Daniel and His Change — Daniel 1-2

0:00 Good morning. Good Good to see everyone. How many of you are morning people? Oh, yeah. How many of you are not?

0:16 Oh, yeah. Tell you a little something about me. I am from a little town called Randleman, North Carolina. I wasn't born there. I was actually born in the large city of Charlotte, North Carolina, and only lived there six months.

0:38 And so between North and South Carolina, that's where I spent my young life. And then I moved to North Carolina early childhood, the Raleigh area. And my dad and me lived alone. And we moved to Winston Salem, North Carolina, and then I moved to Greensboro. I don't know how many of you guys know about North Carolina.

1:03 Randleman is a small town just to the south of of Greensboro. Thank you so much, brother. You're welcome, man. Appreciate that. It's where...

1:16 It's noted for Richard Petty, the NASCAR driver. How many of you know Richard Petty? Oh, wow. Not many. Trying to make connection here.

1:27 How many Browns fans we got here this morning? You don't see many Browns fans down our way, but this is the highest I've ever been in Ohio. I've been to Cincinnati. I worked for Procter and Gamble for thirty nine years. They're headquartered in Cincinnati, so I've been there a lot of times.

1:52 I had a good friend that went to Ohio State. So I've been to Columbus. Was that a that a whoop dee doo? How many Ohio State fans we got here? No.

2:05 Yeah, good. Michigan. No one will admit it, right? I had a professor at Michigan. He had bumper sticker on his wall.

2:18 I'd have to go see him. A very intimidating guy, a professor in UNC Greensboro, but he was a graduate of Michigan. I didn't know about the rivalry in those days, but he had this big bumper sticker on his wall and it was all one word and it was Oh, how I hate Ohio State. Anyway, I don't. I love Ohio State.

2:44 My wife Lisa and my daughter Elena are here. They decided for Elena she wasn't feeling well. She's sleeping in, she'll be here, Lord willing, around lunchtime. And she's our PR person, so she makes friends real easy, so get to know Elena. I've known Andy and his family for a long time.

3:06 I know Andy and his dad. I knew his grandfather. How old was he? 105. He lived to be 105.

3:15 Yeah, my, I have an aunt in Salisbury. She sends me this magazine one day. She said, your friends in this magazine, it was a local magazine, did a write up on Wallace Hilton, old guy, one zero five. Anyway, good genes there, bro. So Andy's gonna be with you a long time.

3:34 I was gonna tell you that. Don't try to get rid of him. He's he's in it for the long haul. Daniel Daniel is our book, and we're we're gonna talk about it some more today. Last night, we looked at Daniel and his times and we wanted to make sure that we understood that Daniel was a man living at a significant time in human history.

3:59 In fact, that's when the book of Daniel is written for us. It's presented to us in in a fashion that we see what in biblical history, biblical prophecy, or the biblical chronology or timeline, we understand Daniel to be to be a a book which is the the beginning of what is called the times of the Gentiles. Gentile meaning the nations or the the nations which are different than the nation of Israel. In the book of Deuteronomy, the Bible tells us that when God set the bounds of the earth, when when the most high God set the bounds of all the nations, he set them in accordance to his people, his people Israel. Now the nation of Israel was God's select people and he had given them certainly divine protection in the book of Exodus.

4:58 He brought them out of the Exodus and he promised them the land of Canaan. They were to go in and conquer the land in the book of Joshua. They didn't do a very good job. In fact, they compromised a great deal and they allowed some of the pagan idol worshiping nations to remain there. And so it became a thorn in their side.

5:20 And the whole book of Judges is one up and down process in the life of the nation of Israel. The book of Judges passes away and we come to the monarchy. That's in the book of first and second Samuel. In the book of first Samuel, the nation of Israel wanted a king. They wanted to be like the rest of the nations.

5:41 God warned them not to do that, but they did it anyway. And so the nation of Israel in choosing a king, they chose a man named Saul. They chose Saul because he was the best looking guy in the crowd. That's why we normally choose our leaders, right? Because they're the best looking, they're the loudest, they're the most boisterous.

