Address—Steve Bambauer
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While you're turning to Daniel chapter one where there's one of the portions that we'll read today in view of ultimately I trust a few thoughts on the glory of Christ and understand when I got here, I didn't get here till Friday night. I realized in listening as I sometimes do.
That somebody had already spoken on Daniel One.
Well, you know, the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the plane, there was a lot of overlap and was a lot the same congregation. So I decided to go ahead, not exactly as I planned, but at least starting with Daniel one in the first few verses to take that up. And I don't think we'll be at a loss, I hope.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.
This is the 606 number that was mentioned earlier and I had thought to go into a few dates and.
Brother so already did.
I don't think he's here. I looked for him. He's here, all right.
I thought maybe he had sent a mole to look at my notes and see what it's going to say because he said some of the things I was going to say and one of them was 606, but the previous to that is 1095.
Do you remember what happened in 1095 ASA in the Sunday school when I gave this? OK anybody know what happened in 1095?
Well, that's when Saul was inaugurated king of Israel.
And now we're 490 years down the course of history.
History is interesting to me, so I pick up on these things. And one time in Sunday school I posted these numbers on my wife, wrote them out on a bulletin board or a poster, 1095606, five, 36455 and 29. And this is not the lottery numbers, so don't go out and play them. But there is significance to these numbers historically. And when I was in college, it took quite a bit of history, but I wasn't saved then, so none of these things correlated.
Didn't mean a whole lot to me. I was there because Mom said I had to go rather than join the Marines.
And history is about the only thing I could pass and justice barely so had a little background in it. But when I got saved and I I noticed started reading the scriptures, lo and behold, the scriptures are written.
In an historical setting.
Things are happening in sequence of time. Time you know is what connects to events like a line connects 2 points.
And we live in time. And so God writes to us in an historical setting, in time through history. 1095 is the inauguration of Saul, king of Israel. 490 years later, in 606 BC, Nebuchadnezzar comes along and Israel is no longer a sovereign nation.
Jehoiakim is left in place, and in 588 God had had enough.
And they come in and besiege Jerusalem, and everybody has taken captive everybody. Now here is an earlier captivity in connection with the protagonists that we're going to speak about, Daniel and his three friends.
There's a significance to it being 490 years.
And if we go to Second Chronicles 36, we'll see what's going on at that time. I'll start at verse 14.
Of Second Chronicles 36 Moreover, all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the House of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. This is an offense to God.
And when we cause an offense to God, we'll call that culpability. And there is responsibility and consequence.
It's no different now than it was with Israel.
This long time ago, and the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers. He sends messengers. He still does.
Blessed are the feet of them that bring the glad tidings their messengers.
That's how he gets his word out today is with messengers and this is the word.
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He doesn't always arrive arrive in person, although at times in past he has.
Rising up betimes, that means in the margin, continually and carefully. God is very careful about this, not haphazard. He has a purpose and plan. It's perfection and sending because He had compassion on His people.
He isn't just harping that you're not doing it right, I'm not doing it right. He says these things with compassion. That's a lesson for us.
In our relationships, when we deal in relationships that an exhortation be given with compassion. He had compassion on his people.
And on His dwelling place these two things are very important to Him. And we see this line of things clear through Scripture. What was their response? But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
There comes a point.
Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees. That's where we are in Daniel, who slew their young men with the sword and the House of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young men, or made an older man, old man for him that stooped for age. He gave them all into his hand, and all the vessels of the House of God, great and small, and the treasure of the house, the Lord, and the treasures.
Of the king and of his Princess. And all these he brought to Babylon no longer in Jerusalem.
So Jerusalem again from 606 is no longer a sovereign nation until 1948. That's a long time.
And if you'll carefully read the writings of Mr. Darby, I can't give you page a number. He speaks 150 years ago in the mid 19th century, about Israel being restored to its land and unbelief.
It happened 100 years after he wrote about these things, and he wasn't prophesying this, He was reading the scriptures to see this and was bold enough to state it in ink 100 years before it happened. Not seeing when or where, but it happened.
And all the intricacies of history, World War Two, when 6,000,000 Jews were were assigned to the concentration camps and the gas chambers and the and the Jewish culture in Europe was decimated. They came out the other end of that war. They said we cannot wait for the Messiah any longer. If we're to survive, we have to go back, carve out our own land and defend ourselves. And that's what they did.
