In the midst of this current crisis it really gets one thinking. We’ll address some lessons we can learn from Daniel 3 &amp; 6.

<p>In the midst of this current crisis it really gets one thinking. We’ll address some lessons we can learn from Daniel 3 &amp; 6.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

CORE Evangelism School

How to Stand in a Crisis

Dee Casper

How to Stand in a Crisis - Part 1

God in heaven, thank you for being so good to us.

Thank you that we can still meet together through this means.

And we're asking that you would speak to us as we're in a time that is different than anything that any of us have ever dealt with in our lifetime.

Lord, I just pray that you would stir our hearts, that your Holy Spirit would be present among each of us.

And we're so thankful for the fact that the Spirit of God is not limited to this particular classroom, that you can minister to each person wherever they are right now.

So we just pray that you would speak to us, you would minister to us, and that you would prepare us for what's to come.

So I was talking today with a guy named Lee Wellard.

He's an accent like he's from the south or something.

But So I was talking to him today and he and I are both of the mind, I've heard this from many people, Darrell and I were talking about this morning too, that this is not the crisis.

This is not the thing that closes the work, But what I am convinced of is this is the thing to get people's attention to prepare them for the real thing This is serious.

This is serious You guys are gone like it's it's real But what we're doing right now kind of reminds me of, if you've read in the Great Controversy, how Jesus in this warning said, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, to get out.

And In the Great Controversy we're told that not a single Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 because there was a strange pause from the advance that was being taken out on Jerusalem by the Romans.

They stopped for a season for seemingly no understood reason, and the Christians left during that season and in turn the next way it came.

And I think this is 1 of those eye-opening moments and wake-up calls for us as a people That the stuff that we've been telling people through our evangelistic series and our Bible studies is not fairy tales or algebra like this is real That this is a real crisis that's coming upon this earth or real issues going on And I wanted to focus on personal preparation today So what to do in the closing crisis and how to prepare for the closing crisis.

I did like a really quick version of this in the worship with Steve Grabner was here.

I would be foolish to assume you remember all that anyway because it was a brief worship.

So anyway, I'm gonna walk through some of that with you today and then share some other stories and some personal convictions I have on this matter because you're family and I want to I feel like I need to do that so I've prayed so let's start I'm gonna do how do I do this I want to do that BAM okay so in Daniel chapter 3 is where we're gonna kind of spend our time focusing, but the preface to Daniel chapter 3, we've talked about this before, but I wanna kind of rehash this.

Why is it, do you believe, that in Daniel chapter 3, well, let's just get a landscape.

What are some important lessons from Daniel chapter 1?

We'll do some brief summaries and then we'll go into what happens in Daniel 3.

Well, it speaks about how Daniel and his friends were smarter, I guess, above intelligence than the other ones.

I mean, I would say because what we study at is because of their diet.

Okay, so I'm asking you to distill down Daniel 1.

So you kind of jumped like halfway through Daniel 1.

So what happens in Daniel 1 briefly to give this kind of a context?

Well, they're taking captive the city of Jerusalem and kind of all the elite.

So Daniel and his 2 friends are taken and kind of integrated into Babylon and they're trying to see, you know, who's the smartest, the best, they want to put them through school.

And then how this was saying, you know, they had their test with the food and God worked and they ate only vegetables and fruit and water and they were superior to everyone.

So the chapter ends with Ebekenezer seeing that and then going.

So they chose to be faithful in something that, I mean, let's be honest, how many people are gonna see?

We talked about this in the leadership class last week.

Just take what's given to you and I'm sure God will understand.

But they seem to feel it was very important to be faithful in every duty.

Would that be a fair kind of summation of what transpired there?

They felt that they needed to be faithful in every duty, and in doing so, God honored them.

And then in Daniel chapter 2, so they were viewed as 10 times wiser, right, than their contemporaries and all the other people around them, their companions.

In Daniel chapter 2, what's kind of a distillation of what happens there?

He is confused by it and he asks for his chief magistrates and his chief counselors to interpret the dream.

They can't do it because they're fake and and Then he gets angry because he really wants to understand the dream and he makes death decree and then Here's the death decree because he's part of those wise men whatever you want to call them and he then prays to God It tells him that God God gives him to him the dream and a vision and then he tells Ariok I think is his name tell the king that he can't interpret the dream, and he goes and he explains in the dream, obviously proclaiming God through a power that he can't do it, and I think it's just, oh yeah, he tells the dream, and all of a sudden, interpretation and his friends are promoted I think it ends there.

Okay so we've talked about this before but just for recap sake the there's something the king is upset about that he tells the wise men, right?

He says, you guys are trying to do something.