6:00 And so it was with Saul. But Saul was a total train wreck. And so as Saul ultimately falls from favor and falls from grace and falls from power, God raised up another king and his name was David. That was God's own king. And God made a covenant with David and the covenant with David said this, David, from your loins one will always, always sit upon the throne of Israel.

6:24 I will send forth one from you. Now that was immediately realized in a young man named Solomon, but it went far beyond Solomon. And so the last name we see mentioned, the last proper name we see mentioned in the Bible is the name of David. And the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, he says this, I am the root and the offspring of David. And so we realize in the Davidic covenant that the Lord Jesus Christ will one day rule upon his throne.

6:57 But as all things that men touch, the monarchy of the lineage of David continued to fall worse and worse into disfavor and ultimately ended with three final kings in the book of second Chronicles. That was Jehoiakim, Jehoiakim, and then a man named Zedekiah, who really wasn't a king. He was just installed as a king by Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of Babylon. Because what had happened in the book of Daniel is God had said to the nation of Israel in a sense, your stewardship of ruling the world as my testimony and my example of right government is over. I'm shifting the rule of the world over to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles will rule the world.

7:48 And that's why when Nebuchadnezzar has his dream, he has a dream of a four imaged beast. The the top of the image is gold. The the next two arms and shoulders are the Medo Persian empire. The central section would represent the Greek Empire, and the lower section of the legs as well as the toes would represent the Roman Empire. And so those four great world powers have ruled since.

8:20 We are living in those days. We are living in a time, I believe, which is what some call a parenthesis. The nation of Israel rejected Christ, hung him on a cross. He died, he was buried, he rose again. And he promised in the book of Matthew that he would build something called his church.

8:43 The church, the Greek word means, or the Greek word is ekklesia. It means called out ones. If I know Greek and I put ekk the beginning of anything, it implies to go out. If I see a sign over there that says exit, that means to go out. As the church that is being built in our day, we are the body of Christ if we know Jesus Christ.

9:10 As his church, there are no national, ethnical, or racial distinctions in the church. There's no Jew. There's no Gentile. There's no Greek. There's no black.

9:22 There's no white. There's no male nor female. We're all one in Christ. In this day, Christ is building his church. And yet in this world, we still live in the times of the Gentiles.

9:35 And that's why when we turn on our news, we see the nations, The United States, we see China, We see Russia. We see North Korea. We see Israel. We see all the nations kind of vying for power and control. We live in those days.

9:56 We live in a world which does not know Jesus Christ. We live in a world that historically hung him on a cross. It was the entire world that rejected Jesus Christ. And so you and me live in a world that desires to change us. Our lesson today is going to be Daniel and his change.

11:04 Romans chapter 12, you guys know this passage well. You've probably heard lots of messages on it. Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Verse two is what we wanna focus on. He says, and be not conformed.

11:32 Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable and perfect will of God. The phrase I wanna focus on is this word or this phrase, be not conformed to the world. It is a Greek word. It's pronounced kind of strangely. Some of you guys study this stuff.

12:03 That's the Greek word. Can you say that five times? Say it five times. I'll give you a free cup of water. It means to fashion.

12:17 It can literally mean to mold, to shape. Now the word is only found twice in your New Testament. So I want you to hold your place in Romans 12, and I want you to turn with me to the book of first Peter chapter one and see the other time that is used. First Peter chapter one in verse 14. It says here in verse 14, as obedient children, that's to be our life, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust and your ignorance.

13:09 Now what is translated in Romans to be not conformed to the world, Peter translate it, translate it, translates it, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lust. Now again, I'm not a Greek scholar, but I know this, that the tense of the verb, this is a verb, the tense is present tense, which means it's something that is happening now. I want you now, I want you now in the present, not to be conformed. I want you now in the present, not to fashion yourselves. Now the voice is middle or passive, which means this, that the action which is occurring is by something else upon you.

14:04 You are the recipient of the action. Don't let the world take action on you and conform you. That's what it means. Okay? That's Romans 12.

