A Tough-minded Teenager - Part 1

What you doing tonight, Moses, Joseph, David.

Throughout the Bible and been throughout history. Go voice has a way of raising up the white person today on tuning. Jeremiah continues his series and the handwriting on by sharing outgoing white youth when the wound pleaded.

An example of today's message teenager and thank you for joining us today.

This is to report it a bit of Jeremiah and we are right now today beginning of extended study verse by verse to the book of Daniel, today's lesson tough-minded teenager reminds me of many of the stories that I heard as a young boy growing up in Sunday school.

There was a little song we used to sing, I remember. It's called Dare to be a Daniel and that Daniel is one of the great profiles of the Old Testament is one of the great characters of the Old Testament. He's a man about whom there is no record of evil he he he walked with God and where ever he went. He rose to the top didn't matter what situation he was anywhere what kingdom he was under something about this young man was he was a man of integrity and God used him not only to change his world to change our world as well and study his early life today as we open the book of Daniel and take a look at the first aid versus if you have your Bible, Find Your Pl. in Daniel chapter 1 and were going to meet Daniel the teenager nature reading from chapter 1 verses one through eight in the third year of the reign of Joya Kim, King of Judah came that you could measure King of Babylon to Jerusalem and besieged it when we read in our Bibles as we so often do the first few phrases of the introductory statements, like the statement that we have just read from Daniel.

It is so easy for us to just read the phrase and then try to get onto the meat of the chapter, but all the meaning of the instruction that is behind the first verse of Daniel one ladies and gentlemen, the fall of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel in its beginning stages is signaled by this verse.

How tragic and unnecessary it was for Judah to fall Judah God's people. God's chosen ones carried away to a foreign land subjugated to a foreign power there made to be in the land that was not their own away from God's place in their life in many ways, and over a period of many days. God had warned them that this day would surely come if they did not repent. He had warned the people of the southern kingdom that he would judge them for their sin's warnings were not heeded.

Then one day his judgment came and went and brought his armies from babbling and march them toward Jerusalem and begin the siege that is mentioned in the first verse God's hand of judgment had begun to fall upon the people of that life. It was so unnecessary for God had told them in so many ways and over. So many days that they could repent, and his judgment would be staying. First of all, he warned them by just punishment of the northern kingdom. You know, I'm sure as you study the Old Testament that at the end of the reign of Solomon because of his sin. God kingdom away from him and broke it in half and he gave 10 tribes to the northern kingdom and to tribes to the southern kingdom, and the ruler in the northern kingdom was a man by the name of Jeroboam. He was a wicked man, an evil man who led the people of the kingdom into idolatry. He revived the worship of the golden calves from the days of Moses placed one in Dammam the other. He placed in Bethel because the people of the northern kingdom. The people of Israel, the people of Samaria to fall down and worship those golden images and idolatry and God's anger began to boil and he prophesied judgment upon the northern kingdom and he was true to his warning according to Isaiah chapter 10 in verse five, he raised up a serious because Assyria in Isaiah 10 five.

The rod of his anger and God raised up the evil nation of Assyria used Assyria to come down upon them open kingdom squash it. Wipe it out into Amalgamated's people for cover into the Assyrian Empire, never to be heard of again. That was it just a little ways down the road just a few miles down the way was the kingdom of Judah and the southern kingdom and they saw what God was doing and they watched it and they had heard the prophecies of God against the kingdom. I may have assimilated all that into their thinking, and they heard and understood it, and so judgment came. You would've thought the people of Judah would have gone down to their knees and ask God for forgiveness and repented and settled God.

We ask for your forgiveness less this fall upon us, but they did not. The punishment of the kingdom have no effect on them whatsoever except to drive them deeper into their sin, but God warned him not only by the punishment of the kingdom warned them also by the preaching of the prophets hundred and 50 years before verse one of our chapter. There was a man by the name of Isaiah, who stood to preach, and prophesied judgment to come. A very interesting story in the Old Testament is the context of the prophecy has a Kyle who was then King of Judah invited some friends from babbling to his kingdom.

And while they were there. He decided that he would show off all of the treasuries of his house and so he opened up all the treasuries and showed him all gold and silver in the precious stones told how Richie was one day. Isaiah the prophet came in to see is a kind.

He said Hezekiah there were some folks are from babbling were 30 said yes there were and he said what did you show them in Hezekiah's and I show them everything. I let him see the whole thing and Isaiah said all right about prophesy something to you and these are the words of Isaiah the prophet recorded Isaiah 30 957. Listen carefully. Behold, the days, but all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to babbling and nothing shall be left, saith the Lord, and of thy sons that shall issue from the whom thou shalt beget, they shall be taken away and shall be listened. Now they shall be tunics. The palace of babbling. Isaiah 30 9527 and it's repeated in second Kings 2017 through 19.

Notice now hundred and 50 years before verses one through eight of this chapter. Isaiah the prophet said babbling is going to come and take you away in your chief sons will be eunuchs in the palace of the king and you would've thought that when that preaching was heard and when they understood the significance of it and how pointed it was and how specific it was that Judah would have repented.

