All right, Daniel chapter 1. We're actually going to start reading verse 11. And we're going to read to the end of the chapter this morning as we look at some of the things that are contemporary issues for us. Daniel even faced them back then. Men have not changed. Times may have changed, but men have not, and our needs are still the same. So Daniel chapter 1, we're going to start reading in verse 11 this morning. I'm going to ask those willing and able to stand with me as we share together the reading of the word of God. But Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for 10 days and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king's choice food and deal with your servants according to what you see so he listened to them in this matter and tested them for 10 days at the end of 10 days their appearance seemed better and they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the king's choice food. So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink and kept giving them vegetables. As for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom. Daniel even understood all kinds of visions and dreams. At the end of the days, which the king had specified for presenting them, the commander of the officials presented them before Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and out of them all, not one was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and so they entered the king's personal service. As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm. And Daniel continued until the first year of Cyrus the king. So, Father, we come before you. We thank you so much for the opportunity to be in your house and open the Word of God and to study it and to read it. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for your Son, Jesus Christ, who has saved us by His blood on the cross. We pray, Heavenly Father, that we too will have wisdom and that we too will have understanding. I pray, Heavenly Father, that when difficult times come, that we will be faithful and that we will have supernatural wisdom from above to look at our circumstances and judge what we should do. I pray, Heavenly Father, that we will be judging what is right. I pray that we will meet all challenges in a way that glorifies You. I pray that the thing that comes to our mind when we're going through life and we're facing difficulties or struggles and hardships, that our one thought will be, how can I glorify God? Because truly, that is our calling. We want to be holy. And I know that's a difficult thing for people to think about, even ourselves, for us to think that we are to be holy before you. But that truly is the matter. We're to set ourselves aside from the world and unto you. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the challenge you're going to lay before us in your Word today to do the hard things, but to do the hard things in a way that glorifies you. Help us to rise to the challenge of life and be faithful in everything, in every word, thought, and attitude. And I pray, Father, that you'll convict us when we're not. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So thank you and be seated, please. So how many of you would choose to walk up one or two or maybe even three flights of stairs as opposed to taking the elevator? Which would you do? Would you walk up to two or three flights of stairs or would you take the elevator? Let's say it's 95 degrees outside. Would you choose to turn on your air conditioner or would you choose to ride around with your window down? even though it's 95 degrees outside. You're on a parking lot and you're driving up to the store. Would you choose to drive around that parking lot until a car or a parking place came open that was very close to the door of the store? Or would you simply drive up into the parking lot and say, you know what, this parking space is good enough, even though it is halfway out into the parking lot? Which would you do? You know, we've all seen people drive around, drive around, trying to find that closest parking place instead of taking the one that was immediately available to them. How many of you would walk up to a visitor that came to Central Baptist Church and say, my name is so-and-so. What's your name? How did you hear about us? Where did you come from? What do you do? How many of us would have the courage to go up to a visitor of Central Baptist Church and say something like that? How many of us would do the hard thing of setting a time every day, either in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening, to say, you know what, this time is reserved for God, and I'm going to read His Word, I'm going to study His Word, and I am going to pray at this time? Have you ever noticed how much the Bible commands us to do hard things? To do the hard, difficult things. Doing the hard things is certainly not popular in our culture today. Everybody's looking for a quick fix, right? Everybody's looking for an easy way out, right? Everybody is looking for an easier way of doing something. We call that today, we have a specific name and we call that a life hack, right? A hack. an easier way, right? We have a cliche that says, take the easy way out. And that means that you're gonna take the path of least resistance. It implies