Amen. Thank you, gentlemen. Take your Bibles and join me in turning to Daniel chapter 3. If you turn to Deuteronomy, that would be a mistake. I don't have a message prepared from Deuteronomy today. Daniel chapter number three, after the service today, the ensemble will head out to New Testament Baptist Church in Kenston, North Carolina and have a youth rally there. And then we'll head on to Elizabeth City for services on Sunday and then head back and hopefully be home late on Sunday night. So I hope you'll pray for the ensemble as they help kids throw around rubber chickens and find gummy worms in tubs of pudding. It'll be a fun time. And I'll tell you, I go to youth meetings now and I say, thank the Lord I am not a teenager anymore. I ate enough baby food during my teenage years to just make me... I thought, how could I stand that when I was a child, when I was an infant, much less? It just tastes horrible. Except for maybe some of the fruit items you could get down. I remember one particular youth meeting I was in, my prayer was, Lord, help me to get the fruit one. That was what I wanted. I didn't want the spinach or the peas or any of that. But anyway, we'll have the youth meeting tomorrow and be preparing for that tonight. When we come to this time of the year to break, you always have mixed emotions. Part of it is like, man, it'll be nice to get a break. Another part of you says, well, we'll be ready for the students to come back. And that's the way we feel. And I'm praying that you'll have a great break and that God will use you. He used you to be a blessing to people that you wouldn't otherwise be able to being here on campus. As God puts you in different places, God will have you to rub shoulders with various people, to be witnesses. I pray that when you come back that you'll have some memories, some memorable things of how God has put you in a specific person's life at a specific time to help them in a specific way. And so I hope that you'll be soul conscious over the break. Daniel chapter 3 verse number 14 is where we begin reading this morning. Daniel chapter 3 verse number 14. The Bible says, Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now some of you say, why did you read it that way? Do you honestly think he said it flat with no passion at all? I mean, at least I believe he was upset at this. Verse 15, now if you be ready that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, fluke, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image which I have made. Well, but if you worship not, You shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" It's pretty arrogant, isn't it? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O King." Now, when you consider what the king just said, that was a mouthful, wasn't it? That wasn't passive. It was standing their ground, and they said, you know what? This God that you don't believe in is the very God that's going to deliver us out of your hand. And so then in verse 18, but if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou set up. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury. And the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Therefore, he spake and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was want to be heated. And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the middle of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore, because the king's commandment was urgent and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men which took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down into the midst of the burning fiery furnace." Have you noticed how many times we've read thus far and you see those names repeated over and over again? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. If I kept talking to you and telling you the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in every other verse, I kept repeating them, you'd look at me and you'd say, Brother Bill, I know who's in the story. But I think that's God's way of emblazoning in your minds three men of conviction. Three names that you ought not forget. In verse 24, the Nebuchadnezzar The king was astonished and rose up in haste and spake and said unto his counselors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? And they answered and said unto the king, True, O king. And he answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt. And the form of the fourth is like the son of God. I want to ask you a question as you depart for break. Who or what do you fear? You have a phobia, something that you're scared of. In modern day medicine, the word phobia carries a largely negative connotation. It's defined as this, a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger opposed, often being recognized as irrational. Some of you this morning say, that is me. I was looking through a list of phobias, and it was a list as long as from Dan to Beersheba, so I won't give you all the phobias. We're scared of everything. I read about the fear of washing or bathing. Ablutophobia. Some of you say my roommate has ablutophobia. We did have one in college my freshman year that I think suffered from that. It's a shame. It took me 20 years, though, to diagnose it. a blue to phobia, fear of bathing and washing. You say, how foolish is that? You know, another phobia that's described is one that's now get this, a fear of flowers. Anthrophobia is what it's called. A fear of flowers. Imagine taking your gal for a stroll through the nicest botanical garden and she crumples in fear. How foolish is