But they did not and Mica, the prophet came along and he added his prophecy in Micah 410 and they would not listen and they did not hear and then just be for the end came, God in his mercy, and in his love for his people raised up a whole new prophet by the name of Jeremiah, who was a contemporary of Daniels as the overlap in the Jeremiah prophesied the very same faith against Judah in Jeremiah 25, eight through 11, and in many other passages Jeremiah the prophet, went up and down the land, prophesy that judgment would fall on Judah if she did not repent and turn from her evil ways and come back to God and you would've thought that Judah would have listened and repented and heard the words of Jeremiah and turn from mercy and not for a long time. The threat of judgment hung over Judah are true prophets had repeated it again and again, only to be ignored this very captivity had been foretold, the very thing that is recorded in chapter 1 verse one had been prophesied for almost 200 years to the people of Judah. God had warned him and would not listen. In fact, their attitude toward God's prophecy is very much like the attitude of the people in those days they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and not until the flood came and took them all. That's the way it was in Judah. When the prophets prophesied in God warned them of the judgment to come, that one day, when God had had his fill and he had extended the land in mercy as long as he could and when he had striven with man as long as God can strive with man said in his heart that is enough. I will not put up with this anymore, and Habakkuk the prophet tells it this way, God raised up that bitter and hasty nation called babbling and the Bible says in Habakkuk 112 that God ordained babbling for judgment, and establish them for correction is an uncommon thing, as you see it in history. The Babylonian Empire just sort of sprang up overnight. It was sort of like a meteor that came on the scene immediately and then God used babbling to bring judgment upon his people. For 70 years and if you study history will notice how exciting it is to see how God views that Babylonian Empire after the 70 years captivity that God had prophesied against his people. Judah at the end of that 70 years when it was all over Cyrus the Persian came on the scene in the Babylonian Empire went down just as quickly as it did, as you study it on the scene as you watch it in history.

It's almost like God.

So I babbling. I need you 70 years to punish my raise them up and when he was done gone.

It was all God kept his promise and brought judgment to the land I will say just by way of passing but it is not an unthinkable thing that that very same scenario could happen to us.

You read the book of Habakkuk, my friend, and you'll discover that that profit wrestled with that. In that book and his question was how could God do such a wicked nation to punish his own people but God didn't with Assyria, and God did it with babbling and if God chooses to do it. He will do it if we don't get on our knees and repent before him and get back what we ought to be.

As a country and as a land, then the Scripture says that on the throne in Jerusalem was a man by the name of Jehoiada, Kim.

There never was a man more wicked as it relates to the word of God. That was the king of Judah.

When God came upon that land joy Kim was born into the family of the godly King Josiah. If ever there was a man who had the right to be godly to have the right to stand before God in his kingship was joy. Kim. But though he lived through the great revival that was presided over by Josiah the king and reached over by Jeremiah the prophet joy. Kim was a wicked man. An interesting illustration to prove that as it relates to God's warnings against Judah. While joy Kim was on the throne while he was God's king in Judah and after Messer had, and laid siege to the city.

Joy Kim was left in charge of that city by many could measure taken hostages back to babbling and joy. Kim was asked to function as Messer's Viceroy and take care of Jerusalem, but joy Kim got excited about the opportunity to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar and when he heard that the Egyptians were in the area.

He decided that he would form an alliance with the Egyptians and together they would put all Nebuchadnezzar down and God's prophet Jeremiah came to him one day and he said joy. Kim don't you do that you under judgment babbling is your leader right now and don't you make any alliances with wicked Egypt, but joy Kim would listen. In fact he got so mad at Jeremiah the prophet for preaching that message to them that one day he set out had enough you Jeremiah. I can't stand, listen, you preach anymore.

He stuck them in prison you would let them come to the temple he would let them talk to God's people. He stuck them in the cell he said that's it. That'll shut the guy up here it was judgment preaching anymore, but he underestimated Jeremiah yet a good name to start with Jeremiah one day writing up in the court palace and ask for secretary, a fellow by the name of Marie Panisse at Brueggemann boundaries. I got some dictation and so group set down his cell and Jeremiah dictated the same prophecy that even preaching in the temple and in front of joy Kim. He wrote it all down in the scroll he said will take this up and see that the king gets it and so we did describe and describe side when you read this prophecy. What would happen to him if he made an alliance with Egypt and I pick up my reading about this in the 36th chapter of the book of Jeremiah was now scroll, and he put it, before joy to many joy. Kim sat in the winter house in the ninth month and there was a fire in the hearth burning before him and it came to pass, when Joe and I read three or four columns of that which Jeremiah dictated that joy Kim cut it with the penknife and he cast it into the fire that was on the hearth until the scroll was consumed in the fire. He took God's word from the prophet Jeremiah and when he didn't like what it said. He took out his knife and cut it all up in strips any fire until it was all in the Scripture says, and the Lord gave joy. Kim into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. I want to tell you something. That's the most fearful passage I've read in my life, but a man who claims to be a man of God would take the word of God and cut it up and shredded up and throw it in the fire but as I thought upon that thought men and women.