that you're gonna avoid any kind of difficulty or any kind of challenge, and you're not gonna take responsibility, and you're not going to deal with the problem head on. We just want everything to be convenient. But let me tell you something, that's part of your sin nature. That is part of your sin nature. Being lazy is part of the sin nature. The Bible has a word for that, it calls it slothful. God has so built you that your brain is constantly running a cost-benefit analysis. God put that in you. He put that in you. You are weighing everything that you see and everything that you're going to do in terms of how much you think you're going to get out of it against how much it's going to cost you to do it. Everybody here is doing it. You're either doing it consciously or you're doing it unconsciously, out of habit, but everybody here is doing it because that's the way God built you. That's not a sin. There's nothing wrong with doing that. You are weighing everything you are doing to see how much it's going to cost you to do it and whether it's going to be a benefit to you to do it or not. Sometimes it's conscious, sometimes it's not. As believers, we are constantly making decisions about whether or not it's worth serving God, whether or not it's worth doing the will of God. You are doing that all the time. Here's what Jesus said. Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter through it, for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. And there are a few who find it. Jesus said that in the Sermon on Mount Matthew, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14. I understand there's a lot of preachers who come that particular passage of Scripture and they mistakenly preach as though Jesus is talking about lost people and being saved. That's not what it's talking about. That is not it at all. Jesus is addressing saved people here, people who claim to be believers, people who claim to be saved. Notice how he followed up in verse 15 with this statement, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. In other words, the context is distinguishing, here's a true believer, here's how you can tell who a true believer is, here's a false believer, and here's how you can tell who a false believer is. The narrow and the wide gate is simply a means of distinguishing between true believers and those who are false believers. The true believer, he says, is going to go through the narrow gate. Why? That's God's way. God's way goes against the world. God's way is going to be harder. Following Jesus is difficult. False believers are always going to take the path of of least resistance. You can look at the world today. You can see that happening today. False believers are going to choose to be accepted by the world rather than be rejected by the world. False believers are going to compromise on the truths of God rather than stand firm on the truths of God. They're going to find the truths of God hard and they're not going to follow that way. That's how you can tell who a false believer is. God's ways are abrasive to the world. God's ways are abrasive to my flesh, to me. To me! You say, you know, if you have ever thought that Christian life is hard, you know what? You're right. You ever had that thought? The Christian life is fraught with toughness. You're not imagining that. It is true. Being a Christian is a hard thing, folks. It is truly difficult. You say, well now, does that mean it's joyless? Does that mean that it's miserable, that it's defeated? No, not at all. The Christian life is just the opposite, just to the contraire. The Christian life is more joyful, fulfilling, I believe, than any other life on the face of the earth. You say, how is that possible? Because we don't measure our joy or happiness or contentment by our circumstances. We don't do that. That's not how we measure it. Here's what the Bible says. And though you may have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of Jesus. What is he saying there? He's saying that our joy is in the Lord, folks. Our joy is in the Lord and our obedience to Him. Our joy is in what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross when He died for our sins and gave us eternal life. That's where our joy is. It's not in this world. It has nothing to do with this world. Our joy is in the Lord. You rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory. That joy that we have in Christ, if you don't have that joy in you, the joy of Christ, the joy of the Lord in your heart, you are not going to do the hard things. Do you understand? You're not going to do the hard things. You're not going to do the difficult things that the Bible calls you to do. Daniel shows us how to do the hard things. We're gonna look at Daniel this morning. Let's turn our attention to Daniel and let's see how this all plays out. Let's start reading in verse 11 again. So reading in verse 11 with me. But Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, and Amishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. and then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the presence of the youths who are eating the king's choice food and deal with your servants according to what you see all right so israel's in babylonian captivity right so they were disobeyed to the lord they didn't follow the lord And they went after the idols. God said, I'm going to punish you by taking you into captivity for 70 years to Babylon. So this is where they are. They're being punished for forsaking Yahweh because of their idolatry. But in the midst of all of this, there were a few who were still true believers, who had not forsaken God. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had chosen to be faithful to God, even though the rest of the nation in a sense, had turned away from the Lord. Listen, God always, always, always, always, always has a remnant. When things are bad, when things look tough, and no matter how filthy and vulgar and evil and depraved our society gets, listen, God always has a remnant. He always has some true believers, and He always has some true churches. We are one of them. I hope that you count yourself as a true believer. I hope that you count this church that you attend here, Central Baptist Church, as a true church. We don't need to be ashamed of saying that we are or claiming to be a true church, even though I know there are many false churches out there who claim to be true churches. You say, well, what's the difference between us and a false church? We know the truth, we defend the truth, and we do not compromise on the truth. That's how you know. That's how you know. Satan has always had his false believers, Satan has always had his false churches, and that's what he uses to create confusion, and that's how he infiltrates the true churches. But we don't need to be discouraged by it. Just realize that ultimately, God is at work. Be alert. The Bible tells us to be alert. Well, let's get back to Daniel. The Bible says that he told his overseers that he did not want to eat the king's food or drink the king's wine. And that didn't sit too well with the overseers because the overseers were on a three-year track to bring these men to Nebuchadnezzar for Nebuchadnezzar's approval. And if their overseers brought these three men before the king and they looked physically weak, it could probably cost him his head. He said that earlier in our text today. You don't put weak, scrawny, sickly, powerless, feeble men into the presence of the king. Why not? Because if you bring weak, scrawny, sickly men into the presence of the king and they're his attendants, that makes the king look weak, scrawny, and physically inept. So you bring healthy men, you bring vibrant men, you bring strong men into his presence. And this is exactly what the overseer needed to do. And if he didn't do it, he would be seen as in contempt of the king's command, and that would surely bring his head on a platter. So Daniel understands the fear that his overseer faces, and it's a legitimate fear. And Daniel is not going to add to this man's anxiety here, so he comes up with a plan. And he says to his overseer, here's what I want you to do. I want you to test this for 10 days. And I want you to put us on a vegetable diet and water. Now, I don't know about you, but that does not sound like a diet I want to be on. At all. At all. That does not appeal to me. At all. Any way, shape, or form. But nonetheless, this is what Daniel says. The Hebrew word here has the idea of anything that's grown from a seed, whether it's a fruit or a vegetable or grain. That's fruit, vegetables, and grain. That was the deal. Now, I'm not saying that fruit, vegetables, and grain taste terrible, okay? I'm sure, you know, they're fine and they taste good. There's nothing wrong with that, you know. But I want more than that. You gotta realize that compared to the other young men out there, they were eating sumptuous food. They were eating all the danities and all the pastries and all the meat and all the roasted things. They had everything available to them as possible to eat at that particular time. And here's old Daniel over here, and he's eating vegetables and drinking water. Did you notice here that no one said, man, let's all do what Daniel's doing. Nobody was jumping on Daniel's bandwagon here to go out here and eat vegetables and drink water because they knew better. Right? It just makes sense. So what Daniel doing here is hard to do. They're not going to follow along. They're not going to do it. They don't want to do it. But this is what Daniel It's a harder route. He gave up the good tasting food. He gave up the food that was pleasurable and that was palatable. He gave all that up to do that which was harder. Why? Because he did not want to dishonor God. He did not want to dishonor God. Do you think that what Daniel was doing here was easy? Listen, listen, he just came out of captivity, folks. Earlier, he was with a large group of captives, and all they got was what people were giving to them. And all of a sudden, you take Daniel out of the ordinary people, out of the regular group of people, out of all the captives out there, you take him out of that, where they could barely survive, where they could barely eat, whatever they got, they got from the mercy of the people. And he's coming from that environment into The King's food! The King's table! Man alive! If I was over here half starving to death, and all of a sudden they brought me into the King's table, I think I would be pretty hungry, and I'd probably be tempted to eat whatever they had out there. But Daniel says, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. It was a great temptation for him to face at this particular time. It was not easy for him to do, folks. This was a difficult thing. Let me tell you something, most of the time, you're not going to like this, but you might as well learn it. Most of the time, what God wants you to do is going to be hard. It's not going to be easy. Most of the time, the right way, the right choice is going to be the most difficult choice. Most of the time in your life, God wants you to do the hard thing. It is contrary to your human nature. Well, you say, why would God pick the uphill path for me? Why would God make the way tough for me? Why the most challenging way? Well, let's look. Let's see. Why would God do it? Well, let's look at the next verse, okay? Let's go on to verse 14. So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days their appearance seemed better, and they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the king's choice food. So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine that they were to drink, and kept giving them vegetables. As for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom, and Daniel even understood all kinds of dreams and visions. And so when the 10 days was over, the Bible tells us that the overseer compares them to the other teenagers and found them to be, the Bible says fatter, okay? But in the context here, what it means is they were healthier, okay? They were healthier than the others who were eating the king's food. And let's just be real honest here, okay? Let's just be real honest. Reality is, from a physiological perspective, ten days is not enough to make a lot of difference in your body. Okay? Let's just be real. Ten days eating vegetables and water is not going to bring a profound difference in the way you look. It's not going to do it. So what are you saying? I'm saying God's at work here. God is at work here. God is working in their bodies to renew their physical appearance. Then notice what the Bible says. He says, the Bible says God gave them knowledge. God gave them knowledge. This is the means. This is the means and the ability to see through the uncertainty and vagueness of the world's philosophy. and apply the truth. This is what he's talking about here when he says he gave them knowledge. He gave them the ability to see through the senseless, jumbled garbage that the world throws out there. Listen, you ever talk to a new ager? You ever talk to somebody who said, oh, I'm spiritual. You ever talk to somebody like that? When I talk to people like that, you know what I see? I see people don't know anything. Their just mouth is moving. And a bunch of words are coming out of their mouth. But they don't mean anything. Whatever they're saying doesn't make any sense. It's just jumble mumble coming out of their mouths. And they think, oh, they're so spiritual. No, no, no, no. There's no truth in what they're saying, folks. They're just mumbling stuff that they've heard before. The Bible says here that Daniel had wisdom. He had the truth to see through what they were saying. Secondly, it says they had understanding of all literature. and wisdom. Look at these four guys. They had read all that men had written. They had read all of the literature and all the poetry and all the books that were available in the Babylonian kingdom and there were a lot. These men studied these books. These men studied their culture. They knew what their culture was thinking and then they would make these insightful comments that just blew people away. You remember when people would talk about the teaching of Jesus Christ, what they would say about the teaching of Jesus Christ? No man ever spoke like this. You remember that? You remember that? How no man, and men said, we've never heard anybody like this. Where did this, some say, where did Jesus get this knowledge? How did he get this knowledge? People were blown away by what Jesus said. They were blown away by it. It's profound. His insights were immeasurable. Well, this is the same way with Daniel and these men. I don't know that they were on the same plane as Solomon, but they were certainly up there with the wisdom of Solomon. But here's what I want you to see. Here's what I want you to understand. Daniel and the rest of these guys studied. They read. They learned. They applied themselves. They worked at it. They labored. And God blessed them. Yes, it says God did this, but I'm telling you that in the background, they were doing the work. They were putting forth the effort. They were making it work out. It wasn't as though God just blessed themselves. Oh, I'm going to pour all this knowledge in them. No, no, no, no, no. They were laboring at learning. And God blessed them. And God blessed them. The Bible says this, in 2 Timothy 2.15, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Now, when I was in seminary 50 years ago, this seems hard to believe, but when I was in seminary 50 years ago, this was the theme verse of the seminary. This was it. In the King James Version, it says be steady to present yourself. approved unto God. Be diligent. The idea is to work at accurately