Jesus: The Deliverer

When I was a kid growing up, at some point a cat “adopted” us. What I mean by this is that this cat consented to let us admire it, pet it, and give it the free reign of our property. The cat had no tags but was actually a very pretty cat, and as most cats do, it took very good care of itself. I was somewhat indifferent to it until I realized that my mom didn’t like it, and at that point I became much more interested, and even, you could say, a “fan” of that cat.

One reason my mom didn’t like the cat is that it wanted free reign not only of our property, but of our house. When my mom would be carrying groceries into the house, the cat would try to run in. Well, my mom would have nothing to do with that, and so she decided to start spraying the cat with a water hose when it came around. The cat did not like that at all. And for a while it seemed that things had more or less settled down – the cat ran away when it saw my mom, but when it was just the rest of our family outside, the cat would happily walk between our legs and consent for us to give it a gentle scratch at just that place behind the ears which would make it loudly purr.

Out from the Tomb

Daniel 6

Welcome! Today we continue in our study of the Book of Daniel, focusing in on Chapter 6. To begin, I want to give a bit of a recap of where we have been.

Daniel was a Hebrew, an Israelite, who lived in Israel during his childhood years at a very turbulent time in Israel’s history. For generations, even going all the way back to Moses, God had warned that His promises of blessings on Israel were conditional on the people remaining true and faithful to God, practicing His commandments and decrees, and refusing to worship false gods. Over the centuries, Israel had strayed farther and farther away from God, and at last, God’s warnings were coming to pass. Removing His protection, God now began to allow foreign nations to attack into the heart of Israel, including Jerusalem, and take apart the nation piece by piece.

The Human Hand

Daniel 5

Welcome! Today we continue in our study of the Book of Daniel, focusing in on Chapter 5. I want to start today by giving you a reminder of what has happened in the first 4 chapters.

The history of the Israelites in the Bible is not a pretty one. From the days of Moses until the fall of Israel, times in which the people worshiped God and obeyed His commandments were the exception rather than the rule. Finally, after nearly continuous warnings from prophets, people God spoke to directly to warn them to change or else witness the fruit of their forsaking Him, it really happened. God raised up Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and turned the nation of Babylon into the strongest, largest, most terrifying empire the world had ever known. Syria, Phoenecia, Tyre, and even Egypt were overwhelmed and absorbed into this empire. And the tiny nation of Israel, just a dot on the map compared with some of these other nations, lost God’s protecting hand and was overtaken as well. God’s presence left the Temple made by Solomon, and the Temple was looted and destroyed. 

Message from Heaven

Daniel 4

Welcome! Today we continue in our study of the Book of Daniel, focusing in on Chapter 4. To get started, let me remind you of the highlights of Chapters 1 through 3.

Recall that God had used prophets in Israel to warn them that unless they changed from their wicked ways, unless they stopped rejecting and forsaking Him, He would allow foreigners to come in and overtake the land, effectively putting an end to the nation of Israel. Some of her people would be killed in the process, and others would become captured and taken away to other lands to serve as servants and slaves under foreign kings who worshiped foreign gods. And this is exactly what happened.

Jesus: The Light

I John 1:5 tells us that God is Light. And for us, those who believe in Him, He is our light.

Let’s take a moment and pray:

Jesus, you are the light of the world. In You there is no darkness at all. Your light shines in us and through us. We pray that you would light our paths through your Word today. We are dependent on Your direction. Apart from You, everything is darkness and confusion to us. Shine on us and through us Lord Jesus. Amen.

The last 3 weeks, we’ve begun studying through the book of Daniel. Last week we talked about the fiery furnace. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were joined in the furnace by a fourth man. This fourth man had a different appearance than the three friends. He is described by Nebuchadnezzar as a son of the gods and later as an angel. Likely, the fourth man had an appearance of light or brilliance to gain such a description.

Two weeks ago, we talked about how God miraculously revealed Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar said he would not tell his dream to anyone but that his wise men had to prove their worth by telling him the dream and interpreting it. Otherwise, he would kill all the wise men. Daniel stepped in and asked the king for time. That night, God revealed the dream to Daniel. Daniel had a beautiful prayer at that point.