that? We would say now, let me say if I list a fear of yours, it's here. I'm really not trying to cast off. The truth is, all of us would look at other fears and say those are ridiculous. You know, there's some of you that are horribly scared of spiders. And you say those things, I just do not like being around, and some people play off of your fears, unfortunately, a fear of thunder and lightning. Brontophobia is what it's called. I know of some dogs with brontophobia. I've been in houses where lightning would flash and the thunder would roar and dogs would immediately just crawl under the closest piece of furniture and wince and moan just like they were a little puppy. Another fear that I had somebody that I traveled with that had a fear of hair. Shadophobia, it's a fear of hair. Anytime we traveled and we went into a bathroom, he would scout the bathroom out and he would make sure that it was devoid of hair. I had a fear of hair. Another fear is a fear of dentists. Some people have a fear of dentists. I can attest I have a little bit of a fear of a dentist. A dentophobia it's called. You know, another fear that is there is called pyrophobia. a fear of fire. I'll never forget when one of our children was very young, I thought to my wife, I said, let's go out, let's go to a Japanese restaurant. I think that he would really like to see this show. I always did. I enjoyed sitting there, and the man would come out, and he would look with that smile, and he would spray stuff all over the grill. He'd take a match and light it, and all of a sudden, all this fire... He would take an onion, he would cut it up a certain way, make it into a volcano, and he would put his little whatever in there. I hope it was healthy. I ate it anyway. And he would light it, and this fire would come out, and we would all go, ooh and ah. Well, listen, that's great when your children are 5 and 10 and 15 years old, but don't do it to a 2-year-old. I remember sitting there with delight. I thought, man, I'm going to get to eat a lot. This is going to be a little bit of a show. The man nods at us. He puts everything on the grill. He lights it, and in that very moment, my two-year-old son became superhuman. I mean, all of a sudden, with massive amounts of strength, he is diving through my legs. He is trying to push everything aside and get away. I'll never forget that look in his eyes. I didn't take any delight. It was as a parent. I said, I have made a mistake. Now, since then, that fear of fire, unfortunately, has disappeared and they no longer are fearful of it. But I want to talk to you this morning as you head out about a fear that's very healthy and beneficial, it's called the fear of God. What is it that kept these men from a horrible mistake? What is it that caused these men to suffer a consequence that the world would say was very unfortunate, but yet they had a pure and a clean conscience? What was it? It was the fear of God. It was the fear of God that caused them to step into the rejection of men and to step into harm's way. And I ask you as you leave, who is it that you fear? The Bible is very, very outspoken about the importance of the fear of God. Deuteronomy 10 and verse number 12, And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul? Now, there are some people, they get smart when you get to the Old Testament, and they say, well, it's like it doesn't apply to us. That was written to Israel. And I believe it was written to Israel, but I'm going to tell you, those things won't hurt us to do them as well. Those are the very same people that may take lightly the holiness of God as explained in Leviticus, and yet they deny what 1 Peter says. As a New Testament reinforcement of what the book of Leviticus says. I encourage you young people, listen, I am a dispensationalist, and if I ever turn from being one, Brother Childs would haunt me and he would beat me till I was black and blue because he taught me better. But when I read what God told the nation of Israel, about fearing Him and walking in His ways and to love Him and to serve the Lord thy God. Hey, it's okay for you to claim that verse and say, that's the way I want to be. Psalm 111, verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Proverbs 8.13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Proverbs 10.27, the fear of the Lord prolongeth days. Proverbs 14.27, the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. Proverbs 23.17, let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. Here, if you want to learn about the fear of God, this book will tell you about it. It's one thing for us to hear about the fear of God, but it's another thing for us to live in it. And I want to show you this morning that, listen, what you fear will determine what you do. What you fear will determine what you do. You understand that if you fear your friends more than God, you'll please the crowd rather than your heavenly audience. You understand if you're living for self-convenience and you're fearing maybe consequences rather than fearing the God who controls those consequences, you're going to make a grave mistake. There's some people that don't get right with God because they fear the consequences more than they fear God. And I can tell you from personal experience, I've had to take some bumps on the head because I've had to get right with God and those consequences were not easy, but I'd whole lot rather endure those consequences with a clean conscience than to have no bumps in the way in my conscience be dirty before God. So what is it