14:19 But in first Peter, the idea is a little bit different. The idea is this, as a passive person, you are not to allow yourself. Don't fashion yourself. You see, we blame a lot on the world putting peer pressure on us, but also we're part of it too. We wanna look like the world.

14:45 We wanna dress like the world. We wanna be accepted. And so while Romans emphasizes the world trying to conform us, Peter emphasizes us trying to be like the world. Don't fashion yourselves. So that's the idea of In in these cases, we are told that we have a different standard which to live by.

15:42 That is what is supposed to rule and dominate our lives. We are not to be on the outward looking and allowing that to change us. We are to allow god who is spirit to allow the holy spirit who Jesus promised would live within all of us to change us, to change us day by day. And so that word transform is also found in the book of second Corinthians. And Paul says this, as we behold the glory of the lord, we are changed into the same image even from glory to glory and so if you want to see a real change in your life, you have to be beholding what God has given us.

16:32 We used to have a brother in North Carolina, a guy named Charlie Crawford. He had a little quick statement, said this, he said, You are becoming what you are beholding. And so when we are beholding what is out there in the environment, that's what we will become. We are to be changed. We are to be changed by God.

16:58 So Daniel and his friends were were suddenly in their lives, and I don't know how many... I've heard 17 is the age. I'm not sure. It's 15 to 20 years old was the age of these young men when they were taken away. But they were very young and they were very impressionable.

17:21 They were taken away from their environment. So we wanna look this morning at Daniel chapter one and verse verses one through seven. That'll be our study. And we'll make some observations. And then we'll stop.

17:39 And we'll have breakfast. I'm starting to smell it. When when it just becomes too much to resist, I'll stop, okay? But I do have a little bit of a cold. So, my my smell is hindered.

17:54 So, I may not smell it till like eleven. Just kidding. You guys are not morning people, are you? Or maybe my jokes are just stale. I don't know.

18:05 One or the other. Anybody have any ideas? Anybody have a little joke book you can hand me out? I'll tell some jokes. Right?

18:14 Okay. Good. Daniel chapter one and verse seven. Let's read that. It says, in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon into unto Jerusalem and besieged it And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his God, and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his God.

18:44 Now when a nation conquered another nation, in order to show their superiority, to really show their ultimate superiority, what they love to do is take the idols or the gods of that nation, rip them from that nation and bring them to subjugate them before the idols of their own nation. And Nebuchadnezzar was just following a pattern. The Philistines had done the same thing in the book of one Samuel, and every time the world tries to do that with our Lord Jesus Christ, they end up failing. And they failed among the Philistines in one Samuel, and Babylon will ultimately fail in what they do as well. Babylon will last about seventy years and God won't put up with it anymore.

19:38 And the final display of mockery to God, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson will take the vessels of the house of God and fill them with intoxicating drink. And in mockery, he will drink them at a drunken party. And that night, God says, You're done. I've got another nation now in the times of the Gentiles that will rule and that will be Persia. We're not talking about that right now, but that is an interesting point to note.

20:05 Now, it says here in verse three, And the king spake unto Ash Penaz, the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king's seed and of the princes, children in whom was no blemish, but well favored, skillful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge and understanding science, such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace in whom they might teach the learning of the tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat and of the wine which he drank. So nourishing them three years that at the end thereof, they might stand before the king. Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names. For he gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar, and to Hananiah of Shadrach, and to Mishael of Meshach, and to Azariah of Abednego.

21:18 And that's where we'll stop off reading. Let's pray. Our father, we wanna thank you this morning for the opportunity to preach. We thank you father for the opportunity to stand before the folks here in Westlake. We thank you father for already a wonderful spirit of hospitality, a wonderful spirit of fellowship.

21:40 We thank you father that we have also sensed an eagerness to know the scriptures. We pray our father that Jesus Christ himself for this whole weekend would be exalted. Father, we pray if there's one here who's never trusted him as their savior, that the Holy Spirit of God, thy Holy Spirit would speak to their heart and show them their need. Father, show them the emptiness and futility of the life which they have lived and the fullness of life that Jesus offers us. We thank you, father, that he loved us so and gave himself for us.

