Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The Coming Sunday Laws

Cody Francis

01 Preparing for the Sunday Law

02 Facing the Sunday Law

03 Enduring the Sunday Law

04 Politicizing the Sunday Law

05 The Coming Sunday Law

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we're grateful for the opportunity to come together to study from your word.

We pray that you'll be with us as we study the subject of the Sunday laws and We pray that you'll give us understanding and you'll help us to know how to relate.

All right, so just a review from yesterday.

Some of you are going to remember it and some might not, but we're looking at our first 3 messages, which is yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we're looking at 3 decrees that were given in ancient Israel.

And these 3 decrees were all related to what was happening, decrees made by government entities against God's people.

And we see some unique differences in them and we see a progression in them that I believe teaches us about a progression that will take place in regard to Sunday laws in the future.

I'm not trying to prove the idea of the mark of the beast and Sunday law and the seal of God and all of that right now.

Thursday we're going to look a little bit more at that.

Friday we'll look at it and its current events more and things that are happening right now.

So yesterday we looked at the first decree, and the first decree was in Daniel chapter 3, which is the most common 1.

It's the 1 that we frequently use when we talk about the mark of the beast and the image to the beast and these types of things.

And so we see that there was a decree in Daniel chapter 3 that was a decree that was forcing false worship.

So you have these 3 Hebrew boys and they're called there before the image and they're commanded to bow down and worship.

And so it was a decree enforcing false worship.

Now when we look at the second decree, we're going to see it's slightly different.

And so we're looking at facing the Sunday law.

So how do we relate during Sunday laws in particular and leading up to it as well?

But I'm curious, how many of you have ever heard a lion roar before?

Now I've never heard a lion roar in the wild, praise the Lord.

But if you've been at a zoo, and I'm not sure I've ever heard like a lion really belt out a roar.

But I can remember being at zoos, and it was like he was just a little grumpy and having a bad day.

And it was, it was not, but it was just, and you could you could be way over at the monkeys or someplace else and he's just kind of going and It was you could feel it and hear it all the way over there when I was in Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, which normally there, they shoot and kill and eat anything that moves.

In fact, I don't know that I really saw any animals alive there.

But they talked to us about, we were going through, we were walking past, we'd walked way out to a village and then we were walking back and it was about dusk And they said, Oh, it was here that 1 of our Bible workers was riding his bike back and a lion jumped out about dusk.

This is a great story to be telling right now.

And He said, and he was riding his bike, and of course, what do you do when a lion jumps out at you?

And he throws his bike 1 direction and jumps into the weeds the other direction.

And apparently the lion thought that bikes were not good food or whatever, and he went on his way.

And so as we were going by, we praised the Lord that the Lord saved that Bible worker's life.

Now we know, because we're familiar with what the New Testament says, 1 Peter 5, verse 8, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." We have another decree when we come in Daniel chapter 6.

Took place probably 50, maybe 60 years after the first decree.

The first decree was a decree that enforced false worship.

The second decree is going to prohibit true worship.

Another decree, Daniel chapter 6, we know the story.

Daniel's there and he's serving now in the Medo-Persian realm.

And as he's serving in the Medo-Persian realm, The king sets him as superior or the ranking officer above all the others.

What does that do to the Medo-Persians that are working in the government?

I mean, anybody, but especially when you have a despised captive who is not even a part of the conquering nation, and this despised captive is now going to be above you.

Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him.

And the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.

So the governors, the satraps, sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no charge or fault because he was faithful, nor was there any error or fault found in him." Now, I want you to think of What that means.

Was Daniel an upstart that was just starting here?

How many years of service did Daniel have at this point?

About 70 years of being a public servant.

And his coworkers, which we might describe today as politicians, civil servants, okay, civil servants, were trying to find fault with him.

Now let me ask you, if a politician tries to find fault with another politician today, do they generally have a hard time?

It's, you know what, they're going to twist record, they're going to find any number of things, and maybe you've seen some of the statistics before, that how would you like to work in a workplace that this many people, like a numerous number of people had DUIs and been in jail and all those types of things.

And then it says, oh, this is the United States Congress.

I'm not trying to be down on Congress or anything like that, but the point is we know from what we see around us today that if somebody is looking for fault in somebody that has been serving in the public for any period of time, they're probably going to easily be able to find it.

Daniel had been serving longer than anybody else, and nobody, they could not find fault with him.

Now I want you to think, if he hadn't, what if they would have found something that Daniel hadn't been so faithful about?

They would have pointed that out and they would have had him removed, and God's name would have never been glorified, even if Daniel had repented and been forgiven and all of this.

But because Daniel was faithful, It glorified God's name.

Unless, verse 5, then these men said, we shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.

And so they say, look, we've got to get rid of this guy.

The only way we're going to be able to do it is to find fault with him regarding his law, the law of his God.

And they knew Daniel's character, didn't they?

They knew what he was going to do and what he was not going to do as well.

And so the princes petition the government.

Now they're a part of the government, but the princes petition and they come before the king and they present their concept, their idea before the king.

Well their idea is, well king you're such a good king we just really love your your rulership so much and we would love for you to be honored so that nobody can ask anything from any other god except you." Now what were they doing?

And flattery was blinding his mind of what was the consequences were.

When we read through the story, was Darius, was he really interested in getting Daniel into trouble?

In fact, he labors, he tries to figure out ways that he can save Daniel.

And so the princes petition the government, the king signs the decree.

And as the king signs the decree, true worship is now, remember we talked about it locally before?

Series

The Coming Sunday Laws

02 Facing the Sunday Law

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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