that motivated these men to be great? It wasn't their charisma. It wasn't their grade point average. Why do we know the names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego today aside from the fact that it's written in the book of Daniel over and over and over and over again? It's because these three men displayed something that is very badly needed in our day and time. It's called conviction. It's because these men believed in their God and they were willing to stand. And when they were tested, they stood through it. Truth is, we're tested every day of our lives, but there'll be some tests that will arrive your way this next week. And what you really believe and your convictions will be revealed. And so I want us to see some simple things. I told the fellas this morning, I said, don't you just sing one verse of that song because we're trying to get out of chapel quickly, you know? And so they did sing three in keeping with traditional custom. But the first thing I want you to see this morning is the command. That's given by Nebuchadnezzar. He's very strong and he's already been refuted in these people, these Oh, what do you call them? These people beforehand that came to him, they ended up giving and telling. They were tattlers. They came up and they said, Oh, King, oh, you wanted this to happen, but these fellows, they didn't do it. And so now they are called on the carpet before Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar, he applies a tremendous amount of pressure to these fellows. He asks them. He said, do you not serve my gods or worship the golden image which I have set up? And then in his next verse, he really puts down the clamps. And if you don't do it, this is going to happen to you. Can you imagine that kind of pressure? I don't think there's a person in this room that we have ever had the pressure to where somebody was going to take our lives if we didn't do what was right. I don't know now if that's you and you've stood the test. Listen to me, I'm very happy that you've stood that test. But these guys were put to the point of physical death. They had an immense amount of pressure that was applied by this command. And young people, understand this, the world will always challenge your beliefs as a Christian. The world will always do what the devil did back in the garden. Yea, hath God said. The devil will always question and the devil will always push. And listen to me, if we walk off this campus and we think that we're not going to be pressed by the world, we're foolish. Some of you, as you go back to circumstances that you lived in coming before you came to school, places where you'll go and you'll have freedoms and liberties that are not wrong in and of themselves, but you mark it down, there's going to be pressure and the Nebuchadnezzars of this world will command for you to bow. And I just say be ready for it. But I want us to quickly move off of that. I think we all know that there are pressures in life, whether they're moral, whether they're mental, which the world cries for us to bow. That's the message that Hollywood preaches. The world preaches, hey, bow to the God of popularity, bow to the God of riches, bow to the God of fame. But the people that bow to those gods are not any more happier than anyone else when it's all said and done. But I want us to move quickly. I want us to see the conviction of these men. Conviction is a bad word in politics and also, I'm afraid, in Christian circles. We live in a day and time when convictions are minimalized. People say, well, you know, only major doctrine is important. And I'll tell you what that mentality has gotten us, young people. It has gotten the acceptance of social drinking in Christian circles amongst some independent Baptist churches. Now, I understand that even among our faculty, there are things, as we read them, you ask certain questions, and maybe we're not all necessarily on the same page. And some of you students, you come, you say, what do you mean, Brother Bill? And some of you know. You may ask somebody, when did the church start? And of course, nobody says the Old Testament. If they did, they wouldn't be teaching here. But you know, sometimes there's a different nuance. Sometimes, well, what do you think this passage means? What do you think this passage means? There are certain situations that not everybody is identical. And these faculty members, they have a maturity and they have a godliness about it in which to handle it. But when you get in your dorm discussions and you get there, you pull out the swords and go at each other. I understand that there are things that people argue and they bicker about and they say is not important. But we live in a day and time where there are things that are important that people are explaining away. One of them being the doctrine of separation. It was a battle that was fought back in the 1940s and even earlier in the Northern Baptist Convention in which people said, we're not going to yoke up with unbelievers. We're not going to have them in our platforms and our services. And we're seeing history repeat itself. We're seeing an influx of the world that is ushered into our churches in which worldly means and worldly methodology, which is declared neutral by some, is still the world regardless of how they declare it. And my prayer is that God would raise up a generation in this school that would formulate convictions from the Bible and that you would stand on them There was an evangelist years ago, many years ago, I think it was Mel