It is not any more fearful than what goes on in many of the pulpits of our land were men who claim to be men of God. Take this book and with the penknife of higher criticism, chop it up and cut it up and what they don't like me throwing the fire and what they can't believe because it supernaturally put it away and they come in for their people with a super naturalized Bible that has no power and they stand as a man of God behind the sacred desk as if they were representative of God and one of these days.

The Scripture says that there will be a Nebuchadnezzar who will come upon that man.

I would rather stand before God and face any kind of judgment in the stand before him as a preacher of the gospel and have to answer for having cut up the word of God before my people and not preached as the inherent authoritative inspired word of God.

That's where joy Kim was in his life he was away from God and he had rejected the word of God, and he had done despite the God's truth and the Scripture says that joy Kim was king in the palace and Nebuchadnezzar came down from babbling and he sees the city now don't understand what's happening in this book, you have to understand that there were three different deportations from Judah in 606 Nebuchadnezzar and his people came and he proceeds the city and he was going to take the city joy. Kim was on the throne. Nebuchadnezzar and his people came and Alyssa, while you have the city surrounded and, while he had it under control.

He got word from babbling that his father died and he couldn't let that go. We had to go back and take care of that deal with the affairs of state.

So we did an interesting thing. He left all joy Kim on the phone he had recognized him as a worthless melody would never cause many problems and in order to assure the loyalty of the people of Judah, took some hostages with him back to babbling and those hostages were Daniel and Hannah and I and Michelle and Azariah, and about 70 others. Many times we read this book. We don't realize that they were just only for there were many of them that went those before we know about those hostages back to the city so that he could keep Judah subjugated to his authority and the Scripture says in the first verses that along with the hostages. He also took some holy thing. He went into the temple of God, Judah, the holy things out of the temple and the Scripture says that he took those holy things back to babbling and he put them in the temple of his God and when we get to the fifth chapter of Daniel we see those holy things being used in a drunken sought Belshazzar's grandson was involved is interesting to note that even like the people of babbling thought that when they conquer the people if they could get the holy things out of their temple and take them back to their own culture that was proof positive that the God of the people they conquered was worthless, I mean if you can walk right into the holy place and take all of the utensils of worship their God wasn't worth anything and so that's why they didn't. They wanted to demonstrate to the people they conquered into those would help them conquer those people that the God of the conquered was not sufficiently strong enough to save them from conquest.

The only problem with that is that he could measure in his foolish thinking thought that God settled all his accounts every Friday and God does not do that God settles his accounts when he feels like it, and when the time comes in someday and one day all accounts are so so now the Scripture tells us that Medicaid measures decided that he will bring hostages and holy things back to babbling and we get into the text that I want you to notice with me to three things. First of all I want you to notice the criteria for the selection of the hostages.

That's interesting to me. I want to notice what the text says.

First of all, it was a physical criteria it says here that these men were to be used verse four to bring you home was no blemish. Now the word youth in Hebrew is the word knowledge emits a word which means a young person is usually used to describe a man from the age of 14 to 17 name somebody new is mature enough to be taken from home but young enough to be educated into new patterns of thought and Plato stated that among the Persians, the education of such young man began at the age of 14, that's very interesting just to put down in your notes that when Daniel was carted off the babbling, as one of the princes that was to be subjugated in the kingdom. He was probably 14 years of age just a young boy and the Scripture says that the physical requirements of these young men was that they were to be number one man without blemish. That does not mean those six young people. That's not what is talking about. It means that they were without flaw. It means that they didn't have any handicap and that it says not only no blemish, but they were to be, well, you know that means that means they were to be good-looking and well-built strong good-looking. Without blemish, young man, I need a specimen of a strong healthy young man that was the physical requirement.

Now notice also had some mental requirement three of they were to be skillful in all that means that have a high IQ number two they were to be given in New Orleans. Literally, the text says no knowledge. It means that they'd already learned a whole lot of information appeared they had known a lot they had studied a lot in high IQ and they have a lot of and then thirdly they were to be understanding science doesn't mean good in science like in the course of science. What it means able to put facts together it means to be a fast learner. Now notice what Nebuchadnezzar wanted from these boys that he brought his hostages was that they would be absolutely perfect physical specimens good-looking strong healthy young man and I had to be a man who had a high IQ that already learned a lot and were capable of amassing information quick categories that they were looking at the two categories that the world makes so much out of today. Good looks and brains you know in the world marketplace today. That's all most people really care about. If you good-looking or smart, you got it made. That's where you get your warm fuzzy's in school good-looking or smart.

It's unfortunate that the people of the world haven't been tuned into the fact that God sees another dimension to us beside those two dimensions will find out more about that tomorrow, as we conclude our discussion of Daniel, the tough minded teenager Friday. This will spark a memory if you know the book of Daniel is called the courage to say no and will be here tomorrow joining for more information on your mind series.

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