But they left their city of refuge and they are ripe for destruction in that place.
Which is to come in Jacob's trouble.
And them that had escaped from the sword, verse 20 carried away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the Kingdom of Persia. This is when.
Then 70 years later.
Cyrus allowed a remnant to return 70 years later to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. Enjoyed her Sabbaths.
Somewhere buried, I think it's in Deuteronomy. They were to give the land fallow rest every seven years. They didn't do it from Saul.
To Jehoiakim, 490 years. They didn't do it. Seven every seven years. To divide 7 into 490, you get 70 years. What a coincidence. Now they're captive for 70 years while the land is given its fallow, whether they liked it or not.
What a coincidence.
As long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath to fulfill 3 score and 10 years back to Daniel one.
Along comes Nebuchadnezzar.
He didn't ask the Lord what he's to be doing, but the Lord is sovereign in history.
It's amazing.
If there was ever an evidence to me of the truth of the inspiration of scripture, it's that many minds through men have written this as they were led of the Spirit, not knowing exactly what they wrote, penning these things, putting it together as an intricate.
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Whole with integrity, that we upon whom the end of the age has come can look back and see how these things follow sequentially, one after another, according to prophecy, according to the Word of God. Nobody could have foretold this, so here they are.
There's Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego down in Babylon. I don't think they chose to be there, but there they are. Sometimes we don't choose to get where we are. You may think that you have a lot of choice in matters and that you're the master of your destiny and what you're about and your circumstances, but we aren't necessarily.
You didn't ask to be born in this country at this time.
But here you are.
It wasn't as delicate for these four. We live in a very pleasant situation.
The situation of the city is pleasant, but the water is still stale.
No matter how pleasant the situation of the city is.
If we're not drinking of the water, the fountain of life, no matter how much affluence we have and things we have and advantages we have in education we have, the soul is still desolate.
And desperate.
I don't see Daniel complaining about his situation.
Who takes it from the Lord and goes on? What's going on? This is the 6th century now, down in the late 5 hundreds, early 5 hundreds.
The king spake unto Ashburnaz, the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king seed.
And of the Princess.
Ashbanaz is.
Nebuchadnezzar's.
Cabinet member who's watching over the Department of Education, if I can put it that way, in current terms.
He is a eunuch. He is the master of the eunuchs.
I assume by that that Daniel and his three friends are now eunuchs.
And I don't think they elected for that, but that's the case. Go to Isaiah 39 and we'll see why that happened.
In verse 7.
It's the judgment of God.
And Daniel and his three friends, I don't see any complaint on their part anywhere through this narrative.
That they file a complaint with God about their circumstances. They take it as from the Lord.
And we surely wouldn't consider that a very delightful perspective to be a eunuch in Nebuchadnezzar's college.
39 Seven and of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt, bigot. This is God speaking through the prophet to Hezekiah. You know he'd ask for another extension on his life when he had the boil.
And this is the consequence of his request.
The sons that thou shalt, that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt bigot, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
While Hezekiah said.
That's such a good deal.
Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken, not going to happen to me.
These are his descendants.
Manasseh was born during that period of time of 15 years that was extended to his life. Manasseh was his son. He was one of the most wicked kings of Judah.
Ahab was one of the most wicked kings of Israel.
Interesting factor about both Manasseh and Ahab is it is recorded that they both repented and God took note of it and honored it and showed them some measure of mercy.
God honored their repentance.
But the consequences of government were still in place.
Don't think.
Let me speak to myself. I point out three back that we can sin in haste and repentant leisure, and nothing's going to happen.
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There is the government of God.
And you don't have to get to be very old before you realize the reality of that.
Well, we're back to Daniel one early part of the 6th century.
And they're in college here.
Children in whom was no blemish, but well favored and skillful in all wisdom and cunning and knowledge and understanding science and such as had ability in them to stand in the King's palace. They did real well on the SAT and they got accepted in here. They're going to matriculate in three years and be put to work for the King's service.
This is hey, this is Yale or Harvard. This is the best they have in that day. What was going on?
In five, 5600 that era BC what was going on in sciences and in art and in literature.