handling the Word of Truth. That's what Paul was telling Timothy. Work at it, Timothy. You have to work and be able to be accurately handling God's work. It takes diligence. It takes study. Knowing what God's Word says does not come easy, folks. It does not come easy. If you want to understand God's Word, you're going to have to put the time into it. But to read it and to study it and to understand it, it's not just going to flow into your mind because I'm a child of God. That's not the way it works. So, where did Daniel get this profound wisdom and understanding? There is an interesting passage of Scripture that you need to look at in Psalm 19. In Psalm 19, you may have it there. Well, you don't have it there in your worship guide because you didn't get a sermon outline today. So you can turn to Psalm 19. You can find Psalm 19. We are going to find something here that God says to us that is applicable to us today, just as much as it was applicable to Daniel, even though the Psalms were written before Daniel. But I want you to look at Psalm 19. I want to show you something. I want to show you where Daniel got his stuff. Okay? Psalm 19. Psalm 19. And we're going to start reading in verse 9. You're going to find this, I think, encouraging. At least I hope you find it encouraging. It was encouraging to me. Because when you realize the power of the Word of God, man, it makes a difference in your life. It makes a difference in life. So we're going to look at the power of the Word of God in Psalm 19. So it says in Psalm 19, beginning in verse 7, Notice the law of the Lord is perfect. He's talking about the Word of God. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are what? True. They are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than fine gold, sweeter also than the honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. So let me review just quickly what is going on here in Psalm 19. The law of the Lord is perfect, folks. You have the Word of God. You have the Word of God in your heart. It's perfect. It's right in every way. He says, "...the testimony is sure making wise the simple." It makes you wise, folks. You're wiser than your teachers, the Bible says. The Word of God makes you wise. The precepts of the Lord are right. What? You want to be right? You want to be right all the time? Then get the Word of God in your heart. You will be right all of the time. Okay? It says, "...the commandment of the Lord is pure." You want to be pure. How are you going to be pure? You're going to have to have the Word of God in your heart. It enlightens your eyes. In other words, it helps you to see beyond the mere flesh of this world in which we live today. It helps you to see through the philosophies of man, through the lies of man. It helps you to see the truths of God as enlightening to the eyes. In the eyes, there's the heart and the mind. Not just the physical eyes, but what's going on inside of your heart. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. You don't have to worry about the Word of God ever failing you. It's always going to be there for you to strengthen you and to keep you. This is the power of the Word of God. The judgments are true. They are righteous all together. This is what Daniel had. This is what Daniel had. This is what you and I have. The Word of God, planted deep in the depths of our hearts, is used to judge everything that we see, and everything that we're hearing, and everything that we are learning. This is the power of the Word of God. Any man, any man, I don't care who he is, when you are armed with the Word of God, you can defeat all the philosophies and ideas of men. No matter how smart they are, no matter how many degrees they have, no matter how esteemed they are, no matter how learned they are, it will defeat them all because it is the Word of God. You have in your hand the very thoughts and the desires and the truths of the infinite God who has created everything. You cannot defeat the mind of an infinite God through finite man. You cannot do it. But you have to work at it. You have to work at it. You have to study it. You have to know it. You have to labor. You have to struggle. You have to get into your heart and your soul. I'm going to lay down a principle for you. You remember what God told Adam after he sinned in the garden. So Adam sins in the garden, God comes to him and he makes his judgment to Adam and Eve. And he goes to Adam and he says this, hey look, from now on you're going to get your bread how? By the sweat of your brow. You're going to eat by the sweat of your brow. That was God's judgment. You say, well, what's the deal with that? We're just going to work hard and eat? No, no, no, no, no. When God said that, He laid down a spiritual principle. It's a metaphor. for how he's going to feed himself, and it is a metaphor for the principle of life. God laid down that principle, that everything that is good and worthwhile, and everything that is important, and everything that is beneficial, and everything that is valuable, is only going to come by one way. Hard. You're going to work. You're going to labor. Because you now live in a sinful world. Did you say everything, preacher? I said everything. That's what I meant. You say, well, why would God