What were they trying to do to you, remember?

And he says, you continue to lie to me and do other things you're just trying to get me to give you more time and then we get to Daniel chapter 2 and Daniel finds out about what has transpired and he tells the king like hey Just give me some time and I I think I can answer this and what does the king do when Daniel asks for time?

He gives it to him what do you think would be a reason 1 reason at least I'm sure there's multiple reasons but what do you think would be a good reason on why Daniel will be given time but others weren't?

Daniel chapter 2, basically he already showed that, well, he's faithful and he's trustworthy.

I'll stick to what he believes and follows.

So if he says, give me some time, I will interpret.

So Daniel chapter 1, his faithfulness, seen previously in Daniel chapter 1, gave the King enough confidence to do that, right?

As Lexi was mentioning, like, I wasn't sent here to reason with you.

But why would Arioch even spare their example in Daniel chapter 1, prepared them to be given time in Daniel chapter 2 to prove that God is God.

You think that that's kind of a fair assessment of what's going on there?

So then we get to Daniel chapter 3, right?

There's a decree in Daniel chapter 3, In other words, an image or a statue in Daniel chapter 2.

And of that statue, Nebuchadnezzar actually played a role in that statue.

Daniel says, you, O king, are the Head of gold.

And so Nebuchadnezzar, he's convicted, right?

He falls in his face before a humiliated servant, a castrated servant, and says that your God is the God of gods.

And then we get to Daniel chapter 3 and Nebuchadnezzar makes an image out of what type of metal?

So his thought is, I don't like this idea because 1 of the things that Daniel mentioned in his explanation is, then a kingdom inferior to yours.

Can you imagine, right, you're being told the kingdom that will follow you will be 1 that's inferior to your current 1?

How to Stand in a Crisis - Part 2

God in heaven, we thank you for the sober reminder, but the encouraging reminder that we've just had in our first session that you place a higher value on our day-to-day decisions than we do because you know how much of a benefit they have in the long term and when it matters most.

So I just pray you would bless us now as we reflect upon some more practical application of this and again, as we're seeking to know how to best live in the midst of crisis and how to prepare for crisis.

So we ask these things now in Jesus name.

All right, so I'm just gonna kind of summarize some stuff that we talked about, kind of recap, make a few applications.

I want to tell you 2 stories from my own experience that have given me courage and consolation in the midst of crises and knowing what it is that God is trying to do to prepare us when we need help the most.

They've just been actual life stories from my own experience that confirmed to me that God truly is going to help us, that we're not on our own.

So the way that you and I can stand at the end of time, the way we can stand then, is by giving God our decision today.

They didn't become somebody different in their trial.

They were who they were the day before when they had to turn in their homework, when they had to do their taxes, when they chose to wake up and have time with God or anything else, any of the responsibilities.

And the decisions that I make today make me into the person that I will be then.

So what I do today prepares me for my faithfulness then.

I'm investing in my faithfulness then by being faithful today.

First, this should humble us and encourage us.

First, because God seems to place a higher value on my day-to-day decisions than I do.

Just 1 class, It's just 1 thing, just 1 day of devotions, you just won this, won that.

But second, because God seems to have, that humbles and encourages me that there's a solution here, right?

That God offers strength to succeed in my day to day decisions because he sees that those prepare us for who we will be, them.

But second, the reason why this is humbling and encouraging to me is because it seems to me that God has more faith in my ability to stand at the end of time than I do.

God seems to have more faith in my ability to stand at the end of time than I do, else I wouldn't be living in that time, right?

You would not be living at this time in Earth's history if God did not believe that you could stand.

And just take a moment to appreciate that.

If you are alive by God's providence at this stage in Earth's history when all of us are going to hell in a handbasket and falling apart at the seams.

If God has you alive at that stage, it must be because he believes that you can stand.

Because he believes that you're gonna make it.

Because he believes that you can succeed.

That God's not slack concerning his promise, he's not willing that any should perish, right?

That's not the experience he wants for you.

And so, these same lessons apply to our character development, right?

That Jesus day by day is making us into someone that we could not become apart from Jesus.

There is never a day in your life where you're not going to need Jesus.

There's never an experience in your life that you're actually prepared to handle without Jesus.

Hey, you can get, you may be able to stumble through or whatever, but if you want to be a person of excellence, if you want to be a person who makes morally right decisions and succeeds when it matters most, you need Jesus.

And Many people are freaked out about this idea of perfection.

We've already covered this in our class on last generation theology and in other areas That God has promised to do that work of transformation in us Our responsibility is to stay in the soil if you remember that illustration from Christ object lessons Right that you can be perfect at every stage of development.

