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Battle Creek Tabernacle SDA Church

These Things We Know

Chris Holland

These Things We Know: God is Faithful

These Things We Know: God is Sovereign

These Things We Know: God is Good

These Things We Know: God Is the Relentless Redeemer

God Still Speaks Part 1

God Still Speaks Part 2

These Things We Know: God Wins

These Things We Know: God is the Deliverer

These Things We Know: God is the Great Teacher

These Things We Know: God is a Friend

These Things We Know: God Knows the End From the Beginning

These Things We Know: God is the Author

These Things We Know: God is the Finisher

These Things We Know: God is the Promise Keeper Part 1

These Things We Know: God is the Promise Keeper Part 2

These Things We Know: God Fights For Us Part 1

These Things We Know: God Fights For Us Part 2

These Things We Know: God Stands for Us

With all my heart, I want to love you, Lord.

With all my heart, I want to serve you, Lord.

Do you want to serve him today with all your heart?

Do you want to love him with all your heart?

And why is it that we want to love him and serve him with all of our heart?

Because no matter what the circumstances, God is faithful all the time.

Heavenly Father, we have gathered here and we want to hear a word from you.

And so, Lord, while I have prepared, I pray and ask that you would take my preparations and transform them into what it is you want to say this morning.

And all of us, Lord, may you speak through the Holy Spirit, convict our hearts of righteousness, convict us of sin and convict us of the judgment to come that we might be faithful as you Lord are faithful we pray in Jesus name amen Last week we began a journey that I didn't know was going to be the beginning of a journey.

I had intended to simply preach on Daniel 3 in the context of the current events of society and then move on to a different sermon series that I had been planning.

Eastern time on social media, these words were released.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president, and while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.

When I saw that news and I was praying, I began to sense God leading me on a different journey.

And leading us as a congregation on a different journey.

I sensed, and I sense today more than ever before in my lifetime and in my ministry that we are living in unprecedented times.

And I have sensed a need that we come back to the roots.

More importantly, the roots of who God is.

Of who God is and what it is that we can anchor ourselves to in these uncertain and tumultuous times.

Over the course of 2 weeks there was an attempted assassination of a former president, the current president, stepping away from re-election campaign under intense pressure.

An event that he, along with others possibly hoped would bring unity.

However, a quick search of news stories helps us realize that we are nowhere near united and people are asking many questions.

Were there foreign entities involved in the assassination attempt?

Was the assassination attempt an inside job?

1 commentator commenting on the new presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party said this, it is more like a coronation than a convention.

People wondering, again, a quick search with Joe Biden's sickness and seeming disappearance.

Some asking if the president had actually died.

How are we as Seventh-day Adventist Christians to react?

And probably most importantly, where is God in all of this?

And so today we will continue a journey that we began last week, But in order to continue that journey, we need to go backwards, so then we can go forwards.

While we began in Daniel 3, we are going to go backwards to Daniel chapter 1, a sermon series on the book of Daniel.

And the sermon series will be entitled These Things We Know.

The book of Daniel is a testimony to God's faithfulness to his people.

It is a testimony to the reality that God is faithful despite our unfaithfulness.

It is a testimony to God's activity in the day-to-day life of human beings.

And it is a testimony to the reality that we do have an anchor that will hold.

A recent unattributed quote was sent to me this week, and this is what it said.

The 1 who reads a newspaper knows what is happening in the world.

So how is it that the book of Daniel can help us in these unprecedented times?

The book of Daniel begins with turmoil that is fascinatingly similar to the circumstances in which we now find ourselves.

If you have your Bibles I would invite you to open to Daniel chapter 1.

Daniel chapter 1, beginning in verse 1, says this, In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

1 might ask, how is that similar to the times in which we are living?

Well, we need to understand how Jehoiakim became king of Israel.

In fact, when Pharaoh Necho removed Jehoahaz, he inserted Jehoiakim on the throne.

This was an appointed king by a foreign Pharaoh.

And then after Jehoiakim was eventually removed, Jehoiakim was appointed to be the king in Israel.

And after Jehoiakim rebelled, Zedekiah was appointed.

And after things didn't work with Zedekiah, then Gedaliah was appointed and then eventually assassinated.

This was all happening in Judah during that time, leaving, I'm sure, the multitudes asking the question, who in the world is in charge?

Meanwhile, Daniel, along with other nobles of Judah, had been taken captive to Babylon.

The Bible focuses its attention on 4 Hebrew young men Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael.

They were taken from their homes, they were taken from their country, they were taken from their families, they were taken from their school, All in an attempt to, in effect, change their identity.

So in the times of Daniel, people were asking the question, who is really in charge?

People were asking the question, what is my identity?

And then the prevailing thought of that time was that when a nation conquered another nation, that nation's gods were conquering the gods of the conquered nation.

And so the prevailing thought was that the gods of Babylon, Nabu, the prevalent god, Marduk, had conquered Yahweh, the God of Israel.

And I'm sure it left many people asking the question, why is God silent?

Similar circumstances to the 21st century.

People asking questions about their identity.

Did God simply create this world some millions of years ago, set it on a little spin and let all things work out?

And how is it that Daniel 1 is a testimony to God's faithfulness?

Another prophet, a contemporary of Daniel, Jeremiah, in Jeremiah chapter 25, wrote warnings.

In Jeremiah chapter 25, verses 8 through 11, Jeremiah warned, Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words.

Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations roundabout, and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing and everlasting desolation.

Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.

This whole land will be a desolation and a horror and these nations will serve the king of Babylon 70 years.

How is this a testimony to God's faithfulness?

The Bible records that in the third year of Jehoiakim's reign Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

The likelihood and probability of that ever happening was so minor that it would only take an act of God for it to actually happen.

You see at that time the 2 empires, The 2 great powers of the Middle East were Assyria and Egypt.

The empire Assyria had reached the pinnacle of its power in 627 BC.

And while Assyria was on the decline, it was still a very powerful nation.

However, in 612 BC, a little group, The group of peoples and tribes came together to form this group Babylon.

And under the leadership of a man by the name of Nabal-Palasar, He led a conquest of Nineveh in Assyria, and with that conquest, conquered the Assyrians in the most unlikeliest of circumstances.

While At the same time, down in Egypt, Pharaoh Necho was emboldening his empire, he was growing his empire.

And while Egypt began to conquer the southern regions of Assyria.

The Babylonians began to conquer the northern regions of Assyria.

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These Things We Know

These Things We Know: God is Faithful

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