Total Transformation—Jamaica 2012

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Friends of Christ United in Service (FOCUS)

Eric Walsh

Transformed to Stand

It's good to be with you on the beautiful island of Jamaica.

I'm here in Portmore at the Portmore Seventh-day Adventist Church with Focus.

I have to say I've been very impressed with the work that's been done and setting up for this conference and getting everything in line.

And now to see the fruits of the work of those who have organized, I just want to say, praise the Lord that God has brought good things.

And to see the young people on fire for the Lord is very refreshing and we're just praising God today.

I won't be too long, we're going to get right into God's word.

Daniel chapter 3, Daniel chapter 3, and we're going to start at verse 8.

Daniel chapter 3 starting at verse 8 and I'll read in your hearing.

Daniel 3 and verse 8 the Bible says, wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews.

They spake and said to the king, and spake and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever.

Thou, O king, hast made a decree that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, saqwa, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image and who so falleth down falleth not down and worshipeth that he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace There are certain Jews whom thou has set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These men, O king, have not regarded thee.

They serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up." Our message this Sabbath is entitled, transformed to stand.

Father God, we thank you for bringing us together in this place.

I ask Father God that you would just empty Eric Walsh of self.

And I ask right now Lord that you fill me with your Holy Spirit.

Instead Lord let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

This is our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

The story actually begins long before this story starts.

Israel as a nation had fallen away from God and as Israel fell away from God, God had to split the nation.

Israel to the north and Judah to the south and of course all of the different kings who would come.

The Assyrians take Israel and just Judah is left.

You would think that the children of God in Judah would follow God, but they don't.

And in this process, they fall away from God.

And the Bible lets us know that in fact God's protection is removed from them.

And 1 day a great king named Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonian Empire marches against them and this story really records what is called the first captivity of Judah.

And in he goes, but you have to understand that the Babylonian mindset and the way that the Babylonians ruled was different than other kingdoms.

They ruled by, in 1 sense, taking the princes, taking the best of the land, grass snatching them up and bringing them back to Babylon and then acculturating them in Babylonian studies and language and mythology and religion and by kind of making the leaders of the nation Babylonian.

They figured that they could rule the nation without using the same amount of force as it would otherwise require.

I don't know if you can imagine what it would have been like for Daniel and the 3 Hebrew boys as they were led out of Judah in chains, walked for miles, and brought to this great city, A city that even to this day, 1 of the 8 wonders of the world, of the ancient world, are recorded.

The hanging gardens of Babylon and all of the science and information that Babylon had, their architecture, their culture, such a sophisticated place, but Babylon was also actually the storehouse for all of the paganism and witchcraft of its day.

So in order to really break the children of Israel, to break the princes of Israel, they were going to have to do more than simply teach them the Babylonian tongue, the tongue of the Chaldeans.

They were going to have to convert, don't miss this, they were going to have to convert them from a belief in only the God of Israel, only the God of heaven, they were going to have to be converted to also now either reject that God or add to that God all of the pantheon of gods of Babylon.

What really began to play out in this captivity was bigger than simply a military conquest.

In fact, as you read the scriptures you realize that this is a battle, This is a microcosmic battle of the great controversy itself Because Satan understood that if he could get the princes of Israel don't miss this if he could get the princes of Israel to reject God fully and walk away from God and that the sons of David in perpetuity were to walk away from God.

In fact it would destroy and damage the ability for a Messiah to ever come to earth.

You have to understand that the story that we're looking at is deeper than simply whether or not the Israelites become Babylonian.

This really has everything to do with Satan's plan to snuff out the coming Messiah.

The Bible lets us know that as these young men come into captivity that Nebuchadnezzar, their king, has a dream.

And the dream bothers him, but he can't even remember the dream and you know the story Daniel eventually tells him the story and and he understands from Daniel chapter 2 the meaning of the dream it's powerful stuff of course prophetic in nature and and really a part of the foundation of all of our prophetic beliefs.

But what's important is that when Nebuchadnezzar gets the understanding of the dream, don't miss this, he recognizes that the God of Daniel is the true God This is the reason God doesn't give him even the memory of the dream so that when he when whoever it is can tell him the dream and his interpretation God was tapping on Nebuchadnezzar's shoulder and saying listen up I am God Daniel gives the interpretation Nebuchadnezzar accepts that way man there's something about the God of Israel.

But at the same time, he becomes full of himself.

