Daniel and His Purpose — Daniel 1-2

0:00 Okay. Let's turn to Daniel chapter one. This is kind of the tough part of the day, but it's not so tough because you guys ate earlier. I was telling someone earlier that I preached at a conference with Mike Atwood back in February, and we were coming up after lunch. You know?

0:31 It's the session right after lunch.

0:34 And Mike said, oh, brother Mark, you've got the graveyard shift. So so we'll try to deal with the graveyard shift and we'll consider some things from Daniel chapter one maybe that are maybe a bit unique as we handle this particular verse. So let me get squared away here. Okay. Okay.

1:17 What's behind me? That old guy preaching? Okay. Good. Alright.

1:23 Ezra. That's Ezra. Don't forget it. It might... Somebody might say it's Nehemiah.

1:33 Somebody might say it's the apostle Paul. I don't know. Anyway, so so thus far, last night, we looked at... I think we did this. Let's try this.

1:46 What do you see there? Messages. Okay. Yeah. You're supposed to see Daniel.

1:52 Right? K. Good to see Daniel. Okay. So last night, we looked at Daniel and his times, and that was the times in which Daniel lived and how they were relevant.

2:02 They're relevant to you and me. And even beyond Daniel, as Daniel prophesied in chapter nine, how the the the prophecy of Daniel chapter nine had far reaching events because it told of a future event of the building or the plans to build the wall in Jerusalem and from that point would be a certain period of time that would commence and that period of time when Messiah would be cut off would be four eighty three years. Nehemiah was the one who secured the gathering together of that decree that was issued. So Nehemiah, not only Daniel, but Nehemiah had to be at the right place at the right time. And then of course on that day, when the Lord Jesus entered into Jerusalem soon to be cut off as he died on the cross, he invoked two of his disciples to go gather for him a young donkey that he would ride into town on.

3:02 A time that was prophesied not only in Daniel's prophecy, but prophesied in Zechariah chapter nine verse nine. And so what a thing to be in those times, in each one of those times. And you and me are living in in the last times, in these last days, God has has declared unto us his son. He has spoken to the world through his son. Right?

3:31 Hebrews one, God who at sundry times and diverse manners, spoken to to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days or last times spoken to us in the person of his son. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is our message. The Lord Jesus Christ is God's full and final revelation to mankind. There is no other no other further revelation needed for you and me than Jesus Christ who has buried, or excuse me, died, buried, risen again, and ascended on high, and we wait on his return. That is the purpose of the church.

4:09 And until then, we proclaim him. We proclaim to the world that he's come. We proclaim to the world that he's died for sinners. We proclaim to the world that he's worthy of worship. We proclaim to the world that he is the risen head seated at god's right hand.

4:28 He's the head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. He's seated in heaven and the scripture says, he is our great high priest. He functions there to to ever live to make intercession for us. He prays for us and the scripture tells us he's there until his enemies be made his footstool. There's coming a day when our Lord Jesus Christ will return to this Earth.

4:57 And he will rule and reign for a thousand years. We will be part of that kingdom, an integral part of that kingdom. So you and me wait. And in this fascinating time, fascinating and wonderful time, we glorify our god. We testify and speak of Jesus Christ.

5:50 Samuel Rideout said so many years ago, this world is stained with the blood of Jesus Christ. This world crucified our Lord. All that is in the world, John says, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the father, but it's of the world. We don't love this world. This world tries to get us to conform.

6:21 And when we don't conform, we get ridiculed. When we don't conform, we get sneers, and even some of us get persecuted, and many have been persecuted unto death. The world tries to change us. We are on the side of him who changes not, And therefore, we cannot change. We cannot change our message.

6:46 We cannot change our book. We cannot change our conviction. So that brings up message number three today. And this message is Daniel and his purpose. Daniel and his purpose.

7:03 Daniel chapter one and verse eight. It says here, Daniel purposed in his heart. Daniel purposed in his heart. Now this was only, you see the little note up here, this was only about food. It's just about food, Daniel.

7:27 Why are you worried about changing or about not changing your diet? It says here in the passage, verse five, that the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat. Now this was the finest of meats, the finest of meats of Babylon. Again, Nebuchadnezzar was a profoundly wealthy man, Babylon the richest nation in the world. They had access to every kind of exotic feast, exotic animal that you could prepare.

8:06 And so Nebuchadnezzar had selected these young men out and would feed them the finest cuisine. How many of you ever been out of the country, a different country? How many of you tried the food in that different country you went to? Had to, didn't you? I've been to Europe about a dozen times, Germany, France, Italy.