Nebuchadnezzar had dug a tunnel under the Euphrates that he could walk under it. It was a half a mile long with no bulldozers.
He did that. That's quite a feat, and he could walk through that tunnel. You've got to have some kind of a circulation system going through. I don't know how they did all that. That's one of the things that was going on in this time frame. The calendar is presented has 12 months and 354 days in it. In Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar has some hanging gardens.
It's one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.
There are things to do in places to go and things to see.
ESOP wrote his fables in this century. You all know Esau. You've read his fables, haven't you? The tortoise and the hare, sure. Instead, he wins the race, goes back to 550 BC, and we're still reading about that. The boy that cried wolf. He slaps fables, goes up, watches the flock. Have you read this? I had to read this in sophomore English. I hope you had to.
I hope this isn't the heard. First time you've ever heard of Esop's fables. He cried wolf. He was getting bored.
He got into mischief, like one guy said. When the boys get bored, that's when they start to torture the cat.
So he's up there. He cries wolf. All the elders come up there with their sticks, no woof. The boys just beside himself. They go back down. They're not happy. A little while later, cries woof. The elders come running back up with their sticks. No woof.
Now they're real unhappy. They go back down to the village. He's sitting around up there. Guess what happens next. You've read this, haven't you?
Not sure the wolf shows up. Wolf, wolf. Nobody comes.
Nobody comes, so he writes these little stories that have points to them.
ESOP is the guy that wrote sayings that we still use today. Familiarity breeds contempt. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Things weren't that far.
Primitive even that long ago.
You remember in sophomore geometry this guy named Pythagoras who invented this triangle and you had to figure it out. Well, Pythagorean theorem and he also.
Designed the musical octave at that time over in Greece. So this is what's going on about that time Cyrus the king of Persia and you will read this in the book of.
Esther, this is especially interesting to me.
Developed a postal system and send out messengers by post and you get the first postal system in the Kingdom of the Medes and Persians in the middle of the 6th century and you have that word in.
In that book sent out by post, the reason why it's interesting to me is I am one of those guys. That's what I do for a living.
So that's what's going on.
When Daniel is going to school.
No blemish well favored all of that.
How did he get that way?
Was going against the current, you know, Daniel and his three friends.
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He purposed in his heart.
Somewhere along the line, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.
Come together to produce a Daniel. I pretty well think that the sovereignty of God precedes the responsibility of man.
But we're still responsible. Now, don't ask me to try to dovetail all that together. I don't know how to do that, but God has.
He does and he has God is intricate enough. If I can put this, and I want to speak reverently to take two things that we seem to be opposing each other, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man and they are both in fact true.
So how does Daniel get to this place? Now we're going to go to Romans chapter 12, and this is the same way.
That each of us.
Can be like Daniel, and Daniel isn't our object, the Lord Jesus Christ is. But Daniel is a great example.
For us, Romans chapter 12.
I think that if we go through these first three verses, maybe if we apply these things to ourselves, get them right down into our sandals, starting with.
Our thoughts.
Our heart, our conscience, flowing right down to our sandals.
We can live in some consistency like Daniel.
I beseech you therefore, brethren.
By the mercies of God.
Now that's the motivation.
Well, he beseeches. He doesn't say. Now listen, this is what you should be doing. This is what you ought to be doing. This is what is required of you. And all of that is true.
But he beseeches and he says, I beseech you therefore by brethren, giving them their standing, their relationship by the mercies of God. That's motivation.
That you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service. That's consecration. Consecration is to have the hands full.
Full of the mail. Not everybody's hand is the same size.
Shake hands with Bob and he wrapped it around there a couple of times. He's got big hands.
We don't all have big hands, but you can have hands full.
You know, and in John chapter 2, there were these water pots, two or three firkins apiece. They were to be filled with water, and that water was turned into the joy of wine when brought to the Lord. There was a whole big difference between 2 firkins and three firkins.
But they were filled. The point is that they were filled.
I don't want to compare myself with, you know, I look at a brother, he stands up and speaks. That is really nice. He sure knows the scripture, which I knew it like that.
And I can't come up to that, but I can fill my own hands.
Each one of us can do that. That's consultation.