The Fourth Man

Daniel 3

Welcome! Today we look at a familiar passage of Scripture, Daniel chapter 3. This passage is often summarized in children’s Bible story books, and so some of us have known this story since before we could read. But I think there is plenty here that is interesting, plenty that is “meaty,” and plenty that we can apply to our lives.

Let me first remind you of the background for the book of Daniel. Daniel and his friends, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael were captured by the Babylonians in one of several raids that ultimately led to the total downfall of the Israelite nation, or more precisely, the split nation consisting of Israel and Judah. This downfall was repeatedly prophesied by the Israelite prophets, who said it was sure to happen unless the Israelite people truly repented and turned from worshiping false gods and performing other detestable practices all while abandoning the Law given to Moses generations earlier.

The Rock

Daniel 2

Welcome! Today we continue in our study of the wonderful Book of Daniel, focusing on Chapter 2. To get started, let me remind you of the context of the book of Daniel and briefly review what happened in Chapter 1.

The book of Daniel takes during and after the fall of the land of Israel. God allowed Israel to fall, in fact, He repeatedly warned His people that the fall was coming, because they had forsaken God. God, who is the orchestrator of all of history, used a man named Nebuchadnezzar son of Nabopolassarto do this. Nabopolassar started things by delivering Babylon from its dependence on Assyria and destroying Nineveh. While Nabopolassar still reigned, he sent his son Nebuchadnezzar to lead military campaigns, and under Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians defeated the Egyptian army and drove them back to their homeland, essentially ending the Egyptian empire for good. Nebuchadnezzar continued with other military campaigns to defeat the Syrians and the Phoenicians, and Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon after his father’s death to take the throne of what we call the neo-Babylonian Empire, the greatest empire in terms of might and reach the world had yet seen.

The Test

 Daniel 1

Today, we begin a new series. Over the next 11 weeks, we will study the book of Daniel. This book is familiar to most of us. Many of the events of Daniel’s life we learned about as children in Sunday school or vacation Bible school. Daniel in the lions’ den.Daniel interpreting dreams. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago in the fiery furnace. The writing on the wall.

Time and again throughout the book of Daniel, we see the God of Israel (Yahweh, Jehovah) demonstrating His power and sovereignty. The little “g” gods of Babylon and the wisdom of their followers is shown to be empty and powerless by the one true God.

The Bible is unique in so many ways. It includes history, incredible details about the past. It includes prophecy, miraculous predictions of things to come. It includes instruction on how to live. It includes the explanation of why we are here. It includes the means by which we can have eternal life. It is profoundly concrete. There are mysteries in the Bible, but the Bible is no means a mystical book. You can read it and understand it.

Money Part 2

Good morning! Today we come to the conclusion of our topical series exploring the wisdom of the book of Proverbs. This is also the second part of a two-part message on Biblical guidelines for wisdom in the area of finances. I want to start with a recap of some of the things we talked about in Part I, which we actually covered two weeks ago. (Last week was our monthly communion and sharing time and John spoke about hard hearts vs. hearts soft to the things of the Lord.)

Two weeks ago we looked at a variety of passages not only in Proverbs but also in the teachings of Jesus and came up with the following main points:

I. Seek the Lord in your financial decisions. – We talked about guarding against compartmentalizing our faith with regards to financial decisions. In every significant financial decision, we should pray and seek Biblical wisdom. This is simple to say but can be difficult to do, particularly if we have built up a habit of making financial decisions on our own.

Jesus and Debt

Before we jump into the message, let’s take a moment and ask the Lord to soften our hearts and to speak to us.

Lord Jesus, I do pray that you would soften our hearts. We harden our hearts to protect ourselves from the hurts of this world. We harden our hearts to handle the trials we are facing. We harden our hearts to bear our own burdens. We even harden our hearts to do the things that we know are right. But that’s not how you are and that’s not how you want us to be. Give us ears to hear. Transform us and make us more like you. Soften our hearts that we might love as you do. In your perfect name we pray, Amen.

Do you ever think about your heart? I’m talking about your physical heart, the one inside your chest. As a general rule, I don’t think about it at all. When I was a kid, I would put my hand on my chest and feel my heart beating. I wasn’t fascinated by it, but I do remember at least thinking about my heart and the fact that it was pump, pump, pumping. Nowadays, I hardly think about it at all. It does what it’s supposed to, and I don’t really consider it.