22:29 I was living in a blended home. I had four sisters and parents that had married before and I was the product of my mom and dad, but she had had some daughters before us. Some of the daughters had moved away. There were three of us left in the home, and we were living along very happily. This was as of Tuesday, 09/15/1970.

22:56 On that day, I came home and I found my mother in her room. She had died. She was dead. And our whole world was flipped upside down. And because of circumstances with the family and blended family, our family was immediately ripped apart.

23:16 I never lived really with my two sisters again for any meaningful period of time. And our lives were upended. On that day, I was living in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. One week later, I was living in Raleigh, North Carolina with an aunt and uncle and two cousins. A completely different environment, Mount Pleasant being a quaint little town on the coast of South Carolina to the big city, the capital city of Raleigh, North Carolina.

23:50 A total and abrupt change. Everything about me had changed. I no longer had a mother. I didn't live with my father, didn't live with sisters, and lived with people that I really didn't know. I was going to a school, a whole different school system, North Carolina or South Carolina to North Carolina.

24:11 Whole different set of people, whole different culture. You think South Carolina and North Carolina are the same, they're not. I liked South Carolina back when I was a kid. We were cool. When I came to North Carolina, I was rough.

24:25 Rednecks. You guys know what rednecks are? Anyway, I'm a Carolina boy now, so that's how we work. Absolute total change, change occurred in my life. And so Daniel, that's what we're going to talk about.

24:42 The change that Daniel and his friends went through. Now it tells us here in the text that Daniel and his friends were of the king's seed. There's an estimate of how many young men were taken. Some have said between fifty and seventy five, but the book of Daniel here only focuses on these four. It tells us here they were of the king's seed.

25:08 What tribe would that be in in Israel if they were of the king's seed? Anybody know? Judah. Judah. Judah was the tribe of the king's.

25:18 So these were these were young men of some distinction. Not only were they distinct tribally, they were distinct because of their wisdom. They were without blemish in verse four. They were well favored. They were skillful in wisdom.

25:33 They were cunning in knowledge. They had an understanding in science. So these were the cream of the crop. These were the best young men, and Nebuchadnezzar had requested that these young men be brought into Babylon so they could change them. We wanna transform these guys from Jews, from these top notch king seed tribe of Judah, best educated, probably best looking, best everything, we wanna transform them into good, solid, top notch Babylonians because we, Babylonians, have the highest culture in the world.

26:16 And indeed they did. Culturally speaking, the Babylonians were second to none. The Babylonian hanging gardens, you guys ever heard of those? Nebuchadnezzar had designed those hanging gardens. There are only ancient drawings of those things that are still in existence.

26:35 These Babylonian hanging gardens were one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. The Babylonians, they had a book called the Code of Hammurabi. They had a code of ethics that was on a very high level. They believed in in equal rights. In fact, it was a more liberal society for women than there ever had been.

27:01 They promoted more children. Their architecture was second to none. You guys have heard of the Tower Of Babel. And then you'll see later on the great statues that Nebuchadnezzar built. And so Babylon had the great culture.

27:16 There was trade and commerce, literature and education. They were great in science. They were great militarily. They had a very broad array of religious beliefs, but it was all about the Babylonian gods, particularly a god named Marduk. They had knowledge of medicine, and so they were like a good Gentile group.

27:40 They were powerful, educated, cultured, and we want to make these guys good Babylonians. I want to show you something real quick in our text. I want you to flip with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 39. We're going to look at just a quick verse, a quick look at how we got here. Because I'm always amazed that none of this stuff is ever really spontaneous with god.

28:15 God always seems to know beforehand what's going to happen. You ever notice that about god? He always notices beforehand what's about to happen. That's why he gets to be called God and we're not. And so in Isaiah 39, this is a story of Hezekiah.

