mary's in the house now Martha comes out see him and we get a Peter type of King he's the Kingdom of Heaven moment because Jesus is like Lazarus will rise again she's like I know everyone will rise at the end right Jesus I'm the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me will never die do you believe this and she says yes I know you're the Messiah the Son of God I just want you to stop and think about something in typical Christian storytelling who are those people two people with a bad rap but this guy's willing to go and die with Jesus so before we criticize him for not having faith doubting Thomas not all the time there's another side to him Martha Martha Martha you're so concerned with all these things she confesses Christ like Peter what like she's a champ just a couple things a lot of tour guides aren't going to stop and tell you to look at both sides of these people so what happens I'll tell you what happens we use these people to make excuses for our sin that's what happens you got to stop doing that right because there are two there's a better side to each one of these characters that I would encourage you to look at and say maybe I need to get my faith more like Thomas's say that to a Christian if they're like huh you need to read John that that's a problem interesting note so and most of you know the rest of the scene but think think think Stone rolled in front of the Tomb no seal on this one I don't think Stone rolled in front of the channel Jesus prays to his father I know father you always listen to me but for their sakes right so they believe I'm praying aloud right Lazarus come out comes out of the Tomb tells me but it is interesting Martha's like it's been four days the body's gonna stink so she still is very practical even though she's very faithful at times and that's what happens so here's the thing what gets Daniel in the lines down the first place continues to do what is right he prays he prays he does the right thing but you know who else prays when things might not work out for him too good Jesus Agony in the garden right he's praying we find ourselves in his positions what did they do the faithful prey faithful pray that's what they do and here's the thing to the world like talking to my good friend Ed about this several times like movies right so like everything is about the way to sell movies or sell anything is you make the person the hero of the story that's what you do am I correct like that that's American culture the person Maybe not maybe it's other places ukrainians can tell me but you know the key to selling something is you're the hero of the story it's all about you so when we as Christians and I hope you're saying this I hope you listen to lyrics The Last Song you say it's not right we we we're like hands and feet we're a part of it but no no no it's all about Jesus and stop and not did I think this no no no no it's all about Jesus and I'm willing to just die for him and you know what like yes I'm gonna do so what did I just talk about hurricane relief it involved doing things right but what do we do prayed through the whole situation saw all kinds of miracles happen but sometimes when we stop and we say wait a minute I might be making this about me what do you do what do you need to do you need to stop and pray that's it pray believe me God will provide all kinds of stuff for you to do right but you provide stuff for you to do so I know the Mary Martin of the thing not preaching into my argument too well but anyway stop pray and here's what happens when we do that and I've had it happen to me I've have many people within the church have done this to me like Pastor you know you need to get out there and do that you need to be seen doing that because I'm like okay you know what I mean but think you know my counsel is good because they tell me you need to pray pray pray and when I do that first it's fine like everything works out and look but the world sees that and they're like What's playing gonna do because they all think they're God they're not God will sorted out just don't you believe but Jesus encourages us I showed you guys a Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5. blessed are you when people insult you and mock you and persecute you like Daniel's adversaries he's praying they're like ah got him you know so you're blessed could you you would just keep praying let them but they're not doing enough pride pride pride they're not doing it shut up I'm just gonna pray how long I don't know until God tells you to stop just pray when they mock you they insult you they mock your faith you're accomplishing nothing I know I'm waiting for God to accomplish it and I also realize that he already has accomplished everything I'm good so I'm just going to have a conversation with him you're interrupting thank you very much Jesus right they said he accomplished nothing when we pray relying on Christ Alone the faithless Will Mock us faithless Will Mock the faithful saying we've accomplished nothing so we'll wrap it up soon Daniel 9. let's go back to Daniel just to chart real quick to show you where we were two prophecies right then the two stories that went well together and then we end up at nine let's look at something Daniel 9 1. it was the first year of the reign of Darius the med the son of ahasuerus who became king of the Babylonians during the first year of his Reign I Daniel learned from reading the word of the Lord as revealed to Jeremiah Pops in there the prophet that Jerusalem must lie desolate for 70 years so I turn to the Lord God and pleaded with him and prayer and fasting I also wore a rough a burlap like wearing a wool sweater so you just cannot be happy and sprinkled himself with ashes just he's lamenting and so what he does he prays to God and it's very reminiscent of Moses's intercessory presence he's a big way of saying getting in the middle of this situation and pleading for like an entire people right that's what he's doing and he they appeal to God in very similar ways the thought is like we don't deserve it right but for your sake you wouldn't want the other nations to say you let your people down and so this is kind of like a repetitive thing Daniel is praying praying we deserve the curses we looked at those Deuteronomy 27 and 20. do you deserve the curses we're getting what he's doing but please for your sake Lord so this is what happens Gabriel comes again he doesn't faint this time Daniel that is right he says you're precious to God and so he gives this whole thing that I'm just going to go through quick it's like 70 sets of seven so basically what this is it's two different sets of time it's a time to atone for everything that they've done and then an anointed one will come and here's what happens Daniel 9 6 after this period of 62 set to seven and also the 490 is 490 years probably the anointed one will be killed appearing to have accomplished nothing in a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city in the temple the end will come with a flood and War and its miseries are decreed from that time to the very end the ruler will make a treaty with the people for a period of one sets of one set of seven but after half this time he will put an end to the sacrifices and offerings and as a climax to all of his terrible Deeds he'll set up the sacrilegious object that causes desecration or desolation until the Fate decreed for this new filer is finally poured on him so don't get too wrapped up when people argue it's not this it's