And this is the reasonable service. Anything else is not reasonable. I want you to really think about this for the rest of your life.
That if the Lord isn't in it.
It doesn't make any sense. It's unreasonable, it is without profit, there is no purpose, it has no value, it is vain. Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
For you know that your labor is not in vain, it's not empty, it's not purposeless, it's not meaningless, it's not unintelligent when it's done in the Lord.
Be not conformed to this world, that sanctification. It's just being set apart.
Daniel could do that. They grabbed him by the arm. They hauled him down to Babylon.
They make them a eunuch, they stick them in their college, they're going to teach them all of these things. And yet in that situation, he is not conformed to this world. He is set apart for the Lord, and the Lord preserves him. But the end of Hebrews 11 Says that's not always the case.
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But, as always, the Prophet.
Be not conformed to this world, but be that sanctification. Be ye transformed. This is transformation. This is done by the renewing of your mind. When we get saved, we're brought from death to life and darkness to light. But now we're talking about a transformation of the mind.
By the renewing of your mind, renewing, transforming. This is a process that goes on daily.
By reading and prayer and communion and fellowship and listening to ministry, this is how it's done. The mind, then is transformed.
David said that a new habit can be formed in 21 days. I thought it was 30 days, but I'm a little lower than average about those things. But it is doable. You know, whatever it is or whatever it takes for you, day after day, with diligence, reading, praying.
The renewing of the mind and that's how it's done. It's not done by osmosis.
That she may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. It's good and acceptable and perfect. It's the will of God and it's the only thing that is that.
This is a realization proving.
In the science class, you may prove things by the test tube or the Petri dish or the theorem, and you put these sequential reasonings together and if you can present that and get a consensus of contemporary's or the peer group or the gurus or the high priests of that organization.
It'll be pawned off as a fact.
That's the way they do that. It's a scientific method.
That's how they prove things. They get together at conferences, they hash it out, the elite. They come to a conclusion. They tear apart any ideas. They put them together. They take them apart. They look at it like a magpie with an acorn, and it goes like this and it goes like this. They look at one side and then the other, and then they come to a conclusion and then they tell the public it's a fact.
Because they conclude that evolution is a factor in consensus.
How is it that we prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God? Prove it is in our daily life and I will tell you that this is where blessing is.
Otherwise.
No, and that's the realization. It has fruit. These things have fruit. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, this is this is precious, this next one, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly.
Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. I'm going to call this humiliation.
And it doesn't come naturally.
Unless it's to the new nature in the presence of Christ.
Through the renewing of the mind.
With a sense of the Lord's presence and what's due to him and our brethren, fathers to children, husbands to wives, brothers to sisters.
There would be a lot less scratching and clawing and fighting and digging and kicking and biting.
If we applied this, if we didn't overlook the humiliation of this sequence, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But all right, we are not to go around.
Thinking lowly of ourselves either.
But to have no thought of self, Not too high, not so low.
But we're to think about something soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith, you know.
Most of the world.
Wouldn't have a clue about what we've talked about in Daniel. Why Daniel would do that.
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Why would why you would apply in a practical way these first three verses of Hebrews of Romans 12?
And how did we get from where we were to where we are?
Did we think about this and say, hey, this is a good idea, this is where it's at?
I'm smart enough and clever enough to sort this out, to know which side of the bread the butter is on and to get myself there.
I was talking a little earlier about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of men. We had better sit down and consider these things.
But we're not prone to do that.
In 1960, well in the early 60s, I graduated from college and.
The Department of Defense sent their headhunters after me and said we have a deal for you. You can't resist because if you resist, I'll throw you in jail, he said. They called that the draft, you know, can't resist the draft.
You young bucks don't have to face that problem right now, but in those days it wasn't that way, so.
I thought I would get the best I could out of that and decided to join the Navy in the aviation program instead of wait around in a rice Paddy and fish heads and rice over in Vietnam. I had to go there anyway, and I thought I might see it from air.
So I applied and I went down to Pensacola, FL for Officer Candidate school. First thing that happens and.
You show up there and they put on this green long garment and boondockers and they shave your head down to nothing.
And this drill Sergeant shows up, and I will tell you something about drill sergeants. If you've heard the story, you've been here too long.
It's been 15 years since I've told it here.
Drill Sergeant shows up. You've got to know about drill sergeants.
They're the only guy I know of that can stand at attention and their knuckles drag on the ground. They get right up in your face, you know, And so they were doing that with professional acumen. Here was forty of us, four wide and 10 deep, 40 in this class.
Where face?
Well, I got a digress in a minute. I when I was a boy, I had a wart on one of my thumbs. I forgot which one it was, but that's the only way I could tell that from right. If if I felt that wart, that was the left hand. If it wasn't there, that was the right hand.
You're under pressure, laugh. You got just this amount of time to make up your mind. You got 5050 chance. If you don't laugh, face, that's not very much time. Laugh. I'm scratching this something scratching that time I got to make a choice, start going and everybody's going the other way.
Like this?
He saw it. Those guys don't miss anything.
I thought I'd camouflage it pretty well. This voice Bellers.
Who's that? What are you doing in my column? Get out of my ranks?
You can't be in my battalion. I was hoping he was thinking about somebody else. I was just looking straight ahead. Comes bearing down. I knew that it was all over.
He grabs me and he says, and they're all standing there, all on the parade ground out the seaboard, out there at Pensacola, you know, where they have those hurricanes. And he said, you go stand over there by those barracks about from here, that wall. I don't even want to see you. Yes, Sir. I go over there at Stan just about as.
In abstractively as I can. And he starts giving the troops the rest of 39 more commands, more commands, more commands, and they're not coming. We just come off the streets, you know, we didn't know anything.
So he's getting frustrated, as drill instructors are paid to do. And he starts this double time down the seawall. And I'm watching him go down there till they're just about out of sight. And then he says to the rear and they're coming back up here double time. And they go by and it's to the rear and they go back down there just about out of sight. I'm standing over here, doesn't see. You forgot all about me.
And then he's coming back up and he.
Brings them to a halt.
What are you doing over there, Sir? This is where you told me to stand.
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Get back in here. So I come back in the spot where I was at I-1 sweating has picked the Lynn off. Everything seems to be fine, but everybody else doubled over like this whiteboard off their nose and their mess.
Guy right in front of his name.
ALC Aviation arts of candidate site consists.
Vampire, you lucky stiff.
I didn't.
Volunteer.
To go over and stand by that building and watch these guys go down the parade ground, come back, go down the parade ground, come back, come doubled over in a heap.
Wasn't my choice, but I'm watching them do that and I'm thinking, well I'm glad I'm not with them.
Well, have you ever?
Seeing how this world in 20th century Western sieve can ravish young people.
It happens.
And Proverbs talks about the guy who looks out the casement of his window, and he's watching those who go into the House of the foolish woman and they take a beating in there. And I used to have a little corner grocery store out in the sticks, mom and pop, and people would come in there.
They were wrung inside out.
It doesn't mean that believers don't have difficulties, but we have resources.
I have often thought of that story, and I sure wasn't thinking about it at the time of the sovereignty of God picking us out for blessing and sparing us from grief and sorrow.
Responding to the whip of the Prince and power of the Air.
As men do today without Christ.
But it's no good until we take the scriptures. It's just not enough to make a profession. This has to be a reality in our souls. We have to go through these. 12345677, how about that?
Ions, motivation, consecration, sanctification, transformation, realization, humiliation, and meditation.
These things need to be a part of our life and reach our shoes, by the way.
For this to be a practical reality.
Now we're going to go to.
John.
Chapter 12 because.
Until we get this point, I think I have just enough time to cover it.
If I pace myself.
I just mentioned something, by the way, without charge, when I finished my two tours of duty in combat, flying in the back of F4's carrier base, I came back to Pensacola as an instructor in 1970 to 72.
And I took a class there that was to teach us how to be an instructor, how to teach.
Instruct instructors training class. It was for those of us who by the time we had finished our sea duty was were coming back for shore duty. And that was my ability at the time. And my job now was to train the guys that were just like me coming through now in 1972 and I wound up in a land survival.
Class teaching land survival. What anyway in this?
Instructor's training class was about 3 weeks long. It was a good class and they would give us tests and one of the questions on the test that I remember is that the key to delivering a good lecture is multiple choice. 1, knowing the material, two, organizing the material, Three, being articulated in the material for the use of visual aids.
I missed that question. Knowing the material, organizing the material.
Being able to articulate the material and the use of visual aids. What's the answer?
That's what I put. Knowing the material, the answer is organization, organization, organization. I have had some of the smartest people. I remember a guy in high school that could, he knew 5 languages. He knew Spanish as well as anybody in this room and we had him for Spanish one and he could not teach anything. He would draw at this angle and this angle just like I'm doing right now. And we never covered the course at all in the next year.
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In my junior year, we had a gal come in. She didn't know anymore Spanish than we did, but she organized that course. She went through the curriculum, she followed it. She got organized and it was a great class, but the first guy really knew the material and it wasn't organized. So anyway, that's always been an exercise to me.
It may be a help to you if.
You ever called to give an address or a lecture or anything like that to organize the material?
John, Chapter 12.
Verse 20 And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast. These Greeks, I take it, were Hellenistic.
Jews that lived in probably Asia Minor, what is now Turkey and the area there was Phil Hellenic. They they loved the Greek culture that was imposed upon them by Alexander the Great in in about 3/23/30 BC. Now we're down to 292827 AD, but that influence was.
Them and they had heard of Jesus and they had come down to this feast. And so the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaid of Galilee, one of the apostles, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip didn't quite know what to do with that as an intermediary. So he comes and tells Andrew, and again Andrew and Phillip.
They said well I don't know the answer to that can.
Can these Hellenistic people, they're not exactly Jews. And this is this is Israel. And I don't know if these Greeks can come in like that. And what are we going to say? And so they come and they ask Jesus, can these Greeks?
Come in and have an audience with you. Can they meet you? And I have found in scripture that sometimes when a question is asked and the answer is given, I'm left scratching my head. How did the Lord answer that? How does this answer meet the question?
And I have to think about it sometimes, and this is one of those in this passage.
Sirs, can we see Jesus?
Well, you would enjoy a question like that if somebody said that. Tell me about Jesus.
But.
Before his rejection, he came unto his own.
But after his rejection and and in this Gospel, especially at the beginning, even God so loved the world.
I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me, so that it's all without distinction.
From the north, from the South, from the east, from the West, all may come.
But in their day, they had a question about that, and Jesus answered them. This is what his answer was.
The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
I might be standing there and saying the hours come that the Son of Man should be glorified. What can they see? Jesus, This was our question.
Maybe he'll answer it.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die and abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit. There's no use meeting God if I can put it this way according to nature.
We're not just going to walk up and say meet the Lord Jesus Christ as equals are on our terms.
We are fallen, rebellious, hell deserving sinners.
And they have to know that now who is Jesus?
That they would like to see.
The Son of Man should be glorified.
Make me now to know Thy way, that I may know thee. Let me, I pray thee, see thy glory. You've read these. I suppose you've all taken notice and read each one of them.
By now.
That one I didn't notice until this morning. And we go out with that in mind. I pray thee, let me see thy glory. And that's what the Lord is saying here. The Son of Man should be glorified and that he must die. The grain of wheat, corn of wheat has to come to the ground. He's come to this earth, and He has come for the suffering of death, that He might death for every creature.
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But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit, otherwise no.
Because his life could not save us, it took His death to redeem us. He bore, I will say, our not the sins of the world, our sins in his own body on the tree. He was our substitute. I'm speaking as believer to believers.
He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life. Now there's going to be a moral revolution in the soul.
If we're going to be introduced into eternal life and see Jesus as who he is, if any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will my Father. Honor is going to take an attachment, a place of of a servant subservience. We own him as Lord. If we confess with the mouth, Jesus as Lord will be saved, for with the mouth confession is made.
Salvation. It's not just Jesus, but Jesus as Lord. We are going to honor him in that place and give him that glory. Now. Is my soul troubled? This cost him much.
This was not a routine, perfunctory thing that he came to do.
His soul is troubled.
And what shall I say, Father saved me from this hour? No, he would not, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Remember the verse that was read this morning after the breaking of bread, that David answered his brethrens question. Is there a.
Cause the answer comes back. For this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.
Then there came there a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. He glorified it when he raised Lazarus from the dead in the previous chapter. He glorifies it again when he raises him from the dead by the power of God, because Jesus had glorified the Father.
He had vindicated the Father's nature, God, the nature of God, which is holiness, which is light.
And love.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts, light and love. You cannot define either one.
They are.
Those that is who God is light and love, but we know both of them by experience.
But you can't ask me to define either one.
Deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom for his soul. Who is calling unto whom? Deep under deep.
Love unto justice unto light, deliver him from going down to the pit. Deliver man. I have found a ransom for his soul that meets the justice of God.
A provision is made and God has made it. Jesus is about to.
Glorify the Father, and in so doing He is going to be glorified.
In all eternity, eyes will turn back as the as the cherubims in the temple, wing to wing, wing tip to wingtip, from one wall to the other, from eternity to eternity, and their faces are looking down on the ark, on the ark.
The people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered. Others said, An Angel spake unto him. Some thought then that they would give resolution to this phenomenon. Somebody heard something.
So somebody that stood by some said, well, it thundered. You see, 75% of the scientific community today are atheists that operate on the principle of metaphysical naturalism. That means that there is just particles in motion all the way back, all the way forward, all the way out. Everything happens by time, space, chance, and the laws of nature. That's it.
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I'm sure of it. Therefore no God, 75% of more atheists of the elite scientists and.
Of today.
And they wonder about the other 25%.
Because they're so sure of it.
They want it to be.
So if they take the things of God and they look and they don't into the intricacies of this book.
And those dates 1095 down to 606, four, 190 years, 70 years later they come back from the captivity at 455 down to Cyrus gives the decree that they to Nehemiah, that Artaxerxes gives the decree to Nehemiah that he can start to rebuild 455 down to 29.
AD is 483 years. If you want to read Daniel Chapter 9, you'll see that there are 70 weeks. 70 * 7 each week represents.
A week of years. Seven years. In Each week another 490 years. What a coincidence.
But one week short, and that is Jacob's trouble. So from the time that our Xerxes gave allowance to Nehemiah and Nehemiah chapter 2 to go back and rebuild to the time when the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem was 483 years as a week left. And that's Jacob's trouble. And in the meantime, we're in this parenthesis of grace where the clock, the prophetic clock has stopped and when.
And also.
Daniel Chapter 9. That covenant is made. The clock starts ticking again.
The people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered, some will make it out all of this to be.
The production of the human religious mind.
And that it's all a fantasy. That's how they will look at it.
Now, I said Daniel went to college and he didn't go to a Christian college. This was Babylon.
And you may be there and you're going to hear these things and you're going to get bludgeoned with these things. And when my daughter started Chico State over here, she wanted to go to the.
General study schematics just who they called it. They put all the disciplines together in a in an integration in this one class of about 30 kids that were accepted to this would would get all the science and philosophy and music and history English all of these things as one class and go through the whole freshman year together and she had to interview for this.
And a professor that she interviewed with.
Wants to get to know her. You know, what can you do and what are your thoughts and why you're going to this Jed to write a theme, a paper to submit to him as well as part of the application. Anyway, she made mention that she believed the Bible to be the word of God and she was a Christian and he said now you're going to have to be very comfortable with that because you will definitely be challenged in these next nine months if you take this class.
I mean, he gave her a warning.
He wasn't stuttering about this, He wasn't apologizing about this, he said. You will be definitely challenged.
In what you're about to learn in the next nine months and the way things would be presented, that's the way the secular colleges are today. They're going to tell you it thundered at least half of them. All the disciplines in college now, whether it's history or science, they're all taught or even comparative religions, they are all taught from a naturalistic perspective.
God is left out, therefore he's not there. Because things are taught from a naturalistic perspective. They start with this a priority this, this beginning thought.
And and plunge through all the way through with that.
This isn't a proof. This is what they want to believe. That's the way man is. And in education, he gets very clever about it and he's going to try to convince as many as you can. And some of your older young people that you may have seen fly off at right angles in the past got into college and embraced that.
It's like first Samuel Chapter 11, when those guys were coming down to forgot what tribe it is right on the border. And and they the tribe says, well, we'll link up with you. And and they said, well, we're going to put out your right eye. And they didn't think that was a very good prospect. So they went to Saul, who was just inaugurated king.