Trotter, but I may be wrong. He was saved out of a lifestyle of alcoholism and debauchery, and whenever he would walk down the street, if there was a bar on the side that he was walking down, he would cross the road, walk on the other side until he passed it, and then go back on the other side. Now, some people would laugh at a man like that, and they would say, you know what, I'll tell you, I just think that guy's a legalist. You know what I say to the person that says that with a smirk on his face? I'll say, you know what, when your life was ruined by alcohol, you probably be careful too. Young people don't fall into that trap. You take a man like that who maybe is very sensitive about a situation, I'll tell you what, I believe he's a man of conviction. I believe that he's a man that he understands the propensity of his own flesh, and he says, nobody's going to drag me that way. I'll take a man over conviction any day of the week over somebody that just gives everything a pass. I want to ask you this morning, are you a young man, are you a young lady of conviction? There's some of you young men here that are physically strong, but when it comes to spiritually standing, you're weak. I want to encourage you to do something. Be just as concerned about your spiritual fitness as your physical fitness. There are some of you young ladies, listen, while you are to be meek and mild, hey, there's nothing wrong with a lady being a lady of conviction, learning to say no and learning to say yes to the things that need to be said. These men, it was undoubtedly true that they were men of conviction. I mean, in verse number 17, he says, If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King. They had a firm belief and they didn't hesitate. They said this is something that we are not going to do. I want to ask you, do you have convictions in your life? When I came to college, I didn't have all my convictions down. Had a lot of things that I was taught. I was taught by my church that I eventually, in time, came to embrace as I studied the Scriptures, as I embraced them for myself. And all of you ought to be going through that process. All of you ought to be going through that process. But are you developing convictions or are you just wasting time? I'm telling you, there's a world that's challenging you right now, and it's going to only get worse. But if you'll have that, you'll have the convictions of a Shadrach and a Meshach and an Abednego. Listen, you'll have no regret. But here's where I'd like to dwell on the last bit of time that we have. I want you to see the consequences of their conviction. Verse number 19, then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury. You ever had a roommate full of fury? Listen, when you greet your neighbor with a loud voice in the morning, you will see some full of fury. Here these men, they took a stand and when they took a stand, guess what? They made somebody mad. There's some people, they enjoy making people mad. They get a rise out of that. But if you're here and your idea of the Christian life is to never offend anyone, you'll never stand for God. There's some people, they just offend everybody. I'm not talking about unnecessary offense. But we're living in a day and time where, listen, your world view has to be shaped by the Scriptures. And listen, the world is going to come knocking on your door about everything from same-sex marriage to you name it, as this world continues to drift. And my question is, are you going to accommodate or are you going to stand on the Bible? But I guarantee you this. When you take a stand, I don't care how loving you take it. And you say this type of behavior is wrong. You're going to make somebody mad. Let me back up and say something about the convictions that I mentioned, I believe convictions not only pertain to doctrine, I believe convictions pertain to behavior. You know, we talk about immorality. Listen, that's behavior. I understand that, you know, we can say doctrine and behavior have their connections. And I'm certainly not against that thesis. But when it's said and done, there's some people, they talk about having convictions on doctrine and they have no convictions whatsoever about behavior. Certain behaviors that are forbidden in the Bible, certain behaviors that are very clearly wrong. And I want to ask you, do you have those convictions about your behavior? You have any convictions about dating? courting. Finding him or her, whatever you want to call it. You have any convictions about that? Hey, you have any convictions about about the way that you dress, do you have any convictions about the material that you view in your entertainment? Listen, you better come to some conclusions and you see the consequences. Hey, when you stand for right, some people are going to be upset with you. That's why if we live our lives as people pleasers, we won't be God pleasers. This interesting story is told in Exodus chapter 1. Pharaoh looked around, he said, there are way too many Israelite kids around here, so we're going to fix that. We're going to kill all of the Israelite men and children. So the Bible tells us in Exodus 1 verse 17, But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men and children alive. Now these are women. Hey, some of you women, you should say, hey, that's pretty good. You know what, you can be a female in this room and you can be a young lady of conviction and it wouldn't hurt our guys a bit to be pressured by some young ladies. And when I mean by being pressured, I don't