Nebuchadnezzar is told that only the head of the statue in the dream is gold and represents Babylon, not the rest of it.

But he doesn't like the idea that other kingdoms are going to raise up.

And the spirit of prophecy tells us that in his selfish pride, he decides that he's going to put up an idol or a statue similar to the 1 he dreamed about, except In order to state that Babylon would exist forever, he puts up a statue of all gold.

Excuse me, but I got to take off my jacket.

And so he decides he's got to do this and what happens is he builds this thing and even, oh don't miss it, even his aides, his advisors who practiced the Babylonian witchcraft and and could not tell the meaning of the dream.

Even they who should have been humbled because if it wasn't for the Christianity of Daniel they'd have been put to death.

If it wasn't for Daniel stepping in on their behalf and showing them the character of the true God they would have all been put to death.

Yet they conspire with Nebuchadnezzar against the God of the universe.

And the Bible says that they want Nebuchadnezzar, they like this idea of an idol.

And remember, the reason for the idol is so that they would unify the nations.

They would bring the nations under 1 umbrella and this 1 idol, this 1 statue, this 1 image which would be bowed down and worshipped would represent a unified and eternal Babylon.

Well let me let me jump in and say this first you know even today there is a Babylon.

Babylon really means it comes from the Tower of Babel and and the confusion that happened there.

It meant confusion and 1 of the reasons is because the Babylonian religious system veered as far away from the monotheistic religion of Abraham as it possibly could.

Meaning that they had this pantheon of gods, it was actually quite confusing to know which god to serve.

And so the Babylonian religion had many, many gods and much, much superstition.

And in fact, today, that religious system of Babylon is now represented and you'll get more than some of the seminars it is now represented that we have a ecumenical movement in the world that right now from out of Rome the new Babylon.

Right now there is a movement afoot to try and bring all of the religions of the world together.

And just as it was happening then I want you to understand that just as Satan understood that if he could raise up this statue and get the world to follow it and Destroy the princes of Israel.

He could try and stuff out the first coming of Christ.

I Want you to understand that he thinks today that somehow he can mess with the second coming of Christ.

The great controversy tells us and even Roger Murneau from his great book A Trip into the Supernatural when he talks about When he used to worship that in the demon temples and he became a seven-day Adventist afterwards even Roger Mano says that the demon priests When they would explain what was going on would talk about the fact that Satan himself Lucifer studied the prophecies of the book of Daniel in order for him to plan and it's amazing because that of course that Roger Manot had never read the great controversy as the demon priests are telling him this but I want you to know that the enemy has studied the Word of God he knows how close we are to the end and he understands that there are just a few princes left in Israel.

That's why our church is called a remnant church.

There's only a few left and just as They were trying to use Babylon then to try and acculturate and de-indoctrinate, take away the doctrine and the beliefs of the Hebrew boys.

And Daniel, I want to submit to you that today in modern times, the devil is trying to take away the truth from God's remnant people he's working feverishly And if you understand the book of Daniel, it's a template to give you the tools you need to be prepared for the last day times You see the book starts it starts with the health message The book starts with having a clear mind that can worship God before any prophecy is given to Daniel.

They make a stand that they will not eat of the king's meat nor drink of his wine.

The first step in the whole book of everything that's going to happen is that they take a stand.

I submit to you church that in the last days we must have sound minds.

And the Bible says that after he sets up this statue, He decides to use music.

He decides to use music to try and lower the threshold, don't miss this, to lower the threshold at which those who know the truth will bow to the image.

Music, and I'm gonna talk more about music in my seminars, but let me say this, you see music is not processed the same way as other information in the human brain.

Music bypasses the frontal lobe of the brain.

Now this frontal lobe is the part right here behind your forehead bone and the human brain is 33% frontal lobe.

The next smartest animal, porpoises and chimpanzees, their brain is only 13% frontal lobe.

What that means is that the difference between man and porpoise, chimpanzee, and yes, even dog, I know a lot of people love Fido, right?

A lot of people love their dogs but the human mind is set up not only to be able to reason but also to worship.

So the battle over the mind is the battle for allegiance to God in fact it's so important that Isaiah 1 in verse 18 says it like this come let us reason together Though your sins be a scarlet.

They shall be as well Salvation has everything to do with your ability to reason, to think.

This is why even here in Jamaica as I drive around, I see so many red stripe signs, and I even see signs that's for selling white rum.

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