8:40 Italy is the best food in the world. And wherever I go, I would go to these different little towns and places and I would ask around what do you guys eat here, what's featured, and that's what I wanted. I'm that way in The United States. If I go out of my comfort zone in North Carolina to the inland part of North Carolina. If I go to the coast I want to get the seafood.

9:06 If I go up north or wherever I go I want to try the cuisine. So it's compelling. So I'm in Babylon, I gotta try some Babylonian food, right? And it's the finest, it's the best. It says here in verse five, the daily provision of the king's meat and of the wine which he drank.

9:29 Now this again would have been the finest of wines from the finest of vineyards. Nebuchadnezzar didn't drink just any old wine. And so it was from his store that he was to feed these young men. You can imagine the privilege. This would have happened over a period of three years.

9:50 And so this was sent forth to go to Daniel and to his friends. But then we come to verse eight. And it tells us here in verse eight, but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore, he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Let's pray.

10:21 Our father, we wanna thank you today for the word. We pray father that these things would be profitable for us and that we would understand them. That we would glean, Lord, again, the example of this man, this Daniel, that, Lord, we would take everything seriously in this world, Father, that we would purpose in our hearts, that when items and issues come up in our lives, that our decisions are already made, our decision for Jesus Christ. Oh God, help us in this. For much abounds, Lord, that can tempt us, much abounds that can come and derail us, much abounds that can cause us to be conflicted over decisions we make.

11:11 Help us, our God, to have clarity of mind in who we will stand for and what we will do. We pray this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Now Daniel was a Jewish man. He was an Israelite.

12:02 I'm not gonna do it, Lord. Interesting, interesting answer. Not so, Lord. How are you confusing someone you're calling sovereign Lord? But Peter does it.

12:16 And he said, Lord, I've never eaten anything unclean. And the Lord has to give Peter a lesson that nothing that he has made is to be called unclean. So Peter learns a lesson that day that the Jewish dietary laws had passed off the scene. And now the Lord was allowing his people, the church, to partake in all sorts of cuisine. It was gonna have to be that way.

12:44 They were preaching the gospel all over the world, and dietary laws were in conflict with the gospel. Dietary laws would be deemed as legalistic and would not benefit in any way the spiritual aspect of men. And so we could go into more of the theology there. But just to note, that's difficult for you and me to understand where Daniel's coming from. Because if dietary laws didn't mean anything, why are we, why would Daniel worry about him?

13:15 Well, that dietary laws did mean something to the Jews in those days. God had given them for the specific reason of separation. If god could keep them, the the Jewish people separated by the things they ate and the things that they partook of, then their their tendency to blend with the other nations. These other nations which would lead them into idolatry. These other nations which would cause them to compromise in their worship and compromise in their understanding with God.

13:48 If they would stick to those dietary laws, would it would help them to be a more separated people to God. And so that's why they were given. And so Daniel believed God. Daniel believed Leviticus chapter 11. And he believed that any attempt to get him to compromise on the law of God was an attempt that was harmful to his very soul, to his life.

14:17 And so it says in verse eight that Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat. Now what we see up here, a little statement, purpose of heart. Purpose of heart happens long before the test. Long before the test. If you and me are not purposing in our heart that we will stand for God, that we will serve God, that we will be habitual in our devotion to God, whether it's reading, whether it's praying, whether it's gathering together with God's people, all things God has commanded us to do habitually.

15:01 If we're not purposeful in that, then when the tests arise, we will find ourselves in quite a predicament and sometimes we fall. Daniel's heart. The entire book of Daniel turns on this decision. This is the decision that separated him out. Had this decision not been made here, it's no telling what would have happened throughout the rest of the book.

15:30 Daniel would have figured out different ways to compromise. You see, once once we have figured out in our minds ways to get around obeying God and we're good at it too, right? We're good at the excuses, really good at it, you know? Jesus hammered it home at the Sermon on the Mount, remember that? He said, You've heard it said before, you shall not commit adultery.

15:56 Everybody's committing adultery in their heart and they're saying, Well, I've never done it. Jesus said, But hang on, if you look upon a woman to lust, you've done it. Woah, you can't finesse around that one. Whosoever shall say to... You've heard it said, you shall not murder.

16:16 Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raqa, you fool, well you've done it. Jesus brought it right here. And so we have no excuse and no way to finesse our way around disobedience to God. We make a lot of them. Daniel purposed in his heart.

