Philosophy's Achilles Heel

Chris Holland

It Is Written Canada

An Answer In the Fire

God's book, the Bible, still relevant in today's complex world.

It is written sharing messages of hope around the world.

Over the course of the last 2 weeks, we studied and saw in Daniel chapter 2 that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar was so impressed by the fact that Daniel had not only revealed the contents of his dream, but was also able to interpret that dream.

As a matter of fact, the Bible records that the king actually commanded that they should offer incense to Daniel.

These are the very words confessed by Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 2, verse 47.

"'Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, since you could reveal this secret." When you think about the utter impossibility of guessing the dream, it is a very persuasive event to establishing God's very existence.

It was so convincing that the king was convinced that Daniel's God was able to pass the most difficult of tests and that he was indeed worthy of the title, God of Gods and Lord of Kings.

And so as a result of that 1 test, the weakness of the Babylonian gods and system of worship was exposed, and the power of the God of the Bible was exalted.

Yet as we continue our study of the book of Daniel, we will see, amazingly enough, that the king would revert back to the worship of the gods that he confessed were actually inferior to the God of Daniel.

As we think about what happened in Babylon, as recorded in Daniel 2, the king was not the only 1 who had witnessed the power of the God of the Bible to reveal the dream.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who were Daniel's friends, they were there also.

In our study today, we will draw a sharp contrast between the King's response to the revelation of the dream and the response of the 3 Hebrew boys.

In the course of our journey today, we are going to learn something very important about God and something important about human nature.

We don't know for certain just how much time elapsed between the dream in Daniel 2 and the events of Daniel 3.

The events of Daniel 2 took place sometime around 603-602 BC, which is just a little over 2 years after Nebuchadnezzar became king.

It is possible that the setting up of the image occurred several years later, sometime around 594 to 593.

In Jeremiah chapter 51 and verse 29, the prophet records that in the fourth year of Zedekiah, the king of Judah made a journey to Babylon.

It is possible that this journey was undertaken in a reply to Nebuchadnezzar's summons, which are found in Daniel 3, in which the king sent word to gather all of the magistrates and administrators of his kingdom to Babylon.

In any event, the amazing events of Daniel 3 must have occurred at least several years after Daniel 2, but not before the amazing events of Daniel chapter 4, which we will study next week.

What this means is that enough time had gone by in order for the king to weigh and consider how the amazing revelation of the dream of chapter 2 would impact his life and the direction of the nation of Babylon.

So let's take a look at how the king related to the dream that no 1 but Daniel could reveal and interpret.

I want you to remember, at first, the king was incredibly impressed with Daniel's God, the God of the Bible.

Yet, after the passing of time, the Bible records these words found in Daniel chapter 3, verses 1 through 7.

Nebuchadnezzar, the king, made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its width 6 cubits.

He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon.

And King Nebuchadnezzar sent word to gather together the satraps, the administrators, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

So the satraps, the administrators, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered together for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

Then a herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace.

So at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, harp and lyre in symphony with all kinds of music, all the people, nations and languages fell down and worshipped the gold image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up." Imagine the scene with me.

While basking in the thought that he represented the head of gold, the king was not satisfied with the fact that inferior kings would eventually take the place of Babylon.

So instead, Instead of submitting himself to the divine will and plan of God, he fought against it.

Instead of accepting the interpretation of the rise and fall of nations after Babylon that were represented in the dream by the various medals, the king decided to make the entire image of gold.

It was his attempt to demonstrate that Babylon would, in fact, not fall, but live forever.

And next, he would invite representatives from all over his kingdom in order that these nations might also support his ambitions about Babylon's unending reign.

Nebuchadnezzar's rejection of the will of God and attempt to bring security to his realm through King worship led to some disastrous results.

Those who occupy positions of authority and are interested in extending their power and influence.

Nebuchadnezzar's experience demonstrates that if we choose not to submit to the will and plan of God, we will end up worshipping and exalting ourselves.

Please take note, In the first 7 verses of Daniel 3, 6 times the Bible records the fact that King Nebuchadnezzar set up the golden image.

Later in Daniel 3, the setting up of the image is mentioned 3 other times.

9 times in this chapter, the Bible emphasizes that Nebuchadnezzar set up the image.

It would seem that the Bible is trying to send us a clear message.

The 1 who set up the image, he is the 1 who is being worshipped.

And although this is certainly narcissistic, persecuting those who refuse to worship the image, the king had set up in his honor by throwing them into a burning, fiery furnace is certainly much more disastrous than his own self-worship.

The Bible paints a dark picture here of those who were once enlightened, choosing to reject the light of God's Word and find fulfillment in the gratification of pride and ambition, especially at the expense of others.

It would appear that for Nebuchadnezzar, confessing that Daniel's God, the God of the Bible, is the true God, is 1 thing, but submitting himself wholeheartedly is quite another.

While the king was intellectually convinced that Daniel's God was the true God, he did not submit himself to the God of heaven.

The actions of the king represent the actions of many people today.

People who are convinced intellectually and convicted by the truth of God's existence and the truth of the Scriptures, yet they do not submit themselves to God's revealed plan in their lives.

It is this fact that explains why there is a majority of contradictory religious views today.

It is not because the God of the Bible lacks the ability to overwhelmingly convince those opposed to him that he is the true God.

He certainly did that with the king and the wise men of Babylon.

And as we continue on this series, you will find him doing it over and over again.

Because God leaves people free to choose.

A choice to either serve Him or not to serve Him.

However, if we reject Him and His plan, by human nature, we will end up worshipping someone or something else.

It is this that then creates all of the contradictory religious views that we find in our world today.

There is a sharp contrast between the methods of Daniel's God and the God of the Bible, and Nebuchadnezzar's methods.

In giving the dream and then revealing its content and interpretation to Daniel, the God of the Bible uses the power of intellectual and spiritual wisdom that appeals even to those like the king who have all kinds of prejudices against him.

Before Daniel revealed to the king the dream and its interpretation, there is no way that the king ever would have stated that Daniel's God is the true God.

Yet through the power of probability revealed in declaring the dream, the interpretation of the dream, and its historical fulfillment, the king freely confessed that Daniel's God is the true God.

However, although Daniel's God has power to enlighten and convict those who do not know him, he does not use the power of force or coercion in order to compel people to worship him.

The king's rejection of Daniel's interpretation of the dream in Daniel 3 is proof of just that.

Now, let's contrast that with the King's method.

In Daniel 3, the King assembles dignitaries from all over his realm.

He first tries to seduce the allegiance of his subjects to bow down to the image through the power of music.

Yet when that fails, he forces them to bow down and worship him on the threat and consequence of death.

Nebuchadnezzar and the gods of Babylon delight in power, which is the major weapon that they use in order to coerce their people into worship and loyalty.

Friends, it is not might that makes right.

Now, although the God of heaven, the God of the Bible, possesses infinite power, His power is in the service of His wisdom, justice, benevolence, and love.

He does not take any pleasure in forced or coerced worship.

He wants us to love and serve Him out of an intellectual appreciation of who He is.

He wants us to serve Him because we are free to do so.

They desired to be faithful to the God of heaven.

Once the king found out that these 3 men did not bow down to worship the golden image that He had set up, He immediately called for them.

Let's read in Daniel 3, verses 14 and 15 to see what happened.

Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying to them, Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up?

Now if you are ready, at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery in symphony with all kinds of music, and you fall down and worship the image which I have made, good.

But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace.

And who is the God who will deliver you from my hands?" The implication behind Nebuchadnezzar's challenging question is that there is no such God that exists.

It's as if the king is saying, if he does exist, then I defy him and his ability to do anything on your behalf anyways.

Yet, it's ironic that several years earlier he told Daniel that your God is the God of gods and Lord of kings.

And the reason back then for his conclusion was that no 1 but the true God could reveal this secret.

This story demonstrates to those who directly challenge the existence of God, just like King Nebuchadnezzar did.

They do so not because God has not revealed Himself to them with unmistakable evidence, but because they have rejected the true God and have begun to worship other things.

Ultimately, friends, when we reject the existence of God and declare that our ways are better than His ways, we are in turn worshipping ourselves.

Yet self-worship is disguised as the worship of whatever image they have placed in their lives that replaces the true God.

It could be science, art, music, philosophy, or any other list of things.

Thus, atheists, agnostics, and even other religious leaders who scoff at the existence of God or at His ability, love and power, may be doing so because they want to stifle their previous convictions about the overwhelming evidence for His existence.

They're following in the footsteps of King Nebuchadnezzar.

Andrew Foulds

Capital Area SDA Church

Our Call to Medical Missionary Work

Loving Father in Heaven, we thank you abundantly for this wonderful Sabbath day.

We just thank you for it, that we can rest and be reassured in your love, and also for all the things that we know that it symbolizes.

The great sacrifice that you gave in giving your son for us to die in our stead that we may live.

Lord I just pray now that we you would forgive us for our sins we confess them before you father we've sinned greatly And we just pray and we know and thank you that you have forgiven us and that you've sent a sacrifice already that we are forgiven.

We thank you for your son that has prayed for us in John 17, that we may be 1 as You are 1.

And Lord, now we just pray that You would just give us spiritual eyesalve, that we would be able to understand and discern the things which are spiritually discerned.

And we thank you for Christ's righteousness, for we know that He is our righteousness, not our own, but He is.

And I just pray, Lord, that you would just impress each person here to have a humble heart, to be able to understand and learn the things that we are going to speak about today.

I pray, Lord, that I would not speak of myself, for what are a man's words, for the foolishness of the world, is nothing to God.

But, Lord, I pray that You would put Your words within my mouth, that I would speak forth truth and blessings, that it would be a blessing to each person here, that we would go forth shining Your glory to the world.

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.

I spoke here about a year ago, and I've actually founded a ministry called Life Restored Ministries.

And the bulk of you have missed these wonderful messages.

We actually just ended a six-part series on the theme of the Bible these past Sabbaths at 2 o'clock.

But the wonderful thing is I've put them all together into 1 presentation so that you can get it here on Sabbath morning.

So the first thing we're going to do, This message is entitled, the call, it's entitled the Gospel of Health, The Call to Medical Missionary Work.

Does anybody know what a medical missionary is?

Not including those that were at the class.

Anybody know what a medical missionary is?

Does anybody here know a medical missionary?

Actually, every 1 of you should be raising your hands.

A medical missionary is talking to you right now.

But as we'll see, every 1 of us is supposed to be a medical missionary.

So the first thing is what we've got to do is we've got to establish what's the theme of the Bible.

Now has anybody here ever heard the thing, B-I-B-L-E?

They say, yeah, basic instruction before leaving earth.

Now, that is what I used to teach people.

I used to tell my sister and brothers and all that, that I don't think that's an adequate statement to say the Bible is just basic instruction before leaving earth.

As a matter of fact, we'll learn it's much more than that.

Okay, so first thing that you notice about this message, I'm going to want us to have some participation.

Because I don't want us to just be going to church and listening to the preacher, I want us to think.

So the other thing I want us to do, I'm going to be putting some scriptures up here on the screen, but what I also want you to do, I'm going to ask you this, please Read it in your Bible.

Because you have no clue, other than seeing it with the Bible yourself, 1, you have no clue if I'm telling the truth, 2, there's going to come a time when you're going to be trying to teach somebody and you're going to need to know where the verses are in your Bible.

So I'd hope that we'd be opening up our Bibles.

So there's a reason why I asked about the chapters.

So keep this number in the back of your mind.

If you have a notebook, get out your pens, your pencils, and your notebooks, write this number down.

This is going to be important, and you'll see why in a second.

So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to go ahead, we're going to turn to Genesis chapter 1.

And we're going to be considering verses 26 and 27.

Okay, so the Bible says, And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, over the cattle, and over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth among the earth.

So God created man in His own image, and in the image of God created He Him, male and female created He them." So whose image was man created in?

You know, when you ask people what their favorite verses are what's typically the favorite verse of most people?

John 3 16 that is a beautiful marvelous verse, but that's not actually my favorite verse My favorite verse of the Bible is Genesis 1.1, "...in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." You know why?

Because God knew what was going to happen.

He knew He was going to send His Son into the world.

And they were going to forsake Him, His people.

They were going to turn on Him and crucify Him.

God knew that, yet He still created the heavens and the earth.

Not only did He do that, He made man in His...

Now, if we go through Genesis 1, we find out that we have the creation account.

If we go to Genesis 2, we find that we have the sixth day, what God did in creating man.

So what we're going to do is we're going to skip by that and go to Genesis chapter 3.

And we're going to be considering verses 1-7 in Genesis chapter 3.

The Bible says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall surely not die, but God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and that the tree desired to make 1 wise, she took the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat.

And the eyes of them were both open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and they made aprons." Now, we are in chapter 3 of 1189, And man falls.

Now it's very interesting when you look here.

First off, it's very interesting that Satan took the form of a serpent.

Now if anybody knows anything about animals, snakes are very smart.

We know that this was a snake when they had legs.

They actually, some of them actually hypnotize their prey and then attack them.

Steve Wohlberg

White Horse Media

The Heart of the Third Angel’s Message

All right, let's pray together as we launch in to a big subject.

The title on the screen is called The Heart of the Third Angel's Message.

Dear Father in Heaven, thank you so much for this group that is here in Loma Linda, here at the Academy, as we open our Bibles, as we look at the third angel's message, and as we look at Jesus, our Savior, our incredible, wonderful, awesome Savior.

I pray that you will speak to all of our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Please bless each of us, warm our hearts, and show us your incredible love for us.

Okay, the heart of the third angel's message.

Actually, we can start with the very first verse.

Revelation 1, 1 tells us that the book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible, the greatest book on prophecy ever written, that this book is the revelation of who?

My deepest conviction is that when we understand prophecy the way God wants us to understand it, then Jesus is going to be revealed in the middle of those prophecies.

Because the whole book is the revelation of Jesus.

Now when you go to chapter 14, Revelation 14, we have messages that are sent from above, messages represented by 3 angels.

The whole movement of the Seventh-day Adventist Church historically was raised up to communicate the 3 angels' messages to the world.

The 3 angels are found in verses 6 to 12, and here I have a picture on the screen here of 3 angels and I believe that these messages represent God's last call to the human family.

In the days of Noah He raised up Noah and gave him a message which was a last call to the world before the flood came.

Whenever God does something big, he sends a message.

And the 3 angels' messages, they are as big as it gets.

And When these messages are over, in verses 14, 15, and 16, we have a picture of the return of Jesus coming on a white cloud.

So here you have the basic sequence on the screen.

Verses 6 to 12, we have 3 angels' messages.

Verses 14 to 16, we have the return of Jesus Christ.

And this tells us that these messages are the last messages of God to the world before Jesus comes.

I heard a story once about a long time ago when the Advent movement got started, 1 of the early Adventists was walking in a small town down a little dusty road and he crossed a man and the man looked at him and he said, hey you Adventists, you Adventists, he said you Adventists are just little people and as they crossed each other the Adventist man thought about that and thankfully the Lord gave him patience and grace in his heart.

And he thought about that, and as they crossed each other, he turned around and this is what he said.

He said, you're right, you're right, we are just little people.

But then he held up his Bible and he said, but we have a big message from God.

And that's the truth, we believe that, I believe that.

There really, if you look at it, it's not a boastful statement, it's just a fact that if you look all around the world, there is only 1 movement on planet Earth today that is communicating the 3 angels' messages around this world.

And prophecy predicts that when that message is over, that Jesus will return.

The last message is the message of the third angel.

Verse 9 says that a third angel followed them, referring to the previous 2, And he said with what kind of a voice?

So here we have the third angel, that's how we know there's 3 because here's the third.

And he gives a message with a loud voice.

And I've got the text on the screen if you don't have a Bible.

I've been studying these for 36 years since I became a Seventh-day Adventist.

After growing up in a Jewish home in the Hollywood Hills, living a wild, crazy, lost teenage life, surrounded by Hollywood, surrounded by discos, and I got involved in wild living.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

An Answer In the Fire

29m

Our Call to Medical Missionary Work

1h 23m

The Heart of the Third Angel’s Message

1h

Father Abraham: Unimpeachable Ethics

45m

Father Abraham: The Intercessor

53m

Father Abraham: Ever Obedient

40m

Father Abraham: Always Giving

40m

Father Abraham: Building Altars

46m

Father Abraham: Stranger and Pilgrim

42m

Father Abraham: Father of the Faithful

26m

Let’s Go Home!

48m

The Blessing of Bible Memorization

1h

Sound Doctrine