Daniel 7 - Resolved faith

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Good morning church. How are we? I do apologize. I should have introduced myself to those who are visiting today. I'm Pastor Doug. I'm on the pastoral team here with Pastor Dylan and Pastor Dave. He's having a bit of a break today. But yeah, so I appreciate you being here. Thank you. Welcome at home as well because we live stream as well. It's great to have folk joining in with us. I believe there's a group up at Woodgate who have decided that traveling in four-wheel drives and camping can be interrupted. So welcome to you guys. I know who they are. Our whole home group went away for the weekend and didn't take us. No, we're invited. We're invited. But we decided, I've got a sermon to prepare and yeah, I might just stay home. I'm not feeling a real hundred percent. Isn't it great that you get to read from God's word so often. I love this chapter. This is a cool chapter. I think I scored the good chapter here. It's so exciting to see the end of this chapter and what happens. And who's been reading? Who's been reading along? Put your hand up. Are they all the saved ones who've been reading? That's good. So we've been doing Daniel Resolved Faith. It's been a great opportunity just to reflect upon God's word and what it means to our hearts. And sometimes that can be a challenge. I mean, don't make me secret of the fact that the Bible is God's word. It rebukes us. It teaches us and it brings us closer to God. And we understand and we apply it to our lives. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, that we're able to sing songs that talk of your glory. Father, of your victorious nature. Lord, your sovereignty over all creation. Father, thank you that the songs we sing, Lord, are ones that speak, Lord, about the victory over death and sin. And Father, as we open your word today and contemplate these words of Daniel chapter 7, we ask, Lord, you might speak to us through your spirit. Father, we won't gloss over it or won't get distracted. But Father, we'll hear what you are saying to us today. Father, what your teaching is for us and how it applies to our lives. Father, we thank you for the gift of your word as we worship today. Lord, pray always. The words I speak will be your words, Lord, not mine. In your name, amen. So if you open up to chapter 7, we're going to have a look at that at the moment. Just going to review and I really appreciate it. Dylan and Dave putting this slide up every time they preach because it does give us that reminder of what's been happening. So being resolved is an adjective. Of course, it means firm in purpose or intent in being determined. And one of that applies to your life. I know on Wednesday night there might have been a few people who were resolved that Kalimponga shouldn't have been sent off and wrote similar phrases like that on Facebook, particularly that I was reading. I didn't recognise any church folk on the Facebook page I was on, so thank you for restraining yourself. But for us in Daniel 3, 28, this is the definition. Servants who trust in God, yield up their bodies rather than rather and serve and worship any God except their own God. Small G God, capital G God. We have a habit. We are human. We have small gods in our life. But we are called to be people of resolved faith, to focus in on our God of Gods, our sovereign King. The book of Daniel doesn't follow a chronological order. It follows a different order. And I've taken the liberty of looking at what it looks like. I'm not a theologian, but I understand that chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 seem to follow on. Then 7 jumps in the middle, then 8, then back to 5, then 6, then over to 9, then 10, 11 and 12. And so there's a reason for that. And the dreams are put together. And if you read carefully, you'll see that it says the first year of King Bezzar, then the third year reign of the Bezzar. So it jumps around a little bit. But we have channel 7. We have chapter 7. And we're looking at Nebuchadnezzar. We're looking at Bel Cesar, sorry, following Nebuchadnezzar. So sometimes it can be confusing. We're just going to read from chapter 1 and we'll go through and just for a few verses round to the end of verse 8. The first year of Bel Cesar, King of Babylon, and Daniel had a dream and visions passed through his mind as he was laying in the bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream. Daniel said, In my vision at night I looked and there before me were the four winds of heaven, churning up the great sea, four great beasts, each different from the others came up out of the sea. The first was a lion and it had wings of an eagle. As I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being and the mind of an at human was given to it. And before me was a second beast which looked like a bear. It was raised up on its, raised up one of its sides and on three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. I was told get up and eat your fill, flesh. After that I looked and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard and on its back had four wings like those of a bird. The beast had four heads and it was given authority to rule. After that in my vision at night I looked and there before me was a fourth beast terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had iron teeth. It crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whenever it was left. It was different from all the former beasts and it had ten horns and while I was thinking about the horns there before me was another horn, a little one which came up among them and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes and ears of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully. Wow