16:58 We understand that to be true. Daniel and the whole Bible is a book about the heart. This whole book is a book that God writes for the heart. This is a soul book. This is a book about your soul, about your mind, about your heart.

17:19 It's a book that God gives us. It's a remedy for the ailments of the heart? Absolutely. And we seek so many other ways to soothe our conscience, to soothe our minds, to soothe our dilemmas, and yet God has provided us a book so much about the heart. I did a list several years ago.

17:46 I had a... Was with an older guy in a camp. It was at homeschool camp one year. And I decided to look up in the Bible, I'm gonna teach these little young fourth, fifth grade kids about the heart in the Bible. And I came up with all these different descriptions the Bible gives us of the heart.

18:12 The Bible tells us a lot about the heart. I just wanna go over some of those. There's a believing heart. What's a believing heart? Well, Romans ten ten.

18:22 Now bear with me. We're gonna go through this. I know this is graveyard time. But I just want to go over these verses and remember what these are. Romans ten ten, For with the heart man believes.

18:34 That's how you got saved because you believed in your heart. And don't say you didn't. Says it, for with the heart man believes unto righteous and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. There's a contrite heart. What does that mean?

18:53 Well, contrite heart is a heart when we feel bad about our sin. Anybody ever felt bad for something you did wrong? God has a great deal of attention he pays. David says this, he says to God, God, I would have offered all kinds of sacrifices, but the sacrifices you really like are a broken spirit and a broken and a contrite heart. Oh God, thou wilt not despise.

19:24 You guys ever sing Jesus, the very thought of thee in your black book, says in that song, Oh, hope of every contrite heart, oh, joy of all the meek, to those who fall, how kind thou art, how good to those who seek. There's a deceitful heart, Jeremiah. The heart's deceitful above all things. You can't trust your own heart, Jeremiah says. It's desperately wicked.

20:02 And so God's very careful and very attentive to describe this aspect of the heart. Your heart can do some things you never thought it could do. There's a determined heart. I like this one. The Psalmist says, My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed.

20:21 I will sing and give praise. And would to God we all had a fixed heart, a fixed heart for God. Well, there's a discerning heart. Solomon prayed for a discerning heart. To discern means to understand the dilemmas of life and apply the wisdom of God.

20:45 Solomon asked for wisdom. Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this so great a people? And God was so, it seems, impressed that Solomon would ask for such a thing. Above all, people, ask for an understanding and a wise heart in your life before you ask for anything else.

21:15 That's what Solomon did. Well, there's a double heart. You know what a double heart is, right? A lot of us are inflicted with that one. They speak vanity, everyone with his neighbor, with flattering lips and with a double heart.

21:30 That's the kind of heart that is one thing on Sunday and another thing on Monday. We use the old H word to describe it, right? Hypocrisy. We don't use too hearted, we use too faced. There's an evil heart.

21:50 Take heed, brethren, and this is for you and me, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. There's a hard heart, and hard heartedness is so detrimental. We think of Pharaoh when we think of the hard heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go. But you and me get a warning in Psalm 95 as well as the book of Hebrews.

22:21 It tells you and me, harden not your heart as in the day of provocation in the wilderness. Folks, we can also in our own lives have hard hearts. We can have to go or need to make a decision about whether we're gonna forgive somebody or about whether we're gonna address an issue, about whether we're going to do something about an issue in our own lives or an issue in someone else's lives. We say, Well I'm just going to stay back and be neutral. That's not neutral.

22:56 That's a hard heart. Hard heartedness can sneak up on us and be just as deceitful as the deceitful heart. Well, there's a joyful heart. Hannah is an example of a joyful heart. Hannah was a woman who was inflicted in her own life with bitterness.

23:19 She was the wife that was looked past and chosen over for a younger, more beautiful wife because that younger, more beautiful wife could have children. And so Hannah with a broken heart prays to God and asks for a son named Samuel. And she gets that son and her heart rejoices. And Hannah's song of rejoicing in one Samuel two is a wonderful, wonderful song. There's a new heart.

23:50 I like that one. A new heart because that's what I got when I got saved. A new heart and that's what god promises all the way back in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. I kind of like it when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, you know. Nicodemus, he says, You must be born again.

24:11 Nicodemus says, What do you mean born again? A man enter into his mother's womb be born second time? Jesus said, Are you not a master in Israel? And don't you know these things? And I think he was referring to Ezekiel twenty thirty six and thirty seven.

