As I began to prepare for tonight's message, I had a very special visit with the Lord. And he said, you have gone too fast in the book of Daniel. You have not emphasized what made possible all the great prophetic interpretations that Daniel made, you needed to stop and emphasize. And unless those who hear and the one who is speaking, unless you get this great truth of what made all of the book of Daniel possible, you have missed the point. Would you listen carefully? It's not exciting. It's just plain common God speaking to people. So we'll begin with verse 1 of Daniel 1. And we're going to look at this carefully. If you leave here bored, it's because you did not allow the Holy Spirit. to teach you the word of God. All scripture is inspired. Begins very, very unexciting in verse one. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, who was Jehoiakim? Joachim was the king of the two tribes, Benjamin and Judah. Remember the great problem that when Solomon died, the nation split. 10 tribes moved to the north. Benjamin and Judah remained in charge of Jerusalem. It's important to remember that this split brought about a woman named Jezebel becoming the real leader of the 10 tribes that broke away. She had her own foreign preachers brought in. And believe me, she took care of them, whatever those preachers needed. And there were many of them. She saw that they received it so she could control them. Now this King of Israel, he is not of God. Then came Nebuchadnezzar. Now, we're introduced to him for the first time. He is the son of the king of Babylon at the time that verse one begins. I cannot tell you how God chose to use this man. He was as evil as hell itself. But God said, I'm going to use this man in spite of all that he's not. And no matter how evil he is, I'm going to use him. And before I'm through with him, and that'll be a few lessons ahead, I'm going to turn him to be my man. in my place." Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, his father died, and so he takes the first group of captives back from Israel to Babylon. And why did he do this? And this is important. You see, he looked over his kingdom. And he saw that the people who made up his native kingdom of Babylon, they were not, if I might use a slang word, they were not up to snuff and he knew it. He needed some people. that could help him rule the greatest nation that had ever existed on the face of the earth. And so he goes to Israel and he knows something about the Jews. He knows that they teach their children a very, very strong a very strong ethic, work ethic, and knowing how to be the kind of citizens they should be, he says, I need some of these people to help me rule Babylon. Because the people I have, they haven't really got it. It proves to be true. And that's why he's willing to kill every one of them if it were not for Daniel. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, the king of the south, king of Judah, into his hands. He said, okay, he's your prisoner. Jehoiakim, the king that should have been the king of God, had gone so far away from God that God gave him over to an ungodly person. People, be careful because you'll either be God's man, God's woman, God's boy, God's girl, or God Almighty and He's sovereign. We're not playing with some old man upstairs that's lost his mind and he just stepped on the throne twiddling his thumbs. He's God and he'll always be God. And we better have respect and we better know who we're dealing with when we deal with almighty God. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. And he also allowed him take part of the vessels of the house of God. Now these were the vessels that were in the Holy of Holies. These were the vessels that were used to symbolize the things that symbolized Jesus, the coming Messiah, the one who would die on the cross and pay for our sins and be resurrected. and become our great high priest. Now we do not come upon these vessels again until after the destruction of the power structure of Babylon. You remember when the writing on the wall? Well, they were drinking and making fun of and dedicating these vessels to false gods. And God wrote on the wall, thou art found in the balance, thou hast been weighed in the balances and found wanting. We don't hear about these vessels anymore until a long time in the book of Daniel. which he carried to the land of Shinar, and he took them to the house of his God. His God was not the God of gods, it was a false god. He worshipped that which he believed he could control. Don't you ever believe, though you are admonished and I am, thank God, to come boldly to the throne of grace. But in your prayers, you don't go in prayer telling God what to do, you go asking him what he wants you to do. I repeat, if your prayers are giving instructions To almighty God of what you want, you're praying a very damnable blasphemous prayer. And the example of that is set by Jesus. It's okay. It's okay. God doesn't mind. If you say, if it could be this way, Lord, I'd appreciate it. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. Every prayer that ever gets higher than the ceiling says not my will, God Almighty, but thy will be done. And I can tell you without being boastful, after 55 years, of trying to preach the word of God, it works when you say to God, not my will, but thy will be done. And the king spake, now this would be Nebuchadnezzar, the king spake to Ashpenaw, the master of the eunuchs. Nebuchadnezzar had a group of men around him as advisors, but they, he had to make sure that they could not have any sons, so they were emasculated. Might use a more common word, castrated. And therefore, because what would happen many times, a person would be in the cabinet of the king and they would become so very good at being what they are, they could assassinate the king and become king themselves or at least make their sons. So, and then there are other reasons that I'll not get into. This man has been emasculated and he is a 100% lapdog of King Nebuchadnezzar. That he should bring certain of the children of Israel of the king's seed. and of the princes. He said, I want you to carefully look over the men, the young men, the teenagers. We believe that Daniel was about 15 years old and his three companions and they were jerked out of their loving Jewish homes and they were taken captive to Babylon. And the Bible doesn't go into all of the heartache and pain and sorrow. These, Daniel could have said, and his three friends, I'm not gonna serve God anymore. What kind of God would take us out of our home, our beautiful Jewish home, and take us to a foreign land? What kind of God is that? I'll not serve him. They didn't do that. Don't you do it either. No matter what happens, no matter what happens, don't you ever accuse God of being wrong. God is right. And don't you ever even think about causing yourself to doubt Romans 8, 28. You know how it says it. And we know. Do we? That all things work together for good to them that love God. You gotta love God. To them who are the call according to his purpose. You see, Daniel is going to be willing to fulfill the purpose of God. But this King Nebuchadnezzar was no fool. He said, I want you to find the seed of the most brilliant men in Israel and I want you to take their teenage boys and we're