what an image to have, what a dream to have, what a revelation to have and here we have Daniel imparting that to us. What does it mean? Sometimes we get caught in the in the whole deep dive into what it is but if we reflect back to chapter two there's a lot of comparisons there. The comparisons are quite, you know, they come across the golden head which is Babylon. Remember that we learned that Nebuchadnezzar made a giant statue of himself. Antiquity shows us that Babylon is typically depicted with a lion, with a beard, a shaped beard and wings on it. We have the golden, we have the silver chest which is the Medo Persian Empire which is the bear. We have the bronze belly and thighs of grease which is the leopard and we have the iron feet and clay and the hornbeats which is the Roman Empire. Then it gets a bit sketchy because then it drops into about the terrifying beast and the Antichrist which we'll read about later but then in chapter two it talks about the rock of eternity and verse 22 of chapter seven and verses 13 talks about ancient of days and a son of man. So we have the understanding that the leopard, the lion was swift in his expansion, the Babylonian Empire conquered all that had before it and history teaches us that. I learned that in grade eight in my history teaching, history classes. The bear with the Medo Persian Empire, 2.5 million soldiers at its disposal and it was so powerful and strong it conquered everything in its wake. The leopard which was grease came after, was moved more quickly and brilliantly and was able to execute things never seen before. So what we have is a timeline of history unfolding before Daniel going forward. We look back and say oh yeah that makes sense now. You imagine the terror in his eyes, the terror in his heart when he sees these four beasts and then we have the Antichrist at the end. So this is what some people believe they look like. Some people have put that together that the Babylonian lion, the four-winged or four-headed Grecian, a leopard, the Persian bear and the Roman. It looks like a dragon or a lizard. But what does that mean for us today? 21st century Cabulcha. Here we are. Did anyone notice the air conditioning's not turned on? Well it actually met at the perfect ambience of temperature this morning. The warmth of your bodies in your heart and spirit equates the coolness outside. But we are in a comfortable church. We are comfortable seats. What does this mean for us? As we read further into Daniel we get a most unsettling understanding. Because in amongst all these things that happen, all these projections of the future that history has shown us has happened, they're not quite sure what's happening next, then we have in verse 9, enter the Holy One. As I looked, thrones were set in place and the ancient of days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow, the hair on his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming fire and its wheels were all ablaze. Not an awesome picture of the ancient of days, the one in control. And Daniel 7.13 which you can read a little reflect through in Matthew 23 and 30 in Revelation 1.7 and Daniel 7.13 says, in my vision at night, a looked in there before me was one like a son of man coming from the clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days. He approached the ancient of days and he took a seat beside him. But getting into an understanding here we've got these, the four beasts, the four kingdoms that have happened in history that we can reflect upon. But what's coming in the future? Do you know your future? Do you know where it's going from here? Do you know or do you understand what God is saying to your heart today? Just relax and let him speak to you. It's coming, he'll become clearer. In Daniel 7.21 to 23 and as I watched the horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them until the ancient of days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the holy people the most high and the time came when they possessed the kingdom and he gave me this explanation. The fourth beast is the fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different for all other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trembling it down and crushing it. The time is coming when people of faith will be called and challenged. Are they resolved in their faith and understanding of Jesus? Some people stare away from revelation and these visions are Daniel, the book of revelation, these vision, because they're a bit scary. You don't want people to come to faith because they're scared, but I can say this. This is the truth. This is God's word. This is what's going to happen. And the question I ask and the other pastors, as we've been praying about this series, is where are our people at with God? When we have this tumultuous understanding that things are going to happen, we have this huge war, spiritual warfare that we haven't even contemplated yet. I had this theory from years ago that we've lost our sense of fear. When I was growing up as a young man, I became a Christian. There was such thing as the iron curtain, the Berlin Wall. And people were predicting that an amalgam, agog, and all those who were coming from the north were going to be Russia, coming down through the Middle East and going towards Jerusalem, and be feed on the plain of Magog. And we thought about that and thought, well, there's bombs that can actually wipe out mankind. There's things that can happen that can actually melt steel or bombs that can kill the people inside the building, but leave the building whole. And there's a whole feeling in the community, right and large, that this thing was hanging over their head, end of day stuff, end of days. And then people were