24:31 I promised before I would give you a new heart and a new spirit I'd put within you. There's a pure heart. The Psalmist speaks of a pure heart. He that has clean hands and a pure heart who has not lifted his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitfully. God expects of you and me a pure heart.

24:50 A pure heart. I worked for a company that we dealt in pharmaceuticals and purity was an absolute necessity. We had to constantly clean, we had to constantly use ingredients that were without any contamination. When we sent a bottle of medicine out to a consumer and it said those ingredients, it didn't mean, oh yeah, and every bottle's gonna have a couple of different rat droppings in it or a couple of rat hairs. A guy told me one time, you guys might wanna know this factoid, he says you know in every jar of peanut butter there's an average of 11 rat hairs.

25:28 Do you guys know that? I don't know where he got that statistic. Doesn't make us feel comfortable, does it? No. I don't believe it.

25:38 Contamination of products, purity is what we strive for. Jesus said this about the pure heart. He said, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god. People who are pure in heart will, with a pure heart, see God in everything. The cynicism is gone.

26:02 The negativity is gone. The bitterness is gone. Because our hearts are pure. Well, it's a good one for the parents. The rebellious heart.

26:15 Why is this a good one for the parents? Because all of us as parents were young once and we had rebellious hearts. So now we see ourselves growing up and our kids. This people has a revolting and rebellious heart. They're revolted and gone.

26:33 Well, there's a tender heart. Paul tells us to be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. It's a command here for you and me. How many of you can honestly say, I'm tenderhearted? Not many of us.

27:00 Tenderheartedness is often perceived as being weak or overly sentimental. You're too tenderhearted. And yet here it tells us to be tenderhearted. To have a heart like the Lord, that when the Lord Jesus Christ himself looked upon multitudes of people, multitudes of people who he knew one day would be shouting, crucify him, he would look upon them with a yearning compassion. He would literally ache inside.

27:32 He would yearn inside for those people. He had compassion on them because they were as sheep who had no shepherd. Are you tender hearted? When you look at people that are less desirable, people who are maybe dirtier, they look more disheveled, they don't look like they keep themselves up very well, they don't look like they belong in our crowd, Are you tenderhearted? And tenderheartedness even goes beyond that to our relationships one with another.

28:09 You see oftentimes we get into these fusses and these fights and these bickerings and that's why Paul the Apostle writes this to the Ephesians. We need to have tender hearts, not hearts that are rigid, not hearts that are stingy, that'll say I want my interest and I'm gonna do my thing and I'm not gonna reach out to you in forgiveness. Tenderheartedness here is associated with forgiveness. And forgiveness is one of the greatest challenges for you and me, oftentimes that we'll face in life. How am I going to ever forgive those people who so wronged me?

28:53 Tender heartedness. Our Lord Jesus was tender hearted. The father who looked at his son come over the hill and ran toward him and smothered him with kisses. That father was a tender hearted father or son. There's a willing heart.

29:14 Do you have a willing heart? Willing hearts are giving hearts. This is what we see in Exodus 35. When the nation was constantly ready to bring offerings to God. Willing hearts in Exodus transcend even into the New Testament.

29:40 Advance, excuse me, advances, did I say advance or did you say advance? It advances into the, the spirit says advance. Willing hearts, it goes into the New Testament. You and me to give have to first have a willing heart. We must be willing to give of ourselves.

30:05 And then there's the clean heart. Psalm 51 verse 10 says, Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. And so all these verses, all these things manifest the heart. The Bible is a book about the heart.

30:29 And this heart of ours, these hearts, which are so capable of doing bad things are also capable of living for God in a profoundly powerful way. Daniel purposed. Daniel made his life count for God. To have purpose is to have reason. To have purpose is to have drive.

31:20 Number one, there's Daniel and his purposeful pursuits. The Bible says in chapter one verse 21 as we close the chapter, Daniel continued unto the first year of King Cyrus. The first year of King Cyrus was five thirty nine BC. This issue here is occurring in 06/2005. Daniel will live to be about 83 to 86 years old.

31:53 Daniel lived until his mid eighties. He worked directly under three kings and two nations. He worked directly under Nebuchadnezzar. He worked directly under Darius. He worked directly under Cyrus.

32:10 All three, two of the three especially, worldwide sovereign monarchs over the world, Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus. He never pursued wealth or fame. He never tried to escape. His heart was always toward God. In everything that he pursued, God was always first.

