Minority Report #5 - God’s Unmistakable Hand
Message Description
Teaching Pastor Dr. Terry Thomas continues the message series "Minority Report" teaching from the Old Testament book of Daniel to instruct us to find comfort in God's continued control over history and the present day.
Message Transcript
It's good to be here this morning with you. Hey, were you a little surