Daniel 3 - The King’s New Clothes

Main Idea: You need to stand for God’s truth in a culture that has lost sight of His reality.

1. YOU MUST STAND WHEN NO ONE ELSE WILL.

2. YOU MUST STAND, NO MATTER WHO’S OPPOSED.

3. YOU MUST STAND, REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES.

4. YOU CAN STAND KNOWING THAT JESUS IS BESIDE YOU.

5. YOU SHOULD STAND BECAUSE GOD WILL BE GLORIFIED.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

We are in our series, Thriving in Exile, and we're going through Daniel 1 through 6.

And I had scheduled this out, actually, at the end of last year, intentionally, because we're going into a time of year where people try and wrestle through, like, hey, is this world our home?

Is this the place that we can put our hope and our confidence in? Or as the old hymn puts it, are we just a passing through, and our treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue? What do we do with the here and now?

And scripture tells us that we who believe in Jesus, we are ambassadors to this world. That is, we are not citizens primarily of this world or of America or of wherever you're from. We are primarily, as Christians, citizens of heaven.

And the Book of Daniel deals with these exact same thoughts, that you had these four Hebrew men just as boys, probably in their early teen years, that were kidnapped by the Babylonians in about 600 BC. They were taken hundreds of miles from home.

They were made eunuchs. They were forced to serve in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And they decided to live for God despite their circumstances.

And they show us an example of what it looks like to thrive in exile. How do we interact with a world that does not follow God? Babylon wasn't like the kingdom of the Lord, or so Babylon thought anyway.

So how do we interact with a culture that does not bow the knee to the only king who is worthy? How do we interact with a place where lawlessness and evil is rampant? How do we do it in a God-like, Christ-like way?

And that's what these individuals show us in Daniel 1 through 6. Last week, we saw what happened when God showed the ruler of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, what would happen in the future.

He was shown a vision of his kingdom and the kingdoms after his, and that God's kingdom would destroy and surpass them all. It would be the only everlasting kingdom.

However, it seems as though Nebuchadnezzar only focused on the very first part of that vision, and if you guys remember, there was the whole big statue, and there was the head of gold, and Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, this head of gold, that's you,

that's Babylon, that's your kingdom. And after this, there's gonna be this other kingdom, these other rulers, and Nebuchadnezzar seems to have tuned out after hearing, you're the head of gold of this statue.

In a bizarre twist, Nebuchadnezzar made a gigantic statue, just like in his vision, but he neglected to remember that God had told him that the statue would be destroyed by the work of God.

Nebuchadnezzar set out to try and make his future reality something different than what God had made. God had said, here's what your future entails, here's the truth.

And Nebuchadnezzar saying, that's really nice of you to let me know that, but I've got some other plans. I'm not just gonna be the head of gold, I'm gonna be the entire statue of gold, and my kingdom will last forever.

It kind of reminds me of the old tale, The Emperor's New Clothes, where the emperor gets a new clothing guy, and the tailor tells him that he's got the most amazing fabric in the world that only the smart and important people can see when really he's

got nothing. Not wanting to seem stupid, everyone in the kingdom plays along that they can see the fabric until one day when the emperor is showing off his new clothes to everyone and one little kid finally builds up the courage to say, he doesn't

have any clothes on. Much like that kingdom, our culture today pretends in many areas that reality is not what it is.

There is a cultural nicety that demands we suspend our logical brains when it comes to issues of gender and sexual identity, right and wrong and even global atrocities.

We are called to bury our heads in the sand when it comes to the problems of our preferred political party and pretend like all evil and sinister motives reside within the other guy or gal.

But what our world truly needs today is men and women and children of God that would stand in a godly Christ-like way and declare to a world gone mad that he doesn't have any clothes on.

Today, you need to stand for God's truth in a culture that has lost sight of his reality. That's the truth we're going to see in today's passage when Daniel's three friends stand for God's reality in the face of universal cultural opposition.

Let's pray and then we'll begin looking at the passage. Dear Jesus, I ask today that you would be glorified. God, may you convict our hearts.

Lord of times when we have not been faithful to stand, Lord, when we have taken stands that have nothing to do with you or with your truth and it was all about us.

God, we ask for forgiveness for times of either cowardice or doing things in an ungodly way. Lord, we ask that you would show us Jesus today, show us our need of him, and show us the hope that we can have in our future. We love you, Lord.

We pray all of this in your name. Amen. If you've got your Bible, open it on up.

We're also going to have the verses on the screen, but we're going to go through, much like we did last week, go through the passage, and then we'll look very briefly at the points at the end of our message.

Daniel chapter 3 in verse number 1 says this, King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue 90 feet high and 9 feet wide. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

How conceited do you have to be to make a gigantic statue of yourself 90 feet tall? I know we live in the selfie age and everyone goes, you kids these days, they're so obsessed with themselves. Nebuchadnezzar was a guy that was obsessed with himself.

Verse number 2, King Nebuchadnezzar sent word to assemble the satraps, prefects, governors, advisors, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces to attend the dedication of the statue King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

He's calling everybody in. This is a gigantic spectacle, gigantic statue, all of the leaders, all of the rulers.

Verse number 3, so the satraps, prefects, governors, advisors, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces assembled for the dedication of the statue the king had set up.

Then they stood before the statue Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

A herald loudly proclaimed, people of every nation and language, you are commanded when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, you are to fall face down and worship the gold statue that King

Nebuchadnezzar had set up. So he's got a full orchestra. This isn't just a 25-foot statue and all the local rulers and a three-piece band. This is 90 feet tall.

Every one of the rulers from all across the kingdom, all of the instruments, he's going above and beyond in every possible way.

He says, you're to fall face down and worship the gold statue King Nebuchadnezzar has set up, but whoever does not fall down in worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.

As a brief aside, this was one of Babylon's favorite ways to kill people. As you look at various like world kingdoms and world history, everyone had their thing. The Romans were really great at killing people and punishing them.

Obviously, we'd know about the cross, was one of like their pinnacle great works that they did.

A noticeable mark of the historicity of Daniel is that the Persians, the empire that would come directly after the Babylonians, they viewed fire as sacred and so they didn't burn people to kill them.

A person that would have been writing, as some people assert that Daniel couldn't possibly have received prophecies from God, and so there's no way that Daniel was written during the Babylonian times.

And they say, someone later on, centuries later, made it up based on all of the history that had already transpired. But I don't know if you guys know this. I know we've got a few readers in the house, some people that aren't readers in the house.

But if you're reading historical fiction, and it can sometimes be very hard for authors to spot, okay, what did they not have 200 years ago? It's called an anachronism. I mentioned that a couple weeks ago.

This is something that is not yet existent at that time.

So someone that was either in the Persian Empire or after the Persian Empire, would not have known that fire was a normal way that people were killed during the Babylonian Empire, because during the entire span of the Persian Empire, they didn't

murder anyone with fire. So this is a noticeably interesting fact that actually tells us something about the fact that we can believe the Bible, that God knew what he was talking about, and it really did happen when he said it did.

Verse number seven, Therefore, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, and every kind of music, people of every nation and language fell down and worshiped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

Nebuchadnezzar in chapter two had heard the word of God proclaimed to him by Daniel, but he chose to ignore it. And he goes over the top with all the music, all the leaders, every nation and language with a 90 foot tall statue of himself.

When God speaks to you, what's your response? Do you listen? Do you read in the morning what God has for you?

Or do you listen to a message? Or maybe do you hear a word from a friend and just ignore it and say, listen, I've gotten this far on my own and I think I can go a little further.

Or do you realize that God loves you and he's warning you that the path that you will naturally go down is not a healthy path for your life and for your soul? God had warned Nebuchadnezzar and he still went headlong into it.

Let's pick it up again in verse number eight. Some Chaldeans took this occasion to come forward and maliciously accuse the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, may the king live forever.

You as king have issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music must fall down and worship the gold statue.

Whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. There are some Jews you have appointed to manage the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men have ignored you, the king.

They do not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up. Then in a furious rage, Nebuchadnezzar gave orders to bring in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king.

Nebuchadnezzar asked them, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is it true that you don't serve my gods or worship the gold statue I have set up?

Now, if you're ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, fall down and worship the statue I made. But if you don't worship it, you will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.

And who is the God who can rescue you from my power? Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, those are their Hebrew names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

They're reported to the king by some jealous Chaldeans, that is, those that were also in command in Babylon.

And these Chaldeans stoke up Nebuchadnezzar's anger by highlighting the fact that he hired these people, and it was his image that they weren't bowing to, and it was his command that they were disobeying, and they were ignoring his gods.

And almost the question that he gives to these men, this was not a time period where people were known for the grace that they would give to other people. You didn't get a two or three strike rule at your job.

It's one strike you're out at the old ball game, so to speak. And so Nebuchadnezzar almost seems incredulous. He's like, it's not true that you guys aren't bowing, right?

These guys are just jealous. They're just making stuff up, right? Of course you would bow.

Of course you would do everything that every other people and nation and language are doing, right? This is just what's normal. You wouldn't stick out, because if you do stick out, you're going to be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.

And there's no god that can rescue you from my power. He assumes that he himself is somewhat of a deity, and so he is a god that no other god is more powerful than.

But verse number 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to give you an answer to the question.

If the god we serve exists, if it be so, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king.

But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue that you set up. These three Hebrew men, they tell Nebuchadnezzar that their god can save them. Who is that god?

Their god, Yahweh. And they said that their obedience is not based on them demanding God's work. They say, if God wants to, he can save us from the fire.

But if not, they say it's not conditional on God saving us that we worship him. They say, he's God, he can choose to do whatever he wants to do. Our choice is to obey and follow and worship him.

He's God regardless of whether or not they are safe. For you today, do you hold God hostage to your will? Do you demand that he work in the way that you want him to in your life or else you will not follow or worship or obey him?

Are you looking for some sort of transactional relationship with God where he makes all your wildest dreams come true and maybe you follow him a little bit or read his word a time or two a week or maybe go to church.

God is God regardless of how you respond to it. Realize he's the one that's sovereign. He's the one that's in control.

As we learned last week, he's the one that tears down kingdoms and sets up nations that removes rulers and puts new rulers in place. Will you choose to follow and worship him regardless of whether or not he answers your request with a yes?

Verse number 19. Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage and the expression on his face changed towards Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He gave orders to heat the furnace seven times more than was customary.

And he commanded some of the best soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the furnace of blazing fire.

So these men in their trousers, robes, head coverings and other clothes were tied up and thrown into the furnace of blazing fire.

Since the king's command was so urgent and the furnace extremely hot, the raging flames killed those men who carried Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego up. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, fell bound into the furnace of blazing fire.

I don't know if you know this, our world's rulers, whether that's at, you know, the very top level of dictators or presidents, or sometimes as lowly as city council managers, they can sometimes act irrationally.

And that is certainly what was happening here, that anger was ruling Nebuchadnezzar. He had heard what God had done in his life previously.

It had so ingrained itself in him and in his psyche that he even created statues to try and rebel against what God had said. These men say, hey, whatever the consequences are, God is greater than you, and so we're obeying God no matter what.

And so in his rage that they would not fall in line, as everyone else was doing. There wasn't like a large dissenting party. This was three government officials under Nebuchadnezzar that were defying his command.

And so he tells his best men to go. He tells them to heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was previously. And he loses some of his best men because of how angry and how rage-filled he was.

Can I tell you this? If you're making angry decisions, you're likely not making the right decisions. James chapter one tells us the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

If anger rules how you talk with other people, God's not ruling you in that moment. If anger is how you think about others, God's not reigning in your mind, the devil is. Will you choose to have a calm head when you interact with these circumstances?

This is what the three Hebrew children had that they said, hey, we're not careful to answer you about this. Like, we don't need to, like, deliberate and think about this for a long time. We're not doing that.

That was their response. Nebuchadnezzar's response was rage. When it comes to your world today, do you respond to everything with outrage, cursing, with loud voices and yelling?

Or do you interact like Jesus did when he interacted with injustice? And scripture says, like a sheep led to the slaughter, he did not open his mouth. If you've not read this story before, you're like, man, what happened to these kids?

Verse number 24, then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm. He said to his advisors, didn't we throw three men bound into the fire? Yes, of course, Your Majesty, they replied to the king.

He exclaimed, look, I see four men not tied, walking around in the fire, unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.

Certainly, Nebuchadnezzar didn't realize that there was only one true god, and there was a son of god that was there in that fire. And we don't know for sure what these three Hebrew men were doing as they were walking around.

It doesn't even say that they were standing still. Like, you know, you stand up in a furnace, all of your, you know, bonds are gone. I'd just be like looking around.

I'm not saying, hey, like, let me get my steps in today, but that's what these boys were doing with Christ.

And it's been speculated, you know, they might have been singing, and give me all in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning, or they might have done, burn, baby, burn, or maybe, I want to be tried by fire.

Also, very, very, very small chance, they might have been singing another in the fire. But these boys tell us that God delivers his people from their troubles.

As you look at the life of King David, attacked by spear after spear from King Saul, hunted like an enemy of the state for years, as he had to run at times even from his own children, who staged coups against him.

As he fought against Goliath and many other paroles along the way, God delivered him out of all of his trouble. I think of Moses when he was even just a baby, that he was delivered from Pharaoh and those that wanted to kill him.

He was safe in the Nile. He was protected when he had killed someone in Egypt and then had to flee. God kept him safe.

And as he interacted in the desert for over 40 years with all of the various scorpions and problems that would come up, God kept him alive and safe. God can take care of you today. It doesn't matter what your circumstances are.

Can I tell you that as a child of God, the safest place for you is within the will of God. The safest place for you is not your ideal country. Or if you have all of the right people in office, that will not be your salvation.

That will not keep you safe. The person that will keep you safe is the one that keeps you safe within the fiery furnace. How does he save us?

He saves us through Jesus. God's not just interested in you being a moral person. You can be the most moral person in the world.

And the moment that you leave this life, you will enter eternity, not having known Jesus, not on your way to heaven, but on your way to hell. God doesn't care how moral you are. He wants a relationship with you through Jesus.

How is that relationship attained? It's attained through faith. That these boys said, we believe in God, no matter what the circumstances are, we're going to follow him.

As we often talk about, they said, God is our Lord. He's the one calling the shots, and so we're giving our entire lives for him. Now, God will not have you like physically be thrown into a fiery furnace from governor.

Who's our governor right now? Westmore? Yeah.

Governor West is not going to throw you in a fiery furnace. I'm like 99.99999% certain. That's not how you're going to get salvation.

The Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It says by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that salvation, it's not of yourselves.

It's the gift of God, not from human works, so that no one will have ability to boast, to say, I saved myself.

We are to submit ourselves to the righteousness of Christ, the only one who can save us, that though we are imperfect, He has been and always will be perfect, that we could not pay the price for our sins.

There was no justice that could be found within ourselves to pay for our crimes against a holy God. But Jesus came, He paid the price in full for your sins, and He didn't just take away all of your sins, He gave you all of His righteousness.

He offers to you a relationship with God forever and ever, one that you don't have to maintain through your own greatness, but one that is maintained because you have an advocate with the Father who will never die, who even in the furnace, who even

on the cross, through the empty tomb, He is the one that is always beside you. If you don't know Jesus today, if you have never accepted His salvation, today can be the day that you do so.

I would love to talk with you right at the end of service and show you from the Bible how God says, call on the name of the Lord and be saved.

Turn to Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation and find life in Him, just as these three individuals found life and could be strolling around in the middle of the fire that was meant to kill them, and in the middle of a fire that killed those that

did not have faith in God, that those soldiers, those best soldiers that brought him in, that chucked him in, that had tied him up, they were burnt up, but those that trusted in the Lord were safe. Verse number 26, Nebuchadnezzar then approached the

door of the furnace of blazing fire. I just read like three verses earlier how guys got killed when they chucked the guys in because the flames are so hot. If I'm Nebuchadnezzar, I'm just calling out from way back. But he goes to the door.

He approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and called, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God, come out. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. And when the St.

Trepp's prefects, governors and the king's advisors gathered around, they saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men. Not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire on them.

What this world would want to threaten you with, what people want you to be afraid of, has no hold on the child of God. Because God is our provider. God is the one that makes a way for us.

God is the one that determines the times and the seasons. He knew the day that you were going to be born. He knows the day that you will die.

And He has a wonderful plan for your life. Romans chapter 8 and verse number 28 says this. I definitely forgot it, so I'm going to turn over there real quick, because it's a great verse, and you got to hear this one.

Romans chapter 8 and verse number 28. And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God to them, who are the called according to His purpose.

For those He did for know, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. That throughout our life, God is working to make us more like Jesus.

That might run at odds with what you want for your life, because Jesus isn't known for never having gone through hard times. Jesus isn't known for having everyone accept Him and love Him and believe in Him.

But God wants to make you look like Jesus, so that there is no indication that you have even been through the same fire that killed others because of your faith in the Lord.

Verse number 28, Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him.

They violated the king's command and risked their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own god.

Therefore, I issue a decree that anyone of any people, nation, or language who says anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be torn limb from limb and his house made a garbage dump.

Okay, this is this is Nebuchadnezzar's way of phrasing things. This is not like a great Christian political theology, just so you're all aware. If you're like, I can't believe you would say that this is him talking on his own.

This isn't God saying, hey, this is what I want for you. Let me see garbage dump for there is no other god who is able to deliver like this. He started off saying, who is the god who can save you from my hand?

Now he's saying, there is no other god who's able to deliver like this. Verse number 30, then the king rewarded Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

You need to stand for God's truth in a culture that has lost sight of his reality. First, you got to know God's truth if you're going to stand for it. Standing for the GOP is not the same as standing for God.

Stating, I'm with her doesn't count as standing for the Lord. You must actually read scripture and not just the comfortable portions that you like. Read and discover what God says is right and wrong.

Find out what the one who created reality says about how it should operate and go from there. If you walk into scripture trying to find things that affirm what you already believe, you will undoubtedly find them.

Looking for reasons to have a closed border, it's in there. Looking for reasons to have an open border, it's in there. Free health care, there.

Expensive private health care, also there. You can't try to fit God into your preconceived box. You need to go to him and discover what he wants you to believe and to do.

Doing so will mean that you run afoul of this world's kingdoms and America's political parties, by the way. The whole, there is no one that understands, there's no one who seeks after God, that didn't stop being true in 1776.

In Joshua chapter 5, there's a great illustration of this, where Joshua was near Jericho. He looked up, saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.

Joshua approached him and asked, are you for us, for the Israelites, or for our enemies? Neither, he replied, I have now come as commander of the Lord's army. The question isn't, is God on our side, or is God on the other team's side?

The question is, am I on God's side? There's an old quote from a book that JRR. Tolkien wrote of an individual that said, I am not on anyone's side because no one is all together on my side.

And certainly that is true for our Lord. Very briefly, got our five points for today. I promise you this is brief.

Number one, if we're gonna stand for God's reality in a culture that's completely lost the plot, we must stand when no one else will. I love this statement, you plus God is a majority.

In your workplace, your school, or your family, you might be the only person that's standing for the Lord.

You might be the only one that's not getting riotously drunk, or believing in elective abortions, or that affirms same-sex relationships, and that's okay. Be willing to stand out to be the weird one for the Lord.

Not so you can be a jerk or an oddity, because I know some of y'all, and that is the reason why you do some of that. No, just kidding. But stand for the Lord, because you love God, and you have to follow Him.

Luke chapter 12 says this, Jesus speaking to his disciples, I say to you, anyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God.

But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. You must stand when no one else will. This is what the three Hebrew children were doing.

It's not the three Hebrew children and 17 others. It's not all of the Jews. It's these three.

And they stood when no one else would. Everyone else, you know, everyone's standing in that plain of Dura. Everyone else bows and worships.

And there's three guys sticking out like a sore thumb. You must stand when no one else will. Secondly today, you must stand no matter who is opposed.

Over the past eight years, I've had to take positions based on God's word that meant that I had family members that didn't talk to me for months.

I've lost friendships based on people's idolatrous worship of political figures that surpassed scripture's command to unity within the church.

But if God has called us to be faithful and to do what's right, then there is no other option than to stand despite opposition. The only alternative to obeying God is disobedience. If God calls us to stand and we bow, we've disobeyed.

If God calls us to go and we stay, we have disobeyed. If God commands us to speak and we are silent, we've disobeyed. But if we obey him, what a wonderful promise he has made for those who obey.

We can see this in the life of Ezekiel, when God commissioned him to be a prophet. He said to me, I'm sending you to the Israelites, to the rebellious pagans who have rebelled against me.

The Israelites and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this day. The descendants are obstinate and hard-hearted. I am sending you to them, and you must say to them, this is what the Lord God says.

Whether they listen or refuse to listen, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that a prophet has been among them. He says, no matter how they respond, at least they know that God talked to them.

He says, but you don't be afraid of them, and don't be afraid of their words.

Even though bryors and thorns are beside you, and you live among scorpions, don't be afraid of their words, or discouraged by the look on their faces, for they are a rebellious house.

Speak my words to them, whether they listen or refuse to listen, for they are rebellious. Think of what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2. He says, gently instruct your opponents, so that they might come to the truth.

It might be that God would grant them repentance. You must stand when no one else will. You must stand no matter who's opposed.

You must stand regardless of the consequences. For the three Hebrew men, they could have just taken the position that they'd ask God to forgive them after they bowed to the statue. After all, isn't God a God of love and forgiveness?

Certainly, but he's also a holy God that doesn't want us to pursue the sin that destroys us and everyone around us.

Are you willing today to endure rejection, ostracization, hurt job opportunities, and even fines or worse for holding to your biblical convictions?

And even more importantly for you, are you willing to go through all of those things while still communicating the love and forgiveness of God to those who are doing wrong by you?

How you hold your positions is often just as important as what positions you hold. This is because the fruit of the spirit isn't just right opinions, but it's the truth of God combined with the temperament of God.

2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul told Timothy this, the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine. They'll have a rejection for those that speak the truth to them.

He says, according to their own desires, they'll multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. There's a small side note. It's Pastor Appreciation Month.

Pray for your pastor. Everyone wants him to preach, teach, lead against other people's sins and issues, but not their own.

But if I'm going to do right by Tabernacle, right by you as an individual, it means that occasionally I will need to say things you don't like for reasons you don't agree with. I don't enjoy that.

No one's like, oh, yes, I really want to be disliked by some people for what I say. But if I'm going to be faithful to God, I must be faithful to tell you what he says and how he says to do it.

And the same is true in your life, that you've got people that you're going to interact with, and you have to lovingly, caringly speak the truth of God into their life, regardless of what they do with it.

Number four, you can stand knowing that Jesus is beside you. Just as with the three Hebrew men, when we go through difficulties, we can know that Jesus is with us.

Think back to Stephen in Acts chapter seven, where as he was being stoned for his faith in Jesus and his declaration of him alone, he looked up and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he asked Jesus in that moment, forgive them because they have no idea what they're doing. May we have that same heart.

Think of what Paul said when he had prayed that God would take away a difficulty in his life, and the Lord told him, my strength is made perfect in your weakness.

Hard decisions are made substantially easier when you're making them alongside someone else and who better than God Almighty to be by your side, encouraging you to stand for him. Second Timothy 2, 11 and 12 says, this saying is trustworthy.

If we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. And lastly, today you should stand because God will be glorified.

Why take a stand? Why not just go along with everyone in your life? Why not just go along with our culture?

Because it honors the God who is worthy of all glory when we stand. Because you don't belong to you if you're a Christian. You belong to God and you owe him everything because of your creation and your salvation.

And you just might convince someone else to finally admit that the emperor has no clothes and they'll begin to see reality from God's point of view, accepting Christ and following him with their life.

That's what Peter told the persecuted church in kind of the Asia Minor region in 1st Peter 2 and verse 12, conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, the unbelievers, so that when they slander you as evildoers, when they say perhaps that you

are bigoted or you're not open minded enough or that you just don't understand why we should be going against God's word in this area. You'd be so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and glorify your father on

the day he visits. Stand for Christ because it might be the thing that helps lead someone else to him. Today, five questions and we're done. What do you need to stand for in your life this week?

Unless you have so isolated yourself from every other person on earth, there will likely be some way, some area where you do need to stand. Ask God for the courage to stand. Who do you need to pray for this week?

There will be opponents. Paul told Timothy, all those that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Sometimes it might just be the way someone thinks about you.

Other times it might be harsh words or something more. But who are you praying for this week that those that are opponents might be turned into friends and allies and fellow siblings in the Lord?

What consequences do you need to lay at Jesus' feet this week and accept gladly? If you're going to follow the Lord, regardless of the consequences, it means sometimes there will be consequences that you don't particularly like or enjoy.

It might change your relationship. It might change how many hours you might be given at your job or something like that. Are you willing to accept the consequences gladly as a result of you following the Lord faithfully?

For, thank the Lord that he's always with you and beside you. It's not a question, but thank him that he's always beside you. And lastly, will you ask the Lord to be glorified through your stand this week?

If we just stand and it's not glorifying to God, there's no point. We don't, there's no good that comes from that.

But when we stand for the Lord in a godly way and God is lifted up and people go, man, you know, Lori may or may not be right that there is a God, but she absolutely believes that there is a God. I don't know if there is, but I know she does.

Will you choose to glorify God in your stand this week? We must stand for God's truth in a culture that's lost sight of its reality. Will you stand for the Lord this week?