saying, well, if that's happening, then what is the hope for mankind? And we'll point it to the book of the Bible and Jesus. And then something happened in the 90s, the Berlin Wall came down. And all of a sudden, and all of a sudden, there wasn't any fear anymore in the world. Bombs weren't going to drop out of the sky. The U.S. developed the Star Wars strategy of putting satellites up in the heaven so they could zap out any nuclear weapons that were flying into continental. And we relaxed as a world. And we dropped back into cruise mode. And we said, yeah, this is okay. Okay, let's start living the best life we can. The best life means we put ourselves first. The best life means that we don't have to worry too much about the intricacies of the future, because I'm sure to look after itself. What will teach us something different? I believe that Daniel chapter seven points to that. And it's worth sitting and contemplating about what it means to you personally. One of the things I love about this is no matter what happens in the world and the wars, is that the sovereign presence is there. And this is what we read about in Daniel chapter seven, in verses 26 and 27. But the court will sit and his power will be taken away. This is the beast. This is the one that will have, that it was going to crush everybody, but his power will be taken away. The Bible tells us, in completely destroyed forever, the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be everlasting and his rulers will worship and obey him. We won't have a government that looks after itself. We'll have our sovereign king on the throne. But how does that affect us today? How does it affect you? Do the orbit past the day? It's too far in the future. Is it really in the future? What does that mean for us? If we read our Bible carefully, we understand something is coming. Jesus talked about it in Matthew 24. Things will get more nasty before they get good. Matthew 24, 6 to 10 says this, you'll hear wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. I shouldn't laugh, sorry. Nation will rise against nation, the king against kingdom. There'll be famines and earthquakes in various places and all these will be beginning of birth pains. They won't be the birth, they'll be the birth pains, the proceeding of what's happening. The hard stuff is yet to come. Where do people of faith stand in this? Where do you stand in this? Where do I stand in this? In the light of Scripture and the history of mankind, we get a glimpse because God has given us that glimpse. And the challenge is there that we will understand and we will see things happening. So many people have tried to predict when Jesus is coming again. And they say he's going to do here, he's going to do there, it's going to be this, it's going to happen and it won't be, and they're all these things out, but where does that sit you? Kabbutchah Baptist Church, people who are attending here today. Do you know where your future lies? Do you know what your mission is until that happens? That's the challenge we have. You see, Jesus' return is imminent. Boy, I had some fun with that word. I wrote it, Michael, I wrote it wrong three times. Matthew 24, 36 and 42. About the day and the hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know the day the Lord will come. And those words were spoken in Matthew 24, they're at the end of the chapter that says the end times, what's going to happen in the end. And what people do is they tend to say, well, if I'm struck by something now, I'll repent. I'll sort of like the thief on the cross, you know, the one who said, right the last second I'll do that. The Bible teaches us something different. It teaches us that there won't be a time for you to make that decision once Jesus comes again. He'll come like a thief in the night. What it says to me is that when we live our life for God, that we are in part of that number, that when He comes and calls us home, we'll be there. But if you haven't made a decision to follow Jesus, if you're a person who's put it off for a long time, you haven't actually fully committed your life to the Lord, then when that happens, you won't get a chance. It'll be a click of the fingers. Years ago, there was a real to real film that I watched and was called Thief in the Night. And it talks about here in Scripture, it talks about two men walking in a field and one will disappear. You read that Matthew 24. It talks about those end times when Jesus comes again. And what it says is that one will disappear and one will stay because one has gone to be with God and Jesus and the other one didn't know him or didn't profess to him or pretended to know who he was, who was a religious person, who kept all the laws but didn't have the faith, the deep personal faith. Chapter 7 gives us an insight into that. It gives us the glory and the victory of God and the sovereignty of the King. It also points what happens in the meantime. What happens to us? What happens to you? Do you know you are going to heaven with him or of you not quite sure? And that's okay for not quite sure, but now is an opportunity for you to contemplate that deeply in your hearts. Now is the opportunity for you to say, Lord, I need to sort this out with you right now. We've just heard a great stories of the youth camp. Man, I miss youth camp. I love being part of that whole story. And I love what Pastor Dillon's put together with the team, how they challenged the young people to know what these meanings are, these definitions. And who was it that said that they understood evangelism better now? Was that you Eloi? Yeah, just say yes to Pastor Dillon. He's taking notes profusely there. He's flipping through his bulb we're attending to, but he's sitting in front of Pastor