do that? Because it's a picture of overcoming evil. Adam now had to deal with evil. He had now to deal with evil, whereas before he did not. God put weeds in the ground, and those weeds in the ground are figurative of sin. And God made it hard for man to live because he wanted us to never forget that there is evil in this world, and the only way that you're going to come evil in this overcoming is through suffering and pain and struggle. The only way, listen to me, the only way you're going to feel any sense of accomplishment and value and fulfillment is to struggle to overcome and to struggle to conquer and to struggle to beat something. That is God-given. The meaning of life is you get up every day and you take another day and you take another stab at moving forward and putting one foot in front of the other. That is why we have night. We have nights to give us time to rejuvenate, to rest, so we can get up the next day with renewed energy and take another run at accomplishing what God wants us to accomplish and what he has set before us. God has given every one of us something to conquer. Everybody in this building has something in your life right now that you need to conquer, something that you need to beat, something that you need to defeat. I don't care if it's sickness, it's childlessness, or weakness, or job failure, or divorce, or a bad habit, you've got something in your life right now that you need to beat. Why? Because when we accomplish something, that is when you feel fulfilled. That's when you feel fulfilled. When you get to the end of the day, and you have used your God-given talents and abilities and strength to do the best that you can do, and you lay your head down on the pillow at the end of the day, you can feel peace and you can feel satisfied. Ecclesiastes says this, the sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much. That's what the Psalm, that's what the Proverbs says. That's what the Proverbs says. Listen, do you know why people feel empty today? You know why people today feel unfulfilled? You know why people today feel like life is vain? That it has nothing for them? They are lazy. No, that's the truth. By lazy, what I mean is they're always looking for the easy way out. By lazy, what I mean is they're looking for the path of least resistance. You know who has the most mental problems today? You're going to find this a little offensive, but it's true. Lazy people. Think about all the people that have mental problems and think about how lazy they are. Think about people always looking for the easy way out. Think about people looking for the path of least resistance. They're the ones who have the most mental problems. Why? Because there is no easy way out and there is no path. But they're looking, and they're looking, and they're looking, and they can't find it. And they have no joy, they have no fulfillment, they have no sense of accomplishment whatsoever in their lives. They're living an empty, vain life because they're always looking for an easy way out. And there is none. They have a mental problem because of that. They don't want to take responsibility. They don't want to do that. People today don't have any resilience. Look, I'm not just pointing at young people in our culture today, but they don't have any strength or determination. They can't solve simple problems. They can't solve simple problems. They can't solve hard problems today. It's difficult for them. They don't have a sense of accomplishment or fulfillment. And so they say, well, life's not worth anything, so I'll just commit suicide, because that's the easy way. I read a little article today that has a little, that has about a suicide, I don't know what you'd call it, cocoon type thing. You just go in there and die. They don't learn anything because learning is difficult and the result is they think everything should be easy and everything should be given to them and we have an entitled society and you have mental issues as a result of that. It's not difficult to understand, folks. It's real easy when you look at the Bible and you see what's going on today. Here's something that nobody wants to tell you, but it is true. God gives you difficulties. God gives you struggles and God gives you hardship. Just the opposite of the health, wealth, gospel that you hear today. Just the opposite. You say, why would God do that? Because you cannot grow. You cannot grow as a person without them. It's only when we have hardships that we develop resilience, and only then do we learn how to have the ability to quickly recover from something which is disappointing. And you're going to have those because of sin. The world is filled with problems and struggles and defeats. And God gave us hardships because he knows that's how we learn to solve hard problems. Let your children solve their own problems. Let your children have hardships. Let them have it. Yes, folks, let them. God knows that when we embrace hard things, it gives us a sense of accomplishment. And there's nothing wrong with a sense of achievement when we accomplish things. It gives meaning to our lives, folks. Hard things help us to learn new things. It's learning new things that keeps us alive and vibrant. All of us love to learn new things because it