mean by you nagging them, but just being by example saying, you know what, I'm going to be a young lady of conviction. I don't mind that kind of heat being applied to these fellows at all. And these ladies stood up and they said, we don't care if it means dying, we're not going to kill these children. And by the way, I'm glad there are people in the medical profession today that still have that conviction. So what happened to them? What's next? What's the next chapter of the story? You say they were all beheaded. Well, listen to what the Bible says in Exodus 121. And it came to pass because the midwives feared God that He made them houses. You know what God did? God rewarded them for their staying. But you've got to face the anger first. You've got to be willing to face the human consequences before you experience that blessing from God. Somebody says, how did He make them houses? I don't know. If He said, let there be light, and there was light, He could say, two bedroom, two bath, three chair at garage, right there, bam, and it happens. I don't know how He rewarded them, but I know this, that He did. And young people, I'm telling you, when you stand against temptation because of viable conviction, God will reward you too. Now, it's very interesting that here you see in the deliverance of these fellows, how they're delivered. Let me tell you, they were delivered in two ways, and I believe many people are not cognizant of the most important way. We commonly think about the physical way. We understand they were thrown into the fiery furnace, and Nebuchadnezzar looks in and he says, wow, there's not three in there, there's four. And that's an entire different story and sermon in and of itself. But the physical deliverance of those boys was not the greatest thing. You know, besides their bodies being delivered, let me tell you the most important thing, their conscience was delivered. You say, how do you know that? Well, look at their response. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O King. But then He says, but if not, Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods." Their stand was not dependent on what God was going to do. Their stand was dependent upon principle and whether God let them be perishing in the fire or God deliver them from the fire in a miraculous way. Either way, they were going to be out of Nebuchadnezzar's hair, so to speak. You see, when it comes to standing on conviction, young people, we leave the results to God. We just do right. And if you deliver your conscience, that's the greatest deliverance. So many times we pray for the physical deliverance. But a lot better for you to sit in the midst of a fire with your conscience being delivered than in a life of ease and have a dirty conscience. But you know how this happens? How do you stand like a Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego? You just get a weird Babylonian name and that transforms you, right? You know, being raised in public school, I came to class and I learned, a brother child's taught me, he said, you know, their real names were not Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He said, Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael. I was like, what? That's why you need to sit in the classroom and you need to read the book of Daniel and Revelation over and over again, just like your teacher tells you, because you don't know it all. But here they had a change in name, but their character and their allegiance to God was the same. How do you get character like that? You get character like that when you prioritize and you love God and his word more than anything else. That's how it happens. It's not by a pill. It's not by some 20 step spiritual growth process that you do these past these tests and it's over with. Sometimes I look around and I wonder, Lord, where the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego's of our day. You see, these guys sought the deliverance of their consciences over the deliverance of their bodies. But you know what else they declared to the world in that act? They said, God is the most important person in my life. Sometimes you don't need to say anything, it's just obvious. You know, when you see a young lady crying. It's probably not a good thing to say, are you crying? It's pretty obvious. Something is not right. And you know, guys cry too. They just don't do it in public. You know, if you see a guy and he is wincing in pain, it's pretty obvious. Well, when you look at the acts of these guys that are being thrown into a fiery furnace, it's an act that preaches to the entire world, God means more to me than anything else. And our acts, what do they preach? Our acts reveal our convictions. What is important to us? What is a strongly held belief? I believe also that in these fellows lives, they preached another sermon. It preached a sermon that, hey, God ought to be the most important person in your life too. When they see here Jehovah as He undergirds His servants, how does that happen? It happens by standing on conviction. Instead of fearing the wrath of man, instead of fearing the consequences of man, realize that you have one to please, whether it's a break, or a summer break, or it's the rest of your college career. Later on, you see in verse 30 that the king promoted them. Now, if you'd have talked to them back in verse 17, after they'd just gotten chewed out by Nebuchadnezzar, you ever been chewed out by your parents? You ever been chewed out by somebody and you're like, whoa, that's not the time. You