Dillon who's watching over your shoulder. You know that? That's what Jesus does. He looks over your shoulder and sees if you're paying attention. But thank you, brother. Jesus returned as imminent. He's coming like a thief in the night. He's not going to say, okay, I'm coming. You know when the Broncos run out onto the field, do you know how they, what happens before? Do they just appear? No, there's a great big, and off they come. I don't even know the name of the song anymore. I haven't been there that long. Did you know there's another side of the story as well? Not only will it come, but there's going to be a judgment time. So if you miss the train, I'll just catch it later. Revelation tells us a different story. In Revelation 20, verse 15 says these words, anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. You see adjudication will take place. There'll be a time when what was written in the book of life, it says we'll have to give account of what we've done. Everyone has a different understanding of that and me personally, not as a senior pastor, but me personally understands that what is written in that book is the account of my life, the things that have transpired in my life, the good things and the dodgy things. And I'm going to have to look in the face of my Lord and saviour when he looks at me and says, Doug, what about this line here? That's how I understand it personally. You may have a gloss over that and do it your own understanding, but it's worth contemplating that a God who loves you so much who sent his son to die in the cross view would not want to hold you to the highest standard when you come before him so that he knows that you can receive him. He knows that you are faithful. You know that you are resolved in your faith. The Lamb's book of life for those who are in Christ professes that Jesus as their Lord and saviour. That's what the Lamb's book of life is. Those who profess him as Lord and saviour. The question I suppose we ask is how you're going with that? What does Daniel 7 have to talk to you about that personally today? We have all these kingdoms that have happened, how God has reigned supreme. He takes his place on the throne, his rightful place on the throne and he does away with all those things. He does away with the kingdoms. He crushes antichrist into the pit, but also he stands in adjudication of those who have the opportunity to be say, yes, I'm a Christian. Yes, I love you Lord, but Lord, I'm not quite sure. Well Lord, I do love you, but I just, it was so hard because being with my friends is so important. Not being a weirdo. I have this term I use and you may have heard me use it before. Jesus freak! And it's about being that sort of person that you just love Jesus so much and there are lots of Jesus freaks in this church. But I ask you, where do you sit with God today? Is he your Lord and saviour? Do you know him personally? If you have a question in your heart, even if a question I'm not quite sure. Pastor Dylan's here, I'm here. There's church leaders, there's church councils here. There are brothers and sisters in Christ who'll listen to you. Find them today. Ask them. Listen, this is what I've got in my mind, in my heart. I'm not quite sure. Let them sit with you and pray with you through it. If you're not sure of the answer, don't worry about it. Go and find someone who can help you with an answer. Because I encourage you not to leave here today until you've dealt with God. I believe this is his message for you today. If you're struggling in your faith, if you're struggling in your faith and you want to put it right, you can pray. John 1.9 says, we confess our sins. He is merciful and just and restore us into righteousness. I call a keeping short accounts with God. We know we're human. We know we do things that are dodgy. But as a people of faith, as a beacon in our community, we cannot afford to be just wishy-washy. We cannot afford just to go with the flow. We have to stand and resolve in our faith. We're prepared to take all things to the cross and to stand for Him. For those in Christ and the Lamb's Book of Life, for those who are transformed by the Holy Spirit, it's one of our values being transformed by the Holy Spirit. We're informed by God's Word. We're transformed by the Holy Spirit. With a repentant heart, we come before Him. A heart that says, Lord, I need to pull up. I need to stop. Romans 10.9 teaches us that. We draw near to Him. He draws near to us. If you declare with your mouth that Jesus, Lord, and believe with your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands. I'm going to ask for a raise of hearts who has prayed that prayer. Do you still hold true to it? Do you still hold it close to your heart or something that slipped a little bit to the side? God loves you and He wants to do business with you today. James 4.8 says, Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, your sinners, and purify your hearts, your double-minded. Look, even there, it's written that James knew it. There are people in our midst and maybe even us or me. It can be double-minded sometimes. We get torn between what God teaches us, what is right and what we want to do ourselves. But it says, draw near to God. When you come near to God, you come into His presence. You bow down on one knee. I don't know if you've picked it up before, but we preempted that little act, Alan and I, about going down on one knee. No, we didn't. That was purely an incidental thing. But that's what it is, just going down on one knee before God and say, Lord, I just need to repent. I'm so sorry. Those in Christ that are in the Lamb's book of life and are fervent and resolved in their faith, they know and they grow. Colossians 1.10 says, So that