Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28, verse 19, go therefore and teach all nations. Baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers.
And here is today's presenter, Blair Lemke. The message that I've entitled today is called Stand Out. And thank you to my brother who read out the scripture reading this morning.
We're going to be having a look in part at that powerful passage from the Book of Daniel. I love the Book of Daniel and Revelation and it's great to see that you're studying digging deeper in Daniel, was it? Class? Which is fantastic to see. A quick word of encouragement.
Did you know that there's only two books in the Bible that Jesus said we should study? Of course we should study all the books in the Bible. It's all life changing. But Jesus had a specific encouragement to study two books, and do you know what they are? Daniel and Revelation.
In Matthew, chapter 24, he encouraged them to read the Book of Daniel. And in Revelation, chapter one, verse three, in the red letter, it says, blessed are those who read the words of this prophecy. And so we're always on safe ground when we listen to Jesus, aren't we? We love the book, the books of Daniel and Revelation in the Avenist Church, and we do so on the authority of Jesus Christ himself.
So I pray that you're blessed in your study of that and we will be also surveying some of that together today. I'm very much looking forward to the study of God's Word. If you'd join me in just one short word of prayer as we open God's Word, we're going to study together.
Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for the privilege and the opportunity to share from Your Word. We ask for you to send your Holy Spirit to be with us, to lead us into truth as you promise us you will please tailor make this message to uniquely fit the circumstances of each person that is here today. That it will inspire and equip us to serve you more faithfully and know your character in our lives more fully.
We pray in Jesus'name. Amen. All right, friends, how many of you there's a picture on the screen here.
There's a red person and a whole crowd of white. I'm curious, if you were to put yourself on that image, how many of you like to be the white people? Who likes to be the red person? There's always one or two in every crowd. But generally speaking, most of the responses we get is joining that white in the white group, right? No one wants to stick out, no one wants to be the well, some people do, but it's hard sometimes being the center of attention with everyone's eyes on you, being sticking out, being different to those that are around you.
It can be a challenge at times. But I want to share with you the crux of my message today that we're going to explore in more detail is that we are living in a time where God needs us as Christians to be able to stand out, to be different than the world that's around us. I'm sure I don't have to remind you and tell you that the world is becoming increasingly out of step with Christian values.
Have you seen that? All you have to do is turn the TV on or read a newspaper and you can see that every single day the world is becoming increasingly darker. And in a time when the world is becoming darker, we need to press closer and closer to Jesus every single day. And so I've entitled the message standout.
We're going to be looking at some of the places in scripture, the message that God has for us living in the age that we are to stand out for Christ and his cause. And I want to start by sharing you an illustration. I'm going to see if I can roam a little bit here.
Yes, I can. I'm going to start by sharing you an illustration of a chariot driver. There was a King, and he was looking for a new chariot driver.
And he put the word out to the whole kingdom that he was looking for this job. And all the applications started coming in. And the chief instructor of the King, he put together a short list of all of the applicants and he whittled the list down to the top three applicants, the very best.
Everyone was applying for this job because it was prestigious. You get to be there right with the King. It's a high salary, good job.
And so it was a very sought after position. Well, after these top three applicants were chosen, they were invited to come and have an interview with the King himself. And so the King sat down and he got the three applicants.
The applicants were sitting outside. He called the first applicant in and he asked him a question. He said, if you were going to be my chariot driver, he was trying to assess the ability of the drivers.
He said, if you were going to be my chariot driver, how close to the edge of the cliff could you drive without falling off the cliff? And the chariot driver, the applicant, in an effort to impress the King, said, oh, King, if you were going to choose me to be your chariot driver, I could drive as close as half a meter from the edge of the cliff without falling off. And he kind of puffed himself up, felt pretty good about his position, and went back outside. Well, the King called the next applicant in and he came in and he asked him the same question.
He said, If I was going to ask you to be my chariot driver, how close to the edge of the cliff could you drive without falling off the cliff? And the second applicant, not to be outdone by the first in an effort to impress the king, said, oh, king, if you were going to choose me to be your chariot driver, I could drive as close to 10 CM from the edge of the cliff without falling off. And he puffed himself up, went back out, and the third applicant was invited to come in. The king asked the third applicant the very same question.
He said, If I were going to choose you to be my chariot driver, how close to the edge of the cliff could you go without falling off? And the third applicant said, oh, king, live forever. If you were going to choose me to be your chariot driver, I would drive as far as I could away from the edge of the cliff, so there was no chance of falling off and putting your life in danger. Who do you think got the job? The third chariot driver, right? Absolutely.
The third chariot driver got the job because he was thinking about it in a little bit of a different way. But the king was impressed because he wasn't going to put the life of the king in danger just for some boastful ex example of bravado. If falling off the edge of the cliff is becoming so much like the world around us that we just fit in without even thinking about it, many Christians like to drive as close as they can to the edge of the cliff without falling off.
And I want to challenge you and explore this theme in more detail because the Bible has a lot to say about this. The Bible has a challenge for us as Christians not to be just like the world around us, but to be distinct and different. And we see this time and time again in Scripture.
There's one more illustration that I want to share with you as we set the scene for our message this morning. There was a lumberjack and he was in need of some work, but unfortunately, all the work had dried up in the area where he was living. And so he needed to travel afar to get some work and provide for his family, all of his friends.
He finally found a job in a neighboring town, but it would require him to go away from home for about nine months to a town that was renowned for being antagonistic towards Christians. And he was a Christian. And so his friends started asking him, saying, hey, are you sure you really want to take the job in this place where you're going to get hassled for being a Christian? It's probably not the best idea.
Are you sure you're going to do that? And he said, yeah, well, look, I've got no choice. I need the job. We need to provide for the family I have to do it.
And so he took the job and he went and made his way to the town where he worked for nine months trying to learn how to become or trying to get this work. Well, interestingly, when he came back at the end of the nine months, his friends straightaway asked him the question how'd you go? How'd it go working in this town that's so antagonistic towards Christians? And he replied to them, he said, oh, it was no problem. They didn't even find out I was a Christian.
It's kind of funny, right? But at the same time it's very tragic. It's a bit of a joke. I'm not even sure if I don't think it's even a real story.
But it illustrates an important truth, doesn't it? It's so easy to fit in. It's so easy to try to blend in with the world around us so that we don't stick out because it's comfortable. This man didn't want to be teased, he didn't want to be made fun of.
And so they never even found out that he was a Christian. But friends, what's the point of being a Christian? We're to be a light that shines in a dark place. We're a lamp on a hill where to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.
How can they do that if they never know, they never find out that we're a Christian. And so the call of scripture is very countercultural. It wars against our comforts and our natural desires to be one of those white members on the picture, to just fit in, to not stick out, to not be distinct, to not be different.
Well, I want to take you through an exploration of some of the passages in God's Word. If you have your Bibles, you're welcome to open with me and follow along. I will have some of the verses up on the screen today for sake of getting through text a little bit more quickly.
And so I'll be following along on the screen. You're welcome to do that or in your own word. And there will be some passages that we will all turn to as well.
But an interesting passage that we read in God's Word is found in one John, chapter five, verse four and five. And God's Word says, whoever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
Who is he who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? When we read God's Word we see a posture of overcoming the world. Overcoming, overcoming, overcoming. Clearly there is something incompatible for a Bible believing Christian to blending in with the world.
As a Christian we're called to overcome it. To overcome it through our faith. And why do we need to overcome the world? What's the problem with the world.
And when we're talking about the world here, we're not talking about the globe per se, but of course the spirit or the attitude of the world. And why do we need to overcome this? Well, first John chapter five goes on and at the end of the passage says we know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of who? The wicked one, God's enemy, the devil. Why do we need to overcome the world? Because the whole world lies under the sway, under the influence of God's enemy.
And so God is calling us to overcome this spirit, overcome this attitude, overcome these values that incessantly beat against the Christian trying to conform us to the pattern of the world we're called instead to overcome, overcome, overcome. It is never safe to allow culture to drive truth. It's something that I want to challenge you with and remind you of, as I'm sure you've seen yourself.
It is never safe to allow culture to drive truth. Far too often this seems like a very simplistic thing to say, but I say it because far too often we do allow culture to drive our sense of truth. We do allow it to influence what is right and what is wrong.
And it happens, friends, even in the church, that whole world that lies under the sway of the wicked one, we're living in that world and we're influenced by it to a degree, to varying degrees. And the call of scripture is to be more influenced by the culture of God's word than we are by the culture of the world that's around us. And in doing this we are to overcome.
Why is it never safe to allow culture to drive truth? Well, culture is not primarily concerned with bringing glory to God. That's the task of a Christian, to bring glory to God and the world around us. The godless secular age are not asking that question.
They're not trying to do that thing. And so they come up with different answers to questions, they approach things in different ways. And if we're not careful we can absorb those values, those doctrines if you will, of the world and we can bring it into our own worldview.
And it can influence then how we start to approach the questions and moral issues of our day. And so it's never safe to allow culture to drive truth. The reason this is the case is God's word tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
We can't trust the unconverted, the unrenewed heart. It's not a safe thing even to trust ourselves. The Bible tells us that if we trust in our own heart, we're a fool.
But whoever walks wisely is delivered. God is not being a bully here or name calling or being mean or anything like that. This is just a description of reality.
It's foolish to trust something that will lead you astray instead, we need to trust God and His Word and take the culture of Scripture. There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Scripture tells us we so often think we know what's right.
Everyone thinks they're right. Right? And this is why it's not a purely safe guide to just trust our own heart, especially the unrenewed heart. We need to be trusting God's Word and leaning on Him for what is right so that it will lead us into the piles of everlasting.
This is what we need to do. And of course, God's Word tells us in Proverbs three, verse five and six, to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. We can't trust ourselves.
We must trust Him who alone is able to lead us into truth. Coming back to that verse that we started off in, in One John, chapter one, verse five, according to this text, how do we overcome the world? There's this call to overcome the world. But how do we do it? According to this text, how do we overcome the world? Our faith, right.
We overcome the world by our faith. The Bible tells us in Romans, chapter ten, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If we want to overcome the world by our faith, and faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God, then we can build and strengthen our faith through spending time with Jesus in his Word by letting the culture of scripture.
Speak into our souls. Speak into our minds and guide us and inform us on who God is and how we as Christians should relate to the world around us. In that sense, we can limit God's ability.
We can limit our ability to grow in faith the moment that we separate from God's Word, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And so we can limit God, we can limit his growth of our faith if we separate us from that thing which he tells us grows our faith. And so we see as a Christian, we have the privilege, the opportunity to grow in Jesus through the study of His Word, to spending time with God's words and letting them shape our characters and mold our lives into the image of Christ.
What a high calling. Right? I'm going to jump to James, chapter four, verse four, which tells us that if we're a friend of the world, we actually end up being an enemy of God. Why is this the case? Because like we read in the Word, the world is under the sway of the wicked one.
We can't take the value system of the world and think that that's compatible with a Christian life. It's not. In fact, if we do so, we position ourselves as an enemy of God.
And God needs to then treat us as a seeker, someone that needs to grow and learn and be one across be converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so what an important theme to be considering a passage of scripture that I'd like to invite you to turn to in your Bibles, if you will, that really covers this theme with some detail and quite clearly is one of my favorite passages in Romans chapter twelve. If you'll turn with me, we'll go to Romans chapter twelve and we'll read from God's Word verses one and two.
God's Word says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. This is an act of worship. And it goes on.
And God's Word says, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That's a very powerful text. We're called to be renewed to overcome the world by the renewing of our mind so that we don't conform to the pattern of the world.
I really like how the message Paraphrase puts this. It says, don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God friends.
How easy it is to fit into the culture and the world around us, to become so well adjusted that we fit in without even thinking about it. We just adopt these catchphrases and these value systems and it influences then how we approach other issues in the church. I've seen it time and time again.
It's not my intention this morning to go into specific examples, but on a broad level I've seen this time and time again and it's a great need for God's church to return to his word. One example of this that I've come across and I find very fascinating is that of the processional caterpillars. Anyone seen these guys in their garden before? Yes, they follow each other, they leave a little trail of some sort.
I'm not sure if it's a smell thing or some sort of secretion or something, but they walk along and the caterpillars after them follow them in a processional train. And there was a guy by the name of Jean Faber who studied animals and he'd conducted an experiment on these guys. He saw them going around the edge of a pot and they were kind of almost creating a full circle and there was just a bit of a gap.
So he filled in the gap with some more processional caterpillars and watched them to see how long they would follow each other around in a circle on the edge of the pot. How long do you think they followed each other around? Any guesses? They went around this clay pot for about just over a week, walking around and around in circles. I think they calculated the distance traveled about a couple of kilometers, two or 3 km that they walked around and around and around without even thinking where they were going following the person in front of them, fitting in with, going with the flow, so to speak and just joining in with what was happening around them.
Friends, what a potent illustration to highlight what we're trying to consider and discuss this morning. This is something that we need to be alive to as Christians because this can happen in our own walk with the Lord too. And each of us needs to examine ourselves as Scripture calls us to do.
Examine yourselves, see if you're in the faith. This is the call of scripture for us today to be intentional about assessing our relationship. We're living in a time period where God's word tells us that his church is characterized by the characteristics of the Church of Laodicea, where it's easy to where they don't recognize, we don't recognize our need, we don't see the issues that may be there.
And so, in light of that, God is calling us to examine ourselves, to turn to his word, to spend time being absorbing the culture of scripture and not the culture of the world that's around us. I find this statement quite interesting and I want to share it with you. This is a statement from the writings of Ellen White and Fundamentals of Christian Education.
She says. As the truth is brought into the practical life, the standard is to be elevated higher and higher to meet the requirements of the Bible. This will necessitate opposition to the fashions, customs, practices and maxims of the world.
Worldly influences like the waves of the sea beat against the followers of Christ. So to sweep them away from the true principles of the meekness and grace of Christ I love how Christ centered this is while acknowledging those forces like the waves of the ocean beating against the true Christian. The answer is to look to Christ, to return to the grace and the mercy of Christ.
And that Bible standard challenges us to become more and more like Christ in our lives. Of course, this is a Bible standard, not a man made standard. We can erect those too, can't we? But we're called to erect the Bible standards and conform our lives to those standards.
Christians are to stand as firm as a rock to principle. It will require moral courage to do this, and those whose souls are not riveted to the eternal rock will be swept away by the worldly current. We can stand firm only as our life is hid with Christ in God.
Moral independence will be wholly in place. When opposing the world by conforming entirely to the will of God, we shall be placed upon vantage ground and we shall see the necessity of decided separation to the customs and practices of the world. We are not to elevate our standard just a little bit above the world standard.
But we are to make the line of demarcation decidedly apparent. Why would we not, when the whole world is under the sway of the wicked one? We want to be entirely separated and make this demarcation decidedly apparent. We read there are many in the church who at heart belong to the world.
But God calls upon those who claim to believe the advanced truth to rise above the present attitude of the popular churches today. She asks the question, where is the self denial? Where is the cross bearing that Christ has said would characterize his true followers? The reason we have had so little influence upon unbelieving relatives and associates is that we have manifested little decided differences in our practices from those of the world. Friends, did you know that fitting in with the pattern of the world as Romans twelve, to use the language of Romans twelve, actually affects our witness? Sometimes we try to say that conforming to the pattern of the world, or trying to be relevant or meet the needs of the world around us can make us more effective in witness.
But we're actually told that if we take and adopt those practices of the world, it actually impedes our witness. It makes us less effective in witnessing to our friends, our family, our unbelieving associates, because it's never a good idea to go against the Bible standards. You'll never be more effective in witness by breaking God's standards.
Doesn't work that way. And so we're instructed to say parents need to awake. This is an application particularly to parents, but it applies to all in the church.
We need to awake, we need to purify our souls by practicing the truth in our home lives, particularly parents in the home. What a powerful force for good the home is. And I hope that there is not one family here that's not missing, that opportunity that God has given you to speak into the souls of your family, your children, to have daily time in God's word, to use it as a training ground, to equip your family to be missionaries in this dark world.
And we're called to bring that truth into the home life. And she says that when we reach the standard that the Lord would have us reach, that the people in the world will regard 7th Day avenues as odd, singular, straight laced extremists. Well, I want to say something about this.
Notice that the worldlings will call 7th Avenue OD singular, straight lace extremists. It's not to say that 7th Avenues are odd, singular, straight lace extremists, but they'll be regarded that way by people who are in the world. And so, as we adopt that Bible standard into our life, we will look different to the world around us.
Friends, we need to get comfortable with that. We need to learn to be okay with being different. Because if not, when people call us odd or extremists or straight laced, then I've seen time and time again that sort of an accusation can cause us to mold that standard into anything else.
We can quickly change that so that we don't those words can so quickly affect us and adopt and change then how we approach the standards of God's Word. But we're called not to do that. We are made a spectacle unto the world, to angels and to men.
This is the consistent testimony of Scripture and spirit of prophecy. And it's not something we shouldn't try to be OD and straight laced for the sake of it. Of course not.
But when we adopt, as we saw in that statement, as we read God's Word and that Bible standard is to be elevated higher and higher in our lives as we are molded more into the image of Christ. And for his sake, we can take any insult. If that's what it's like to be like Jesus, then sign me up as an OD, singular straight laced extremist.
That's me. I'll do it. Whatever it takes to be like my savior Jesus Christ.
If that's what they said about Him and how he treated Him, then I would rejoice to count it worthy to suffer a small part of the shame of Christ friends. Why do we find it so hard to do this, to put this into practice in our lives? Well, there's many reasons. I think one of the reasons is something called cancel culture.
Have you heard of that term before? It's burst onto the scene in recent years as a term to define some of that culture that's in the world around us of shutting down people with certain views that are unfashionable or are not approved by the social standards of the day. I found it very interesting to read an article in the paper, I think it was the Sunday Telegraph. It was by a researcher by the name of Mark Mccrindall.
He's actually a Christian statistician. Several years ago he actually presented at one of our leadership conferences here in the North New South Wales conference. He conducted some research on cancel culture and found some fascinating information.
The start of the article reads cancel culture activists are increasingly silencing the views of ordinary people in everyday conversations and younger generations. Young people today are falling victim to self censorship more than older Australians. Some of the topics that are included in some of these things are things like LGBTQ issues, BLM protests, which was this was written in the few years ago, social issues, gender issues, we could add to that.
The list could go on. And young people are particularly being influenced this. The data was quite interesting.
It said 77% of people are likely to self censor their opinions due to the rise of cancel culture. In other words, they may have a view that may be based on God's word, but they feel afraid to say it, to articulate it, to share it in. Any form because of a fear of judgment, ostracization or exclusion from the society that is around us.
And so instead of saying it, they self censor themselves. Have you seen that? Does that relate young people particularly struggle with this? And so I want to speak to especially to the young people today. We need a generation who have a fear of God instead of a fear of man.
And this is what God is calling our young people to a caliber of faith that will care more about what God thinks than anyone else in the world that's around us. 79% of people have struggled to be their authentic self, the research said, for fear of judgment or exclusion. This can be very much tied up in a sense of identity as well.
Because if there's ideas that we have as Christians that we are convicted about and we believe on the basis of God's word, but then when we articulate them, we're judged, we're excluded. Where it's said to be bad, we're demonized, then young people can start to think that not only their ideas are bad, but they are bad as people. And they push away from those systems that seem to be ostracizing themselves because the world has such a pull, such an attraction.
And so we have a great need to disciple and to train and equip our young people to navigate some of these realities that is right outside these doors that's in the world around us, everywhere that we look. A Biblical example of canceled culture that I'd like to share with you today is the example or the story of Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin, one of the 70 group of the Sanhedrin that ruled the Jewish nation and at the time of Christ.
Joseph of Arimathea, the Bible tells us, was actually a fan of Jesus. But interestingly, he didn't openly come out as a follower of Jesus until after Jesus'death, when Jesus died and Joseph of Arimathea went and took the body of Christ down and put it in his own tomb. And so he ultimately did come out.
But I want you to notice what John, Chapter 19, verse 38 says after this. Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him permission, so he came and took the body of Jesus.
Joseph of Arimathea, he was a follower of Jesus, but he did it secretly. Why did he do it secretly? For fear of the Jews. I like to call this the fear of man.
This is a worry about what the people around us will think. The Bible uses the term the fear of man friends instead of a fear of man. And I find it very interesting that this is basically just another word for cancel culture.
It's a Biblical way of saying cancel culture when you have a fear of man, then you will self cancel yourself or likely get canceled by others. But in light of this, in light of this very present reality, I find it very fascinating that God's Last Day message to us. I find it fascinating the way that God phrases His Last Day message to the world, preparing them for the second coming of Jesus.
In Revelation chapter 14, verse six to twelve, we see God's custom hand built message that he has designed as the very best message to prepare the world for His Second Coming. This is the three Angels message is the message that God has given to his church that will get the world ready for the event of his second Coming. And the very first words of those message are what? Saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to Him.
Friends, in an age of canceled culture, in an age where we are gripped by the fear of man, god is calling us to fear God, to care more about what God thinks about us than what anyone else around us thinks about us. This is a message for today. And God calls his people at the very first words of his last Day message is fear God.
Recognize that God is God and his opinion is what matters. whileever we are with God, we are in the majority. No matter how many people around us may disagree or throw scorn, while ever we are with God, we are in the majority.
And I pray that our young people and all of our church members today will remember this. When we're learning how to live in a judgment hour, the rest of that message goes on. It says fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of his judgment has come.
We are living in that antitypical day of atonement that judgment hour. We're living in the last moments of earth's history. And the Bible tells us that right now we are living in that judgment hour.
How are we to live in a judgment hour? Well, a very good place to go to learn about how to live in the judgment hour is the book of Daniel. Daniel is a word that means God is my judge. That's what the name Daniel means.
And the book of Daniel teaches us how to live in the judgment hour. We have those stories that teach us how to live in a judgment hour, and we have the prophecies that relate to the judgment and the things to come. And so a story that we read out in our scripture reading and that I'd like to invite you now to turn to as our final passage of scripture is Daniel, chapter three.
Turn with me in your Bibles there and we will explore this theme from one other Biblical passage. Daniel, chapter three, verses eight through to 18. Thank you to my brother who read that so wonderfully this morning for our consideration.
I love this passage of Scripture. I wrote a song about this passage of Scripture actually called Stand Out and it's based on this concept of the faith that was demonstrated by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and also Daniel in the book of Daniel. So Daniel, chapter three, and let's pick it up in verse eight.
I won't read this all because of our brother who's already read it, but what we find is that all throughout the Old Testament, god's people went through this cycle of being faithful to God. And while they were faithful to God, they prospered and grew. But whatever they absorbed the cultures and customs of the world around them, the idolatry, the Sabbath breaking, the mixing and mingling with the ungodly nations in marriages and all of these sorts of things, whatever they did that they came under the judgment of God.
They were oppressed by an agent of some other nation or kingdom came and oppressed them as an agent of God and they repented and turned back to God and God freed them and the cycle started again, right? Well, on one of these cycles we see taking place in the book of Daniel, shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, daniel and other Hebrew young men were captured and taken to Babylon. They were put through the schools of Babylon. Their names were changed from names that glorified God to names of the Babylonian gods that gave homage to the Babylonian gods.
They were put through the Babylonian diet to try to conform, assimilate them to the culture of Babylon. And every effort was made to try to make them fit in with the Babylonian culture. But God was calling a people out, a people to be distinct.
And they had several tests along the way where they had to retain their distinctiveness. And so in Daniel chapter three, well, in Daniel chapter one, they had the challenge of the diet not purposing in their hearts to honor God and his commandments. And in Daniel chapter two, nebuchadnezzar had that dream and he saw all of the nations, right, all of the prophecies about the nations that would come.
And Daniel identified the head of gold as Babylon and then the other kingdoms to come. But of course Nebuchadnezzar was moved by this and gave glory to the God of heaven, but later he stealed his heart. And in Daniel chapter three, we find him erecting a whole statue of gold.
And this was basically an act of rebellion against God. He said, no, the head of gold is going to go all the way through. There's not going to be another nation that comes up and overtakes.
This kingdom of Babylon is going all the way through. In other words, no God, I'm not going to accept your prophetic timeline. We're going to do things my way and we're going all the way through.
He set up this gold image, then he asked everyone to bow down to that image. And in daniel, chapter three, we find the music being played in verse ten. And as the music played, all of these Hebrew boys were asked to bow down to the image.
And of course, as the story goes, when the music played, everyone bowed down to the image. BA shadrak, Mishak and abednego. Now, do you think there were other Hebrew boys in that audience that day? What were they doing? Well, clearly they bowed down when the music played.
The pressure would have been very hard for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to join in, wouldn't it? It would have been very hard to stand against the tide, to stick out to be the red person in the crowd. They could have come up with any level of justifications. I can think of many things they could have said to justify fitting in.
They could have even come up with biblical or spiritual, supposedly spiritual reasons. Maybe they could have said something like, we're in positions of leadership and influence in this nation. If we stand up, we're going to get killed and we're going to lose our ability to witness.
So what if we just compromise and bow down and break God's law on this occasion and it will preserve our ability to witness? That's a pretty good reason, don't you think? Maybe they could have knelled down and just tied their sandalstrap, tightened up their sandalstrap and said, god, I'm not really worshipping the image right now. I'm praying to you, God, I'm just conveniently tying my sandalstrap. At the same time, they could have come up with any manner of reasons or excuses to fit in and go along with what was happening on that plane of durin.
But instead they decided to stand. And I love how scripture records this interaction reading from verse 16, when they were dragged before the king, the king, they stood up and they were dragged before the king. And I just love how they responded.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednago answered and said to the king, o Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this manner. They weren't passing words, they weren't trying to say the politically correct terminology, they weren't interested in trying to appease a godless king. Instead, they said, we're not careful to answer you in this matter.
We're going to confidently stand and put our trust and confidence in God, not in you. We're not careful about answering you in this manner. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand, O King.
But if not, if not, let it be known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. What a caliber of Christianity, what a caliber of faith does that inspire you today? Does that give you an example to emulate as we emulate Christ ultimately, of course, in all things, absolutely what we see taking place here is a commitment to following God's ways above the ways of the world. And these young Hebrew boys were committed to doing that at any cost.
One of the things that I've seen mitigate against a caliber of Christianity like this is a mentality that I have best described as that I've understood best through a question that I've been asked several times, many times in my ministry. Maybe you've heard it before as well. Have you ever heard the question asked, is that a salvational issue? Have you heard that question before? I find that an interesting question because inside that question is a whole assumption that actually and many times the person asking the question is doing this in a sincere way.
And so I'm not going to disparage individuals who have asked that question because many of them don't understand the implications behind the question. But hiding beneath that question is actually a worldview or a posture towards God that is antithetical with Biblical Christianity. Because when you're asking that question, is it a salvational issue? The underlying implication is, what's the bare minimum that I can do to get into heaven? If it's not about my salvation, if it's not about me being saved, then why does it matter? Why are we talking about it? I've heard this question asked in many different ways.
On one occasion, I was studying with some friends. I was doing a mission trip in Nepal and I was studying to be a teacher at the time, teacher and a chaplain. And on this mission trip, there was many other teacher friends of mine that weren't Christians or weren't Adventists.
And so I was conducting some Bible studies with our group as we were over there. And one of the studies that we did was on the Sabbath. And a friend, an acquaintance friend of mine that was studying with us hadn't really been keeping the Sabbath, but we did the study and he's like, Look, I can see it.
It's there. It's in the Bible. I believe it the Sabbath is there.
But is the Sabbath really a salvational issue? Does it really matter? And he wasn't trying to be unfaithful or anything like that, but I just don't think that he'd actually fully understood the implications of what he was asking. And we went on and we studied through this, but I've seen that crop up in many different ways in many different contexts and examples. And ultimately, this is not the posture of faithful biblical Christians that we see in Scripture.
They're not asking the question, is this a salvational issue? Is it going to affect whether I'm going to be saved or not? And then if it's not, then it doesn't matter. That's not the question we find being asked. Do you think Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were asking, is this a salvational issue? On the plains of Jura, when the music was playing, when everyone was bowing their knees were they saying, Is this a salvation issue? If it doesn't, if it's not, then maybe we could just do it.
Can we still be saved if we bow down? Well, yeah, we could ask for forgiveness, know we could be saved. They could have justified it several different ways. But friends, that's not the question they were asking.
That's a question of mediocrity. What's the bare minimum I can do? How close to the edge of the cliff can I get without falling off? That's not the question they were asking. They were asking a far more important question how can I bring the most glory to God in every single thing that I do? How can I bring God glory in this decision? And as they stood on the plains of Jura and the music played, the answer to that question caused them to stand, knowing that they may be losing their lives for that decision, but committed to dying for Christ and his cause, if that's what it took.
Friends, this is an inspiring faith. I want to have more of that biblical faith, and I hope that you do know we could explore maybe just before I move on to one other thing as a side. What is the only salvational issue? It's an interesting question.
It's a bit of a trick question, actually. Most people will say Jesus, a relationship with Jesus or Jesus is the only salvational issue. But interestingly, while it's only through Jesus that salvation is possible, that's true.
But there will be people that don't know Jesus in Heaven. Did you know that? Do you believe that? The Bible tells us that there will be people that come up to Jesus and they see the hands in his feet, holes in his hands, and they say, what are these recorded in Zechariah? There'll be people that are in Heaven that were faithful to the light that was revealed to them but didn't have the opportunity to know the truth as we know it. But God will judge them according to the light that they had.
And if they were faithful to that light, there will be people in Heaven that will learn about Jesus. They're saved only because of what Jesus has done and applied on their behalf, even if they didn't understand that at the time. But even a knowledge of Jesus per se isn't a salvational issue.
The only salvational issue is how we respond to the Holy Spirit. This is why in the Gospels, when Jesus was teaching, he said he talked about the unforgivable sin. You remember that one? The unforgivable sin, which what is the unforgivable sin? What's that one thing that we can't confess of and be saved by? Well, any sin is forgivable.
God can forgive any sin. That first John one verse nine. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Jesus is not teaching in contrary to Scripture. There's not one specific sin that is the unforgivable sin. Instead, what makes a sin unforgivable is if we get to the point where we're unwilling to confess of it, if we resist the Holy Spirit.
This is why Jesus went on to say the unforgivable sin is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the disregarding of the Holy Spirit. Because if we resist the Holy Spirit and we turn ourselves away from God speaking and convicting us on a thing and we say, instead of that God, I'm going to go a different direction. As we walk in that direction, god's Holy Spirit gets softer and soft her because we demonstrate to Him that we're not willing to walk in the light that he's revealed to us.
And if we're not willing to walk in the light that he's revealed to us, why would he reveal more light to us while we're disregarding what he's already shown us and called us into? And so Jesus explains this, mentions this in the unforgivable sin and says the unforgivable sin is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. When we resist the Holy Spirit to the point that we are not brought to the point of conviction and confession and the sin that is unconfessed is unforgivable, god cannot forgive those sins that we're not willing to give to Him. And so in that sense, any sin could be, for an individual, unforgivable.
In a sense. This is not to say that moments of rebellion against God are unforgivable, absolutely not. But if we have a persistent posture of rejection of God and going our own way, then over the course of time, that will steal us against God and anything can become that particular thing that pushes us away from Him.
Anything. So when people try to bring up this thing, is that a salvational issue? They often try to minimize the importance of some standard or some idea, some principle in God's word and try to say, that's not important. Why are you talking about it could be anything.
It could be lifestyle related, it could be Sabbath related, it could be jewelry, it could be coffee, it could be anything. Anything could be a salvational issue for you or for me. It just depends on whether God is bringing us, the Holy Spirit is convicting us in our lives on something and we're saying, no God, I'd rather do it my way.
And we continue in that posture, in that posture of rebellion, consistently stubbornly, to the point where God's Spirit becomes softer and softer and we block it out of our lives and we commit the unpardable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. That's not the posture that we want to be in, is it? We want to be in the posture of embracing the light that Jesus, our Savior, brings to us and walking in that light. And as we walk in the light, we have a fellowship with Him and he leads us into more and more light friends, I want to leave you with a final quote and a challenge and an opportunity to respond to the message.
Today in Education, page 57, we read a very powerful passage that says the greatest want of the world is the want of men. Men who will not be bought or sold. Men who in their inmost souls are true and honest.
Men who do not fear to call sin by its right name. Men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole. Men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.
Friends, this is the posture of Christianity that God is calling us to in this age, in this Godless age where it's dark, becoming darker and darker, we are called to press into Jesus more and more. And as we do so, we will maintain that distinctive witness and our witness will be more effective as a result of the faithfulness, not less effective. Don't believe the lies.
Did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have more witness ability because of their faithful stand? Absolutely, they did. They were promoted. They were put in positions of influence greater than they had before because faithfulness to God increases our witness, not diminishes it.
And this is the challenge that God is calling us to in our unique circumstances. I prayed the prayer at the beginning. God tailor make this message to fit the unique circumstances of each person because I can't do that for you.
I don't know what those things are in your lives or in your church, but you and God can do, and you can work through those on an individual level. And God's doing that for every single one of us. And our posture should be to embrace everything that Jesus shows us, trusts us, to reveal to us, to convict us on and to lead us into truth.
That's the challenge and the call. And so my appeal to you today is, will you stand? Will you stand? Are you inspired by the faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? And you want to have that caliber of Christianity? Do you want to be someone that doesn't fear to call sin by its right name, but stands for duty as a needle to the pole, whose conscience is pure? And you'll stand even if the heavens fall, if everything else around you is crumbling around, if there's a world of self censorship, you're going to say, I fear God more than man. Is that your desire? If that's your desire today I want to invite you to stand.
I want to invite you to stand and say, I want that caliber of faith. God give me the ability to be a powerful witness in my sphere of influence. And that's a prayer, that's a decision, that's a commitment that God loves to come alongside you and help you live out in your daily life.
The sermon is only half preached. The rest of the sermon takes place as you leave those doors and you go out into your spheres of influence, your workplaces, your universities, whatever it may be, and you live the sermon in your life. And I pray that as you do that God will bless you.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we have been inspired by your Word today that speaks life into us. And Lord, we are encapsured by the image of Jesus, and we desire to be more and more like Jesus in every way possible, each and every day.
I want to pray for my brothers and sisters who have taken a stand today and said that they want the caliber of faith that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had. They want to have a fear of God over a fear of man. They want to stand for the right though the heavens fall.
And God, you know how much we need a caliber of Christianity like that in the days that we live in. Father, please seal those decisions and equip us to be faithful to you in our everyday lives. Bless these families that are represented in here.
May they be refuges and may they be shining lights where you have placed them. Bless us. Help us to receive every blessing that you intend for us in your Sabbath day as we continue to fellowship with one another.
We pray all of this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. This message was made available by the Dora Creek 7th Day Adventist church.
For more resources like this, visit Doracreek.church, bringing you this program here on three ABN Australia Radio.
