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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

Do you believe that you do not walk alone?

When the shadows may fall, may you see God's light on the path, and may you hear him, because you and I, we do not walk alone.

I want to take a moment to, we, in our prayer time, we had not acknowledged, we are thankful that our Pathfinders have all returned safely from Gillette, Wyoming, where we are thankful that none of them were consumed by the storms that were seemingly on the rise during that time.

We'll be hearing more from our Pathfinders and what they did out in Gillette, Wyoming here in the next weeks.

And so we're thankful for your safe return.

Let's pray together and ask God's blessing upon our study in the word today.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the opportunity to come and study your word and we know that we cannot understand your word without the Holy Spirit.

And so we pray that as the Spirit has been here in our singing, in our reading, and in our praying that he would be here in our study.

Father in heaven, guide us into all truth.

On June the 27th, 2024, which will no doubt stand as an infamous day in the history of the United States.

There was a presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The aftermath of that debate was unexpected and unprecedented.

Without any political bent in the things I share, there were questions over the cognitive abilities of President Joe Biden and in the aftermath of that debate We all know now that he would step aside and there is a new candidate.

But the deeper questions that began to rise after that, you just need to do a simple Google search, there was the major question of who is running our country.

It is interesting how that fits in our study and it aligns itself with our study of Daniel the fourth chapter because in Daniel chapter 4 there were questions over the cognitive ability of a king and the question of who was really in charge.

What makes chapter 4 of the book of Daniel unique is that it was not authored by Daniel at all.

It was actually authored by Nebuchadnezzar himself.

What is also interesting to note as we study the book of Daniel is that the first 4 chapters of the book of Daniel there are only 2 beings that are common to all 4 of those chapters.

Nebuchadnezzar occurs in every 1 of the first 4 chapters of the book of Daniel.

In fact, he occurs in the first 5 books, first 5 chapters of the book of Daniel.

And then 1 other being, it's not Daniel, it's not Shadrach, it's not Abednego, it's not Meshach, it is not the astrologers, the soothsayers, the Chaldeans, it's none of them.

The only other being that occurs in the first 4 chapters of the book of Daniel is God himself.

And what becomes very evident as you read and study these first 4 chapters of the book of Daniel is that The first 4 chapters of the book of Daniel are the testimony of King Nebuchadnezzar and it is a testimony to God and his relentless pursuit for the conversion of that pagan king.

We have read and studied and seen in the first 4 chapters that God is faithful, God is sovereign, and God is good.

But the other noteworthy attribute that we will see today is that God relentlessly pursued Nebuchadnezzar with 1 purpose and 1 purpose alone and that is to save his soul for the kingdom.

And so while Nebuchadnezzar was doing all he could to save his own kingdom, God was trying to save him for his kingdom.

But why would a pagan king be allowed to write a chapter in God's holy book?

If you have your Bibles, I invite you to open your Bibles to Daniel the fourth chapter.

There in Daniel chapter 4 in the first 3 verses we come to understand why God would have a pagan king write a chapter in his most holy book.

Nebuchadnezzar the king, to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language that live in all the earth, may your peace abound.

It has seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me.

How greater is signs and how mighty are his wonders.

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and his dominion is from generation to generation.

Nebuchadnezzar stated with clear purpose what this chapter is all about.

It is about his personal encounter with God.

This is his testimony to declare what God has done and had done in his life.

But the beauty of Daniel chapter 4 is that the message is not just for the people of Daniel's day.

The message is for us today even in the 21st century.

The text clearly points out that God's kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and that his dominion is from generation to generation, not just in Nebuchadnezzar's time, but in our time today.

God's relentless pursuit is amazing when we consider who Nebuchadnezzar was.

Nebuchadnezzar's name means may Nabu protect the son or successor.

It is also translated may Nabu protect the boundary.

Nebuchadnezzar was named after the Babylonian god Nabu, who was thought to be the god of writers, the son of Marduk, who was the god of storms and fertility.