32:36 I say this to you young people. You will be confronted in your life with all kinds of choices. Some of those choices may be expedient. I can make a lot of money quick. Some of those choices will seem very enticing.

33:00 Many of us have been faced with such things. God is always first. That was in Daniel's life. God would be first. I believe the God of the Bible.

33:15 I believe the God of the Bible in everything I pursue. Daniel and purposeful preaching. Purposeful preaching. In chapter two in verse 27, Daniel stood before Nebuchadnezzar, And Nebuchadnezzar was going to kill every magician, every soothsayer, everyone that claimed any sort of spiritual connection to outer world, every one of them came in before Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuchadnezzar said, I've had a dream and I need to know the interpretation. And they said, Sure, Mr.

34:03 Nebuchadnezzar, we will tell you what the dream means. What'd you dream? Nebuchadnezzar said, No, it doesn't work that way. You tell me what I dreamed. They said, Well, that's impossible.

34:22 Nebuchadnezzar said, If you can't tell me what I dreamed, how are you going to tell me the meaning? And Nebuchadnezzar in his rage said, Kill them all, kill them all. Well that included Daniel and his companions. And so Daniel has to step up as they're coming to let them know you're gonna be killed. Daniel says, Can you give me a minute to go pray to my God?

34:47 I'll give him the interpretation. And so Daniel stands before the king and he answers in the presence of the king and says, The secret which the king is demanding cannot the wise men, the astrologers and the magicians and soothsayers show to the king. But there's a God in heaven that reveals secrets and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days, thy dream and the visions of thy head are these. Purposeful preaching. Now you ladies are sitting there listening to me saying, well, this is to the men, purposeful preaching.

35:23 Is that true? We don't believe in women preachers, right? Jesus said, go into all the world and do what? Preach. Preach.

35:33 That's for you guys too. The word preach, don't get hung up on it. The word caruso means herald. You are a herald to the world. You are to be purposeful in your answers to God.

35:47 Peter said this, he said, I want you to always be ready to give an answer to everyone. Purposeful preaching is no fear. Daniel had no fear of King Nebuchadnezzar. He did it before Nebuchadnezzar, before Belshazzar, whoever he stood before. Because he had purposed in his heart, he was always ready.

36:11 He invoked God. He didn't say, well, let try to get on your level with this. Let me try to finesse you into believing God. Let me give you some little illustrations that might put little thoughts in your mind that would lead you to God. That's not giving an answer.

36:32 I love what Paul the Apostle did when he stood before Agrippa. Paul stood before Agrippa that day and he said, I count myself happy, o king, cause today I'm gonna answer for myself what I believe. And that's what I teach, I was telling some of you, I teach a high school level apologetics. Apologetics, it sounds so lofty. All it means in the Greek is to give an answer.

37:00 That's what it means. And we don't try to go out and learn how to debate all the smart guys on the college campuses. What we do is we come with this book. This is God's book for you and me. This is what God has given us.

37:16 And we tell people, this is what God says. Oh, that sounds so archaic. But when we quote them the word of God, the Bible says the word of God is living. It's powerful. It's sharper than any two edged sword.

37:33 That's what we do. We presuppose the person needs God. We presuppose that. This person needs God in some aspect of their lives. We presuppose the person needs the word.

37:53 Again, don't shy away from this. Years ago, was with a group of people they believed in. It was a group of men who gathered together and they studied issues on creation and origins. They were all believers. So it group was called the Piedmont Association for Creation, Education and Research.

38:25 It's down in North Carolina. And I would go each week and they would have a guy stand up and he'd present different issues from the creation standpoint. And it was always good, always very, very good. And one day a guy, a professional man was up there and he was telling about how he dealt with other professionals in the science field and physics and those kinds of things. And he asked the question, he said, You know when you're talking to people on these high intellectual levels, the disciplines they're in, should you use your Bible?

39:04 And one guy flung his hand up and said, No, don't use that, you'll lose them. You won't be able to carry on anything in an intelligent way. And I was a young guy at the time and I'm not an educated guy, but I sat there for a second and I threw my hand up and I said, Why would you not use this? This is the only reason I believe in God and God has given it to us. Purposeful preaching, we use the word.

39:41 We speak as the oracles of God, we speak for God. We're always ready to answer. And we remember Paul at Athens, how he stood before the smartest people in the world and preached the resurrection of Christ. And we all go into the world and we preach. And then finally, Daniel and his purpose, as he purposed in his heart, what we see in Daniel's life is not only purposeful pursuits, he never pursued worldly fame, but he always managed to be working for Nebuchadnezzar, like way up in the kingdom, working for Darius.