going to take them to Babylon and we're going to train them to become Chaldeans. Children in whom was no blemish, they could not have anything physically wrong with them. They were to be examined and these they would take, they could not have anything wrong with them. Children with no blemish, they had to be physically in good shape, but well-favored. That is, they were definitely gifted. They were tested to see if they had ability to be able to be trained and skillful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and understanding science. This is the only time that the word science is translated that word in the Old Testament. It's translated once in the New Testament. What it means is searching out the mysteries of knowledge, finding the secret things that make the difference in your life, enrich your life. And he said, I want you to find these young people in Israel who will be able, we'll be able to teach them. Now, he doesn't know what we're going to find out before we stop the message. He didn't know that they had already been trained. And whatever the Babylonians taught, They'd know when it was right or wrong and what was wrong, they just would not do it. And we're going to find out. And such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. They had to learn how to speak the Chaldean language, which was Aramaic. And they had to be able to be taught and to learn the ways of Babylon. And the king appointed them a day, and here's the key now. Here's the key. I won't hold you long, so listen carefully. And the king, that's King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed them a daily portion of the king's meat or the king's food. These captives that I'm taking away from Israel are to eat what the king eats and drink what the king drinks. So nourish them three years, make them eat and be taught three long years and then bring them before me. that at the end thereof they might stand before the king. The king one day, three years later, was going to test them to see which ones he wanted to become his subjects. right-hand men because he had a bunch of young people who had grew up in Babylon, spoiled and rotten, and they hadn't studied. They were lazy. They had a bad education system. He needed some real brains, just like America needs some good brains. Just for a moment, please, bear with me. Can you believe that a man could jump over the fence at the White House, run all the way across the grounds? The dogs are all hooked up and can't get out and touch him. He, the door's unlocked. And you women don't think this, I'm not putting you down. They had a woman there watching the door. And this man was stronger than she was and he wrestled her down and got all the way into the East room and almost to the Green room of the White House. What in the, where are the brains for God's sake? Where are the brains in Shawnee? And for God's sake, give us some brains here at Liberty. Pray for this preacher. that he'll have enough sense to get it out of the rain. Praise God. Now, among these, there was Daniel and his three companions. under whom the prince of the eunuchs gave the names. They always, the Babylonians would change the names of the people they captured so they could begin to assimilate them into the Babylonian captivity citizenship. And so they gave them Babylonian names. And now here's the key to the whole book of Daniel and all the things he was able to accomplish for God. He lived probably to be about 81 years old. And he lived through the Babylonian captivity and he lived to the time of Cyrus in the Medo-Persian dominion of the world. But Daniel purposed in his heart. He made a decision in his heart that could not be changed. And Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore, he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now this puts this man, the prince of the eunuchs in a bad position. Now God had brought, I love this. Now God had brought Daniel favor and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs. And the prince of the Eunuch said to Daniel, I fear the Lord, I fear the king, King Nebuchadnezzar, who has appointed you the meat and the drink, for why should he see your face worse than the children which are of your sort? See, the other Jewish children are gonna eat what the king was eating and drink what the king, but not these four. Then said Daniel to the prince of the eunuchs, prove thy servants, I beseech thee for 10 days, let them give us the pulse or actually if you translate that from the Hebrew, let us have vegetables and water. for 10 days, let us just have vegetables and water to eat and drink the water. And then let our countenance be looked upon before thee. Look at us after we've done that 10 days. And the countenance of the children that ate the portion of the king's meat And as you see, deal with thy servants. Look at us after 10 days. I've purposed in my heart. So he consented to them in this matter and proved them 10 days. At the end of 10 days, their countenance appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat." And for three years, Daniel and his three companions ate only vegetables and water. And when they appear before the king, they are promoted to the highest positions except for Nebuchadnezzar himself. How did that happen? He purposed in his heart. As I was coming in here this evening, I thought, who will I see in the assembly of God? And I thought, you know what? They purposed in their heart to assemble themselves together. Do you know that when you assemble in the assembly of God, you're doing one of the most holy things that a person can do? The Bible says it this way, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. And when you get here, the preacher better feed you, and you better have some fellowship with Almighty God. Remember, Daniel purposed in his heart. Ask God, for the rest of your life, what should be the main purpose for you to be alive? Father, thank you for a sweet time together. In Jesus' name, as we stand to sing, the invitation is open as the Holy Spirit leads you. We're gonna offer up the song Speak to My Heart, and we're just gonna offer up the chorus of that song. Speak to my heart, oh speak to my heart, speak to my heart I pray. Speak to my heart, oh speak to my heart, speak to my heart I pray. Yielded and still, Oh, speak to my heart today. Speak to my heart, Lord Jesus. Speak that my soul may hear. Lord Jesus, calm every doubt and fear. Speak to my heart. Oh, speak to my heart. Speak to my heart. Thank you for the anointing, Lord. Thank you, Father. Anoint us all in Jesus' name. Thank you, Father. Oh, thank you for the anointing, Father God. Thank you, Father. Amen. When a person comes and submits to being anointed, according to James, the fifth chapter, they have done what God commanded them or purposed them to do. Now, it's God's business to take the anointing and do with it what he has chose to do. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Lord. And Danny will be down here. We're going out to see Max. What? I thought someone was saying something to me. Just remember, I've got tremendous ears. Don't y'all up even in the balcony, whisper. There might be a little hyperbole there, but that's all right. If you don't know what that means, look it up in the dictionary. Danny, dismiss us, please.