That means that from his very birth and training as a youth, Nebuchadnezzar was trained to worship the Babylonian gods.

It was ingrained in the very essence of who he was as a king.

But in addition to this training, Nebuchadnezzar was proud.

No doubt his pride was fueled by his success.

In fact, the Bible talks about Nebuchadnezzar in many places.

In fact in Ezekiel chapter 30 it refers to Nebuchadnezzar as the most terrible or ruthless of the nations.

Then in Jeremiah chapter 50 it refers to him as the hammer of the whole earth.

Nebuchadnezzar wanted to conquer the city of Tyre and Tyre in order to escape the pursuit of Nebuchadnezzar moved the kingdom out to an island.

And for 13 years Nebuchadnezzar tore down the city of Tyre and began throwing all that was being torn down into the ocean.

And he built a land bridge all the way to the island.

For 13 years he had been rebuffed from defeating Tyre, but then he finally did so.

Ezekiel 31 compares Egypt to a mighty tree that towered above the rest of the trees of the earth that even the trees of Eden would envy.

Yet God sent Babylon to cut down that tree.

Nebuchadnezzar was relentless, and in the battle of Carcamesh, when his armies defeated Egypt, Egypt would never ever again rise to the prevalence that it once was.

Nebuchadnezzar knew of his own greatness.

His pride overflowed as he knew that if we used modern terminology, he was the superpower on the earth, the most dominant force and empire of the earth.

And he believed that the gods made him great.

Yet the first 3 chapters of the book of Daniel must have led to questions in Nebuchadnezzar's mind.

Because The first 3 chapters are a demonstration of how the Babylonian gods had failed him.

In Daniel chapter 1, 4 Hebrew conquered slaves who served the God of the Bible were found to be 10 times greater than the brightest and best of Babylon.

In Daniel chapter 2, the religious experts of the Babylonian religion failed him, whereas Daniel, who served the God of the Bible, prevailed.

And then in Daniel chapter 3, the Babylonian religion once again failed him and he personally witnessed the God of the Bible prevailing.

And yet once again we find in Daniel chapter 4 similar circumstances where Nebuchadnezzar is given a dream.

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and flourishing in my palace.

I saw a dream and it made me fearful and these fantasies as I lay on my bed and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.

So I gave orders to bring into my presence all the wise men of Babylon that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream.

Then the magicians, the conjurers, the Chaldeans, and the diviners came in and I related the dream to them but they could not make its interpretation known to me." Sound a little similar?

The same circumstances at Daniel chapter 2.

Nebuchadnezzar has now been personal witness to the testimony of 3, excuse me, 4 Hebrew slaves being 10 times smarter than any of the brightest and best of Babylon.

In Daniel 2, the magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers, they couldn't come up with an answer.

In Daniel chapter 3, he didn't even have an answer, and he could not kill the 3 Hebrew worthies.

And now once again, he is given a dream and the testimony of the scriptures, 3 words, 3 words, they could not.

They are the most important words that Nebuchadnezzar could encounter.

They were the magicians, the conjurers, the Chaldeans.

And while none of us here today will struggle with calling magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and conjurers, we certainly do find ourselves challenged with calling upon the they in our lives.

The reality is the testimony to Nebuchadnezzar some 2, 500 years ago is the same testimony today.

In the words of the psalmist in Psalm 20 and verse 7, it rings loudly today, some boast in chariots and some in horses but we will boast in the name of the Lord our God.

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Series

These Things We Know

These Things We Know: God Is the Relentless Redeemer

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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Beat Diabetes, Prediabetes, & Overweight - Part 1

1h 7m

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13. America In Bible Prophecy

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Identity Theft

5. Pioneer Stories

46m

How to Study the Bible- A Contextual Analysis of Psalms 1

50m

Ten Commandments

5. A Pile of Rocks

38m

Plenary

Almost Engaged

49m

These Things We Know

These Things We Know: God is the Finisher

49m

For Such A Time As This

36m

Help From Above

1h

Prophetic Turning Point

43m

Sound Doctrine