28:36 Verse six, we'll just pick up. Behold the days come that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. This is about a hundred years before Daniel and his friends were carried away. Verse seven, and of thy sons that shall issue from thee...

28:57 From you Hezekiah, king seed tribe of Judah, which thou shalt beget, they shall take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Ain't that interesting? Now what was Hezekiah's attitude about that? Look at what he said. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken.

29:22 He said moreover, for there shall be peace and truth in my days. Glad it ain't gonna happen to me. Yeah, whatever happens in the future, you know, we ought to be thinking about stuff like that, right? Us old guys. We're concerned about the old four zero one ks and retirement.

29:39 Not really worried about you guys. You guys fend for yourself. No, we ought to be investing in our young and our youth and care what happens. And we do, we do. I teach young kids every Friday.

29:52 I have classes that I teach at a homeschool co op. I teach Bible classes. I look into the faces of young people and I see a future for you guys that are far different from the ones I had. I've had it pretty good, I think. But you guys are up for a lot of trial, I think, in the future.

30:10 We might be seemingly getting a reprieve now in our society, but what's coming, what's to follow? You're gonna see attacks on Christianity like you've never seen before. I really believe that. They passed a law in Canada about two years ago called C4. How many of you know that law?

30:27 It was a law that outlawed what we call conversion therapy. In other words, you could not witness to someone who was a professing homosexual. You could not witness to them that what they were doing was a crime or a sin. They say, well, don't want to hurt people's feelings. Well, we got to tell people what sin is, folks.

30:50 We got to be able to do that because the Lord Jesus came to rescue us from sin. We gotta believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but it does not it does not need to hinder us from telling people what has brought them to the emptiness in their lives. And so they've outlawed that. So that's just an attack against the gospel. Let's keep working.

31:26 As you can see, the Babylonian Empire being over here with the red circle, and here being Jerusalem. The first thing they changed with Daniel and his companions was he changed their location. So what he did was he took them took them from Jerusalem and transported them to Babylon. Now that's about 900 miles. Some of you guys that know this map or have seen this will note this sort of green region.

31:57 It looks like a crescent. It's what we call the Fertile Crescent. That was the same track essentially that Abraham walked when he left Babylon or Ur of the Chaldees and went over into the land of Canaan. This was the common route. So it was a long way from home, a long way.

32:20 And so being this long way, this 900 miles, by the way, you say, well, why wouldn't you just go straight across? Well, you know what this is, right? This is a desert, not a good track, not a good place to walk. So in changing our location, or in changing their location, took them away from their land. You say, well, that's not too dramatic.

32:45 I mean, went to good old Babylon. When you consider that the nation of Israel was just inseparable from their land, God had made them a covenant years earlier. This is a land, this is your land, a land that flows with milk and honey. A land where I want your people to be. And in Deuteronomy chapter twenty nine and thirty, God makes a covenant with the nation concerning the land.

33:13 And he says, if you will behave yourselves, you will dwell in this land. You will prosper in this land. This land I have given you that flows with milk and honey. You will always prosper in strength and in might and in culture. But if you misbehave, he said, I'll let your enemies take you away.

33:32 And thus is a great part of the Old Testament history that the nation of Israel did not exercise themselves. They were taken away from their land. They were taken away from their surroundings. They were taken away from... Is this Cleveland?

33:46 What is this called? Westlake? Westlake. But it is a suburb of Cleveland. Yeah, taken away from Cleveland and shipped off to California.

33:55 How many are down with that? No, probably not. Some of you are. Who raised their hand back there? You want to go to California?

34:05 Seriously? Okay. My son lives there. I don't think I want to live there. But anyway, I don't wanna live anywhere but good old NC.

34:17 But it's like Cleveland and North Carolina. They were taken away from Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem was God's city. God's special city. They were taken away from the city God, the Bible says, had chosen to place his name there.

34:31 The distinctive city of Jerusalem, the place where kings would dwell, the place where he would build his temple. And speaking of that, they were taken away from their temple. Their temple was the was the center of worship. When you were an Israelite, you were required to go to Jerusalem three times per year. Those were your holidays.