40:19 He was third in the kingdom under Darius. In fact, they say the way it worked was, he was... It was Cyrus, Darius, Daniel. This guy never... He never put in for the job.

40:53 What is praying with purpose? Well, it's a lot of things. It's a time we pray. In fact, tomorrow we're gonna talk about Daniel and his habitual praying in chapter six. But it really means it's knowing the God you pray to.

41:14 Jesus said it one time, he said, Don't stand there and use vain repetitions like the heathen do. They think they're heard for their much learning. Do you know the God you pray to? Do you know Him? Jesus said one time, When you pray, here's how you pray.

41:35 Our Father, which art in heaven. In Daniel chapter two, flip over there real quick. Daniel chapter two, here's where he prays. Daniel chapter two verse 17 says, then Daniel went to his house and he made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah's companions that they would desire the mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret. He prayed in Daniel chapter two to the God of heaven.

42:08 That is the Hebrew word El Shammayim. You see that there? And it's always used in the book of Daniel, the book of Ezra, and the book of Nehemiah. It's the contrast our God who can be known, our God who is over all with all the gods of the world. And Daniel knew this God, El Shammayim, the God who is sovereign over all, the God who is in control over all.

42:39 Because I'm getting ready to go stand before the king of the world and he's gonna kill me. And I need to pray to someone larger than him. Our God is larger than any problem that we have. Our God is absolutely in control of any problem we have. Daniel chapter six, flip over there.

43:05 The Bible tells us in Daniel chapter six verses ten and eleven. This is Daniel's prayer and we'll again, we'll talk about this one some tomorrow. Verse 10, Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem. He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before, I like this little phrase, his God, his God. Now you know what he was up against?

43:36 Anybody that prays to any other God is gonna get thrown into the lions. Daniel says, no, he's my God, He's my Lord. And so it was a personal thing. So this God of heaven from chapter two was Daniel's personal friend, personal God, the God who had watched him all the way from Jerusalem over to Babylon, the God who had been with him all through his life. By the way, this is at the end of his life.

44:09 This is near the end. And my God had always been faithful to me. That is the God I know. That is the God I pray to three times a day. And then finally, Daniel nine:four, let's look over there, and this is fascinating.

44:38 Daniel, he says, I prayed unto the Lord. Stop right there. That is the word Jehovah. It's all caps. Daniel prayed unto the Lord.

44:51 The word Jehovah implies God who is self existent, the great I am. And then it says here, I prayed unto the Lord, my God, excuse me, look on down and made my confession and said, O Lord, that is capital L, small o r d. That is the term Adonai. That is the word which means sovereign master. And then he says, the great and dreadful God.

45:24 That is the word Elohim. You say, Mark, why did you bring this up? Well, he specifically called God by these distinctive names. This is the name which means self existent one. This is the name which means sovereign master, and this is the name which means strong and mighty God.

45:48 You know, oftentimes when we pray, you hear somebody pray and they're just throwing the names out. Lord, we thank you Jesus. Father, we just wanna come to you God. We're just not even thinking about it with all the names we're using. It's almost like vain repetition.

46:05 When Daniel prayed to his God, his purpose in praying was to know the God he prayed to. Know the God. Our God, the Psalmist says, is in the heavens. He's done whatsoever he pleased. Now for you and me, knowing our God is even more special because Jesus said for you and me, we pray, what do we say?

46:40 Our Father. Our Father. God is our Father. We come to our God in a special relationship because we're His children. To as many as received him, Jesus Christ, to them, gave god god gave the right to be called the children of god.

47:06 To them that believe on his name. Do you know God as your Father? We sing it in the black book, Abba, Father, we approach thee. God has sent forth the spirit of His son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. The most intimate name for God known throughout all scriptures.

47:35 Literally, I count over 80 names of God in the Old Testament. 80 different names. The most intimate name in the Bible is a name given for our privilege, Abba Father. I can come to God and pray to Him in purposeful prayer. And so as Daniel purposed in his heart, it carried such far reaching thing.

48:23 Thank you for your help to preach it. Thank you, Father, for this day that you've given us to purpose in our hearts, Lord, that we will serve you, purpose in our hearts, and in all that we do, it will be for your honor and glory. We pray this in Jesus Christ's name, amen.