you may live a life worthy of the life of the Lord and pleasing Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, knowing and growing, growing and knowing. That is why we call prayer so often. That is why we do integrated studies. That is why we have discipleship groups. While we have encouragement when we have a men's outing, men's group breakfast, we have a word share. That's why the ladies have a word share. That's why we do kid's church, why we do youth group, why we do kid's club. All those are about sharing God's word because we want people to know and to grow, because God wants us to know Him and grow with Him. Those in Christ step up and turn up. As a prisoner of the Lord then, Paul said, I urge you to live a life worthy of your calling you have received. So not only do you know and grow but you actually step up and you turn up for each other. You turn up for Jesus. Chapter 7 of Daniel has this timeline of history that no one could have predicted except the revelation of God. He knew the beginning and the end. He's the hour from the Omega. He goes before he goes to the end. He's the beginning and end of everything. And we in our community think, yep, in 2026 we want to make sure we have cream on our scones at morning tea or it just isn't cricket. This is a God who loves us dearly. Loves us so much that he put this message into the book of Daniel. Not only to get the people of Israel to give them hope as they read it but to give us hope today as we read it. What does it mean to you? What does Daniel 7 mean to you? I encourage you, go home and read it yourself. Come and read it through and ponder all the bits and pieces with their heads and all those things but get down to the bit where God is sovereign and meditate on that for a while. Resolve faith is a couple of things just to finish off with. It's servants who faithfully trust, serve and worship God no matter what the cost, no matter what the circumstances, no what the outcome. That is resolve faith. It's a servants of God who faithfully trust him no matter what the circumstances are. I know that's hard but that's life where we live. Resolve faith is by its very definition not a victim mentality nor is it a defeatist mindset. Sometimes you get inspired to write things down and you think, where does that come from? We live in a society that says that if I'm a victim I get noticed. If I'm a victim then everyone's against me and I need special dispensation. The victim mentality always says that someone else's fault. Can I say that your sin is no one else's fault but your own? You need to come to Christ, you need to repent in Christ. You may live fully in him. You can't play the victim and the opposite of that, the turnaround that it is living a victorious life and freedom with relationship in Lord and Savior. Isn't that cool? It's the opposite. It's the opposite of being the victim. It is actually living a life of freedom and a relationship with God. That's what awaits for those who believe. That's what awaits for those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. That is for those who will join in the victory celebration that Daniel talks about as the marauding crushing beast is taken away from its throne and thrown under the fire. It is not survive until he returns and establish his kingdom. It is thrive and welcome him anytime. One of the greatest joys I get out of young people who are about to get married, young Christians, they say we want to get married past a dog and I said okay that's great and I said then I start we'll do this and then you might preach a sermon on the end times. They come up to you and say can we pray that he doesn't come to her married? And I said oh I don't think we can do that but I love your heart. Your heart is that you love this person so much. Do we can't pick the time he's coming? You can't pick the time he's coming. I can't pick the time he's coming. It is God saying to your heart today. Gubulchah, Baptist church, church, brothers and sisters in Christ. We have a job to do. We have a mission that God has called us to. He doesn't want faint hearted people. He wants people who are strong in their faith. You're going to be strong in your faith if you repent and come to God. You're going to be strong in your faith to keep daily relationship with him because when you do that you remain strong. Draw near to him and he will draw near to you. People of resolved faith, well you couldn't really go past John 15.8. It is bringing glory to God, bearing much fruit as his disciples. Let's pray. Father we thank you Lord that you walk with us daily. Lord you point out to us what we need to repent of. Lord you point out to us Father when we're just been a little bit off but also Lord you point out and bring us close to you and rejoice with us when we are in your presence. Father we thank you that it's not just a Sunday thing. We'll be thank you it's not just Lord a time when we can have a good time at a camping trip or we can have a good morning tea. Father it's every day the week 24, 7, 365 days. Father I thank you Lord that your word is true. Lord thank you for each person here today and those listening home Father that you will speak to their hearts and encourage them. Lord you're affirming them in their faith. Lord you'll challenge them if they're struggling. Lord let no one who you've prompted today Lord turn from you today Lord I pray they will know and acknowledge who you are. The Lord who loves them the God who sent their son to die for them. Father I pray your blessing on this. Lord we pray for your kingdom glory and your kingdom purpose and all we thank is reflect upon the ancient of days taking his seat on that throne. Lord a glorious time it will be. Father we ask this in your name.