34:54 You know how we have holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and we get family together and it's a big deal for us. Holiday season's coming up. Thanksgiving's coming up. Christmas is coming up. Well, to a Jew, when Passover came, man, the family picked up and we went to Jerusalem and all the family and every Jew was there and it was a big humongous place.

35:16 And then about seven weeks later, we did it again and we went back for the the feast of Pentecost in the third month. And then in the seventh month, we all picked up and we went back again for the feast of in gathering and day of atonement and feast of tabernacles and all that last one, we built little little booths and we lived in houses and it was a big deal. You're taken away from all that. Shipped away. Took them away from their feast.

35:46 We just mentioned that. Took them away from everything. Took them away from the center of their lives. Everything we know is Judaism. Everything we know is centered in Jerusalem.

35:59 All I've ever known all my life is my framework works from this standpoint. And it was all taken from me. You know, the world wants to take you away from your center too. The world wants to distract us from our center, which is Jesus Christ. If he can get us, if the devil can get us to focus on anything else, even if it's religion, even if it's churchy activities, whatever it may be to get you ripped away from that, to cause you to be focused.

36:42 You know, the Lord's day when we meet on Sundays, think about that. That's the biggest day for the biggest sporting events, aren't they? We were in our church a couple years ago and we were preaching on the Moabites in Numbers chapter 30, and how the Moabites had caused the nation of Israel to conform and commit fornication. And I did some research on that, and this is a little side note. I did some research and found out that there was a modern day singer when she sets up her stage and she performs.

37:28 It was recreation, they believe, of ancient Moabite worship of the god Baal Peor. And I preached on that that night. Spoke on that and I said, if you see this modern singer, does that and the way she prances out on stage. We left from there and we went down to Sir Pizza in Randleman and the Super Bowl was on that night. Guess who performed the halftime show?

37:56 That person. I said, Wow, what a distraction. What a distraction. They tried to change their book, not only their location, but their book. It says here, I want them to be taught in all the ways of Babylon.

38:21 We wanna we wanna take these guys and we want to to train them up in all the teaching and learning and tongue of the Chaldeans. That's verse four. And so they tried to change their book. How do we get wisdom? How do we get knowledge?

38:49 How did those young men get science? They were taught that the God of creation created the world in six days from the book of Genesis. That's not what you're gonna get in Babylon. They're not gonna tell you the God of creation created it all. They're gonna tell you their God Marduk materialized all this into existence.

39:14 They're not gonna tell you how you get wisdom from the Bible. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The world is not gonna tell you that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. They're gonna tell you that it's university educational system is how you get knowledge. My Bible tells me the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

39:36 Do we really believe that? We really can't know anything rightly unless we know God. We cannot perceive anything rightly unless we know God. You can be the smartest person in the world and never truly perceive things correctly, because the world wants to change you and take you away from the knowledge of God and the knowledge of his book. And that's why you see so many attacks on it.

40:11 That's why we constantly see this regurgitation. This regurgitation of new translations. Oh, we found out this is not really in there, or this is not really supposed to be there. And we've sliced it up. I teach young people, and I mean this sincerely.

40:32 Our young people need to know and be fully 1000% confident that this is God's word. All 66 books from the beginning to the end and nothing left to question. Nothing. When we start seeing stuff put in our Bibles, well, this is not in the most reliable manuscripts. What does that tell you?

41:00 What do you mean by that? Should I rip it out? We were doing our Bible study with our young people a couple of months ago, and we came across a very key verse in the book of Acts chapter eight. Anybody want to know? I'll show it to you.

41:15 And we were reading the verses, a very key verse, and a young man popped up and he said, that verse is not in my Bible. And I said, well, give me a Sharpie. I'll mark it out of mine too. We don't mark things out. Guys, we need to be absolutely persuaded that this book is 100% true without error and that God has preserved it for us.

41:44 When we doubt it, we go down the trail that the devil did. He tried to cause Adam and Eve to doubt. They wanted to change their book. I want you to believe something different. So all these things all these things are taught to us from scripture.