not that fun it's like a little of both it is said that this is the exact amount of time from this time to Jesus coming as a messiah on 33 A.D that's what he said about it probably is and again you get this kind of back and forth thing a future time thing but I want to show you something here if we go to Matthew 24 for example I was telling you about the mark 13 and Matthew 24. Matthew 24 15 this is Jesus talking the day is coming when you will see what Daniel the Prophet spoke about the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place reader pay attention to Daniel right so this is what happens the Romans take over if you know 70 the they destroy the temple in there so this all this stuff is gonna happen but here I want you to go back to something when the anointed one is killed it appears that Jesus accomplishes nothing that's what this is about when Jesus keeps bringing us back to so if we go back to Daniel 6 we see Darius was right it's layers of Prophecy upon one another I decree that everyone throughout my kingdom says the Wrath of the Lion's Den should you tremble with fear before the god of Daniel for he is the Living God and he will endure forever I'm just going to jump a little bit so if we keep reading we just jump into seven we get another prophecy about a future time after the Nations come and go Daniel 7 9. I watched his vision now as Thrones were put in place and the Ancient One sat down to judge his clothing was as white as snow his hair like purest wool he sat on our fiery throne with wheels of blazing fire and a river of fire was pouring out flowing him from his presence millions of angels ministered to him many millions stood to attend him then the court began a session and the books were open I continued to watch I could hear as I continue to watch I could hear the little horns boastful speech I kept watching until the fourth Beast was killed and its body was destroyed by fire the other three beasts said their Authority taken from them but they were allowed to live a little while longer this is what you got to pay attention to as my vision continued that night I saw someone like a son of man coming with the Clouds Of Heaven he approached the ancient one and we led into his presence he was given Authority honor and sovereignty over all the nations of the world so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him because he'd rule is eternal it will never end his kingdom will never be destroyed future time like near future far future check it out if we go back to Matthew 24 Jesus continues and then at last the sign that the son of man is coming will appear in the heavens and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth and they will see the son of man coming on the Clouds Of Heaven with power and Glory when Jesus calls himself the son of man he's referring to this and when Jesus is on trial he's about to be put to death silent before his accusers Mark 14 61 but Jesus was silent made no reply then the high priest asked him are you the Messiah the Son of the blessed one Jesus said I am you understand that better now you're going back to Exodus three I'm glad and you'll see the son of man seated in the place of power at God's right hand and coming on the Clouds Of Heaven Jesus is referring to Daniel 7 here important all this stuff goes together and so as I close I'm going to close with scripture today and you will see how these things come together it's magnificent Revelation a lot of beginners will say teach me about Revelation and I'm like did you read the rest like so we're going to start at the last chapter of the book that's a fantastic idea almost as good as like your verse of the day where you're jumping all around like one line here one line there and so on random order you won't get it and that's the thing unless you understand Daniel you will not understand Revelation but now that you've at least heard it go ahead now you're gonna go oh this and that I get it so I'm going to bring you into that a little bit an encouragement start at the beginning of a book and then read all the way through will help you understand the last chapter but we're going to jump there because we've done Daniel so maybe you'll understand that you see revelation is a fulfillment of what we see in Daniel both in their near future past and in our future don't know when stop trying to figure it out right so disobedient to Jesus not even the son knows but I can figure it out okay another arrogance problem but I won't go down that road so it's a fulfillment what we see in Daniel and I want to show you something that is beautiful and amazing I am going to pair them for you and show you what's going on here Daniel 7 9. I watched his Thrones were put in place and the Ancient One sat down to judge his clothing was as white as snow his hair like Pierce wool he sat on a fiery throne with wheels of blazing fire Revelation 1 14 his head and hair were like white wool as white as snow and his eyes were like flames of fire Daniel 7 10 and a river of fire was pouring out flowing from his presence millions of angels ministered to him many millions stood to attend him then the court began its session and the books were open Revelation 5 11. and I looked again and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and the living beings and the elders Revelation 2012 I saw the dead both great and small standing before God's throne and the books were open including the book of life and the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books Daniel 7 11 I continued to watch because I could hear the little horns boastful speech I kept watching until the fourth Beast was killed and his body was destroyed by fire Revelation 19 20 he and the Beast was captured and with him the false prophet who did Mighty miracles on behalf of the Beast Miracles that deceived all who had accepted the mark of the beast and who worshiped the statue both the Beast and his false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery Lake of burning sulfur Daniel 7 13 as my vision continued that night I saw someone like the son of man coming with the Clouds Of Heaven the approached the ancient one and was led into his presence Revelation 1 13 and standing in the middle of the lampstands representing churches was someone like the son of man he was wearing a long robe with gold sash across his chest Revelation 14 14 then I saw a white cloud and seated on the cloud with someone like a son of man he had a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand Daniel 7 14 he was given Authority honor and sovereignty over all the nations of this world so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him his rule is eternal it will never end his kingdom will never be destroyed Droid Revelation 11 15 the world has now become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ he will reign forever and ever amen Jesus is coming for us he will reign forever and ever no earthly King is greater we can't lose our investment in him if our faith is built on Christ we are unmovable we will never be swept away if we are built on the Bedrock of Christ just as God was with his people in Exile just as God was with Daniel and the Lion's Den he is with us today that is what we need to believe in the meantime we trust him we obey his commands all our neighbors as we patiently endure even if it costs us because it can never be a higher price than Jesus Paid so we wait his turn his return in the hope of Our Savior Jesus Christ amen foreign foreign