adds to our lives. Do the hard things. Take the next step that's hard. Refuse to complain, okay? Practice a new skill. Learn a new language. Keep your promises. Limit your social media time and your TV time. Read a book. Be on time. Give genuinely compliments to other people. Look at somebody in the eye. Hard things, simple things, but they're hard today. By today's standards, do those things. Say thank you and mean it sometimes, okay? Do the hard things. The culprit is sin, folks. The culprit is sin. Life is hard because we are in a battle with sin. We are in a war with sin. Just like Daniel was in a war with his culture, we're in a war with our culture today, folks. His culture was overtaken with sin and so was ours. It's not that much different. But the thing that Daniel had that gave him the upper hand was knowing the Word of God. Was knowing the Word of God. Psalm 19, your body and everything in this world is going to do everything it can to get you away from the Word of God, which is going to give you the upper hand in this world. Satan wants you to enter through the white gate. He wants you to take the easy way out, because it is a path to destruction. And you look and look around at the world in which we live today, and that's exactly what you're seeing in this world today. We are on a path to destruction. Our natural bent is towards sin and sinners by nature want the easiest way out. Look at the proof is in the world in which we live today. You can see it. God did the hard thing. He did it for you. He sent his son to die on the cross for your sins because it was too hard for you. He did the impossible thing for you because you couldn't do it. You cannot die for your sins and pay for your sins. God sent Jesus Christ to the cross to do that. The only thing that you can do and that you are going to do if you reject Jesus Christ as your personal Savior is you're going to spend eternity in hell paying for those sins. That is the bottom line. That is the truth. Jesus did the hard thing. He died in your place on the cross to pay for your sins. He did the impossible thing for you. And because it's impossible for you, God said all you have to do to be saved is repent of any idea that you can please Him with anything that you have and put your faith in Jesus Christ alone. And as a sinner, you confess your sins before Him and repent. Turn to Him today before it's too late. If you're without Christ, you are on the road to an eternal hell. I cannot emphasize that enough to you this morning. You are on the road to hell. I'm gonna ask Brother R.D. to come. He's gonna help us with an imitation hymn today. As you reflect upon God's Spirit moving in our services today, and you reflect upon the Word of God today, I pray that you will put your life in His hands and trust Him to do with your life whatever He wants to do with your life. You may say, it's hard. You may, what God is calling me to do is difficult. Listen, God's going to be with you. Paul said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and that is so true. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I'm going to ask that you stand with me, please, as Brother R.D. introduces our hymn, and we're going to pray. 565 Heavenly Father, again we come before Your throne. We thank You so much, Father. We thank You, Father, for the hardships of life. We thank You for the difficulties of life, Father. It causes us to lean on You. It causes us to trust You. It causes us to reflect upon Your power and Your majesty and Your sovereignty in our lives. And it causes us to praise You. When we have difficult things, when we have hard things, when we have things that we don't understand, it causes us to look at you and say, God, you know what? I'm going to give you all of this. I don't understand it. I can't control it. I have no authority over it, but you do, and I'm going to trust you with my life. I'm going to trust you with everything that I have. I'm going to believe that you are good, that you are righteous, and that you're true, and that you're going to arm me to meet this world in which I live today, this culture in which I live today, with the truths of the Word of God, because they're right, and they're righteous, and they're good, and they're forever. Help us not to be ashamed of applying the truths of God to our daily decisions, Father, and to trust You. You are a mighty God. You will not fail us. Your promises are not going to fail us either. Jesus is coming back. We're looking forward to that. We understand that truth is that He is going to set up a new kingdom that's going to reign forever and forever. We're going to be part of that kingdom. New earth, new heavens. We're going to be part of it. But God, there's work to be done on this earth right now. And there may be someone in this building who needs to be saved from hell. Father, I pray that You'll convict them of their sin, help them to understand that they are absolutely empty when it comes to being able to offer You anything for their salvation. And they'll put their faith in Jesus Christ. But fill us up with Your Spirit as believers. Help us to go forward, put one foot into the other, and march forward in this world with the banner of Jesus Christ before us. In His name we pray, Amen.