42:03 The world will not teach us correctly on how to learn about God, creation, origins, evil, any of these things. And this is what they tried to change. They tried to change their identity. Their identity. There were four of them.

42:48 A name that had something to do with the God they believed in, the true and the living God. They had an identity that identified them with the true and living God. And the Babylonians decided they would change Daniel's name to Belteshazzar, being formed of Baal, the chief god of the Babylonians. Of Hananiah, his name was called Shadrach under the command of Aku, the Babylonian moon god. Under Mishael, his name was Meshach, the guest of a king.

43:27 Israel's king had failed, but let us show you the real king, the Babylonians were saying. His name was changed from who is like God to who is like Aku or the moon god. And then Azariah, Abbednego, meaning a servant of Nebo or Nego, the Babylonian's god of vegetation. And so this worldly nation sought to confuse the identity of these young men, I want you to identify this way. This will change you.

44:06 Now if there's any culture that is confused about identity, it's our culture. We are in a rage right now. We actually use questions like, how do you identify? What a statement. When God has given us from the creation of the world, how we are to identify as creatures of God.

44:34 He created them male and female. He created them to procreate in the earth. He creates all of us that way, and we are fallen. And when we get saved, our identity changes from worldliness to being in Christ. Jesus Christ is all our identity.

44:52 They tried to change the identity of these young men. They tried to change their God. There is a religious identity fading in many countries. The world's religions or the people that identify as believing in God has greatly decreased. The fastest growing religion in the world right now is Islam.

45:19 You think the devil is not at work in our world to try to change change how people view God. Muslims, the fastest growing Christians remain the world's biggest religious group, but Christians of all denominations counted as one group did not keep pace with global population growth. The world is on the march to change us away from the true and living God. And he's doing it by other religions, not only other religions, but by atheism. And finally, they sought to change their worship.

46:03 They sought to change their worship. In Isaiah chapter 14 Isaiah chapter 14, you see this this person rise up whose name is Lucifer. Go to Isaiah 14 and we'll close with this thought here. This this idea of Lucifer. In verse four, it says, thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon and say, how much...

46:45 How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city ceased. So the context is the king of Babylon here. But as you move forward, you begin to see a greater picture of one in verse 12 called Lucifer. It says, how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations?

47:07 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. This is what Lucifer says. I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.

47:23 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. There is in our world one who is called the prince of the power of the air. He's the devil. He is he is over in a sense this world.

47:49 He is called the prince of this world. And some people say, well, the devil has a goal in mind. He wants to drag you to hell. That's what the old Baptist preacher used to tell me that. I want to drag you to hell.

48:03 That's what the devil does. The devil doesn't. That's not his goal. His goal is to be like God. It's always been his goal.

48:14 And what he really wants is worship. And he gets a whole lot of it. He gets a whole lot of it. And so they wanted to change the worship, their devotion. So we'll close with this.

48:47 And we would get everybody up every Sunday morning. I guess we're, oh, we're in the beach. Daddy, we have to go. And yep, we gotta go. So we'd all go to church.

48:57 About 90% of the other extended family, they went to church when they were back home, but not on vacation. You change when you're in a different environment. How do you identify? I'll go ahead and ask. Are you a Christian?

49:16 Are you a Christian in here? You a Christian out there? They're trying to change you out there Is anything changing you now? What's changing you? I trust the spirit of god is in your life and he is changing you by the word of god.

49:46 I appreciate your time and we'll look forward to the next message at one hundred thirty. Let's pray. Father, we want to thank you this morning for the word. Thank you for the opportunity to preach it. Thank you father for the fact that thou art unchanging.

50:06 And Lord we pray that while this world attempts to conform us, change us, to change our God, change our book, change our minds, change our hearts, that our father, we would be steadfast as these young men proved to be. We pray now for the remainder of the day especially as we come together now to eat breakfast, to eat this brunch. Pray you'll bless it to our bodies in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you.