usually say, well, that's okay, you're going to promote me. I remember one time, Dwight Smith and I, we were in a mall, we were passing out gospel tracts, and we were witnessing, and Dwight had come up with a very interesting way of witnessing. He went up to the biker and he said, hey, he said, sir, it was a guy who was a motorcyclist, and he said, hey, he said, are you good with directions? And the guy was like, yeah, I guess so. He said, try me. He said, where would you like to go? And Dwight said, heaven. And the guy said, if you don't leave me alone, I'm going to send you there. I'll never forget that. And in wisdom, we walked away. Nebuchadnezzar, at that point, you'd think Nebuchadnezzar would like to promote them to heaven. That's what he's got on his mind. But these young men stood true and they disregarded the consequences, the ridicule. Listen to me. Hey, there are some of you, you're in an age bracket right now that while we all have peers that discourage us otherwise, listen, some of you have influences, you know, that will ridicule you for the way that you're going. I talked to a young man who was a student. He was telling me while he was here that he had coaches that would constantly text him and they would say, what in the world are you doing at a Bible college? They wanted him on a football field, they wanted him on a basketball court. You have those pulls, you have those draws. But instead of fearing those things, you've got to fear God. You know, this isn't some great profound truth that I've explained to you this morning where you say, wow, I've never heard that before. But I'm telling you, living is a lot better when you stand on conviction when and when you don't. How is it that young people drop out of school and fall into an immoral relationship when they bow to the flesh rather than God? How is it? that people totally miss God's calling in their lives and live miserably. It's because they choose to bow to whatever God has distracted them rather than the God of heaven. You know, what in the world, what in the world would cause three decent men to be hurled into some of the hottest flames ever created by man? Most time when a guy wants to throw himself in the fire, you'd say he's foolish. Well, here's the difference. These guys weren't want to throw themselves in the fire, but this other man wanted to throw them in the fire. And the reason they did it was not out of foolishness, but out of faith. And I believe with all of my heart that the devil wants to throw some of you in the fire. But you're going to have to determine. Whether you're going to live being controlled by conviction or convenience. You know, this next week, I want you to look this way and I'm going to close in prayer this next week. will not so much develop your convictions as much as reveal them. I can't give you a last minute injection. I can't say, T.J., come here after service, let me give you a shot in the arm. Listen, I'm talking about things that have to be developed in your life over time and study and a walk with God. You can't just walk loosely the first half of this semester and expect to be a man of conviction at spring break. So keep these things in mind. Beware of the enemy. And if you'll be a man and woman of conviction. You too can be right beside of people like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. While they would not bow their knee to Nebuchadnezzar and his God, they bowed their knee and their hearts to the God of heaven. And if you'll do that, you'll have a good break. Once you join me in standing, let's bow our heads together. In a moment, I want Brother Scoble to lead us in, Oh, Jesus, I have promised. It's a little bit of a different song, but I appreciate the words. Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. In a moment, I'm going to pray. Some of you right now, you know that there's going to be things that are very directly going to test you. Are you going to be a man or woman of conviction? Some of you right now, you say, I know that I'm going to make other people mad. You're not the first one and you won't be the last one. My prayer is that you will be a man. And a woman of conviction of Bible conviction. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Lord. I thank you for these students. What a blessing it's been to see how you've worked in their lives. Lord, thank you for those that came with a chip on their shoulder. And Lord, now they have a humility. Lord, I thank you for those that came and just had no clue of what to do. And Lord, maybe even a disposition of not even wanting to do your will. And Lord, now their hearts are tender. Lord, the work is not done. My life or theirs. I pray that as we've just glanced at the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I pray, Lord, that you'll help our young people. Lord, our faculty and our staff, help us all to be people of conviction. Help us to stand strong in doctrine. Lord, help us to stand strong in holiness and that, Father, we would please you. Help us to avoid the trap of fearing the wrath of man more than you. And Lord, help us to be more concerned about pleasing you than the consequences that it may bring by disobeying or Lord, by running from those influences that are pressuring us like the world. You know the specific needs in this room. God, I pray that you would give safety. Lord, I pray that you would give spiritual reinforcement. And that God, this would be a break of victory. in the lives of every person in this room. We ask these things in Christ's name.