And Saul didn't think that was a very good prospect. So we got the armies together and he delivered them.
That's what's going to happen in the secular educations now, is there?
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Intent on putting out your right eye and giving you single only a you have no death perception. If you only have one eye, all you will see is the natural side of life. That's all they want to teach you.
So I want you to understand that.
There are plenty of people.
And Places to read and the apologetics section of Mr. Darby's writing writings are excellent about the same They're asking the same questions 150 years ago that they're dabbling with now. The answers are right in there.
So don't follow that.
You don't have to embrace that. It is not necessarily a logical conclusion that is imposed upon you.
That it is so that everything is by naturalism, it thundered. It's only Thunder, don't worry about it. Nobody said anything, they just thought they heard it.
Something thundered. I gotta tell you, there's a natural explanation for this. This is what they're gonna tell you.
It's like that Scottish philosopher Hume in the 18th century, he said.
I never saw a miracle.
My father never saw a miracle, my grandfather never saw him. I never heard anybody talk to anybody.
That ever saw a miracle? I have talked to people who have given me false reports. I understand false reports. Therefore all reports about miracles are false reports and there is no God. That's how he reasoned it.
I hope that didn't make sense to you.
Is God not allowed to do miracles when and where He wants to, Not at just the rude intrusion and demand of man to satisfy his idle curiosity. Every miracle of scripture that that God has done is for a purpose.
Now the other guy says.
Angel spoke to him. Something's going on out there. Don't know what it is. I think it was an Angel. Yeah. Let's worship angels. Let's develop a religion. We got to develop the spiritual side of man. Well, they recognize there is such a thing, and they go off at right, at left angles.
The guys that thundered right angles. Let's deal with angels.
Left angles.
They both got it wrong.
But you're going to hear both answers.
Jesus answered and said. Jesus answered and said man speaketh once, yeah twice and man perceiveth it not. The first time he spoke is in creation. Romans chapter one verse 20.
Man perceiveth it not. The second time he speaks is in revelation.
Hagar sitting out there in a heap in the 16th of Genesis in great turmoil, and God appears to her and explain some things to her. And her answer is, Thou art the God that reveals thyself, and so he is, because we may know that there is an infinite.
Eternal.
Divine, intelligent, autonomous being behind the whole show.
Cause and effect reasoned all the way back to the first 'cause tells us that the whole show runs by cause and effect. Even scientists know that they can't deny it. They want to put cause and effect all the way back in what they call an infinite regress into eternity. I can't fathom that.
A cause with a previous cause with a previous cause, and the whole thing is going in the way of entropy and the loss of entry energy is going one way.
Darby says that if you're going to put matter in eternity, you're dealing with an abstract, and you would have to put it there in a condition of stasis. Then how do you, how do you get the laws of nature into it to get it to move to be plastic, to get it into its present situation where we are?
Jesus has a word.
Man speaks once creation, God speaks once creation.
He speaks twice. Revelation. We're hostage to revelation. We must have a revelation. We can't know anything about God until he declares himself. He is the infinite and we're the finite. He is the eternal.
And we're the temporal.
And if I be lifted up, I will from the earth I will draw all men unto me.
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And as Ezekiel 2127 says, I will overturn, I will overturn, I will overturn it.
And it shall be no more is that it, till He comes whose right it is, as King of kings, as Lord of Lords, not to the cross the second time, as He did the 1St for sin, but to establish Himself, and every eye shall see him, and all kindreds of the earth.
Who see him arrive in his appearing at his second coming.
Will wail because of him. Revelation chapter one.
Thy Kingdom come.
Is the heart of the believer. We want to see Him have His rightful place. We want to see Him given the place that is his. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and it will be solved. Now. Would you look forward to seeing the Lord Jesus come?
This afternoon or would you wail?
I believe I'm talking to believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is our hope. And He will come and receive us unto Himself, and then he will return in glory. Make me now to know thy way, that I may know Thee to know Thee. Let me, I pray Thee, see thy glory. God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock in that chapter.
I think it's Exodus 33 and he said you cannot see my face and live, but I will put you in the cleft of this rock. What a picture.
And he says you may see my back parts.
And we can still see where God has been in the lives of believers in the creation of the whole show, when He has spoken and given us this word hymn #179.