Our job is to stay in the soil, to stay surrendered to God and ask him to mold and shape us in who we need to be day by day.

God, I surrender my choices for this day to you, and I ask that you would empower me to live a God-honoring life as I work, as I do my chores, as I babysit, as I do my schooling, whatever.

And if we yield our day-to-day decisions to God, we don't have to be afraid anymore.

There's no reason to be afraid because he's in control.

He's the 1 who's empowering us to succeed and you can stand for Jesus on the plane of Dura when everyone else bows because you've given him your heart, You've consecrated yourself to him for that day.

And you gave him yesterday's decisions, and the day before that, and the day before that.

You've been developing a lifestyle, a habit, a train of thought that continually seeks power and wisdom from God.

So you'll be able to tell the Popes and the prelates that God is going to fight for me in this situation, but even if He doesn't, I'm still not going anywhere because God has been good to me.

God has been faithful to me, and I would rather die than sin.

I would rather die than dishonor Him, because He's been that good to me.

It's funny that God does amazing things in our lives and God is doing stuff in our lives all the time, every minute, every second, literally just living is a blessing.

It's something that God is doing in our life.

And it's crazy because I love what you're saying as well, because they were saying, God, you've done so much for my life.

So even if I die, or if I live, I won't do this because you've done so much for my life.

But I think we even, at least this just thought came to my head, at least for me, it's easy to forget that I'm like, oh, you've done so much in my life.

You really helped me through this hard situation.

But I forget, like what I said before, but I forget grieving and my family and friends who love me and nature all around me, my favorite things, my favorite food and stuff.

And it's important, I think, to remember those little things as well because it really helps us like get a better picture and a bigger picture of this like this wholeness of what God gives us and to make us even more empowered to stand up for Him and to give our all for Him.

I think it's more peace as well because God's saying, hey, I'm with you in every single aspect of your life.

Yeah, you don't have to wait until a crisis to recognize that God is at hand, right?

God forbid if like the only time that Jesus is seen next to me is when I'm in a literal furnace, right?

It's not that Jesus wasn't with them except for when he was in the furnace.

He was always with them, but he made it clear to the people who are trying to persecute them that, hey, He's always been with them.

And so I think that that's something that we can't lose sight of, and I appreciate that you said that, Lexi, that God literally wants to be involved in your day-to-day decision-making because he knows what you need better than you do and he'll empower you to succeed in it.

Dale Levin talked about this, that your life becomes more efficient when you're abiding in Christ.

You make better decisions, you're more efficient, you get more done because you're leaving everything in his hands and that's what this really is about right Chad Jack me Shaka Bendigo and Daniel learned how to abide in Jesus that's basically what they did and this is why I think it's so important for us to not ignore the fact that our daily consecration and time with Him is so essential in this shaping and abiding process, right?

And I just wanted to say that as I was walking this morning, I was asking God, and yes, you know, why does he love me so much?

You know, after, you know, so many things we can do to not push him away.

Sometimes we may do the wrong thing unconsciously and we're conscious, they depend.

And I believe that God has equipped us each with a unique gift that he knows that he could use us with.

And that with that saying that at the end times is why we're here, Because God has created us uniquely for that to express that gift and we're not perfect and it's like you said you were saying before the break that God would equip us And he will as long as we abide in him And we give all him and it's hard for me to it's hard for me sometimes because I love God so much that I'm like, why?

You know, I keep saying, why would you even want to use me?

And it's amazing how His love is and it continues on.

I just thought 1 other thing, cause you keep, God's definitely speaking to you, cause you keep, you said something else again that reminded me of something that connected to what I was saying as well.

In high school, I really kind of started to understand more of that God can be involved in literally everything, like you were saying.

Like playing a game of baseball, like playing with your fidget spinner, like just really super random things.

Series

How to Stand in a Crisis

How to Stand in a Crisis - Part 1

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Day of Atonement

03 When You Don’t Understand

1h 4m

How to Stand in a Crisis

How to Stand in a Crisis - Part 2

1h 6m

The Three Angel's Messages

02 The Everlasting Gospel

1h 7m

Plenary

When Temptations Return

1h 18m

Righteousness by Faith

Revival and Reformation in the Last Days

1h 11m

Out on a Limb

45m

All the World Marveled

Preparing For the Lion’s Den

58m

Christian Martin Weekend

How To Avoid Being a Good for Nothing Christian

50m

Skeletons in the Closet

53m

GYC SE 2012 Seminar: Personal Devotions

Making God in Your Own Image

37m

Plenary

Overcoming Tribulations In Ministry- Part 1

1h 12m

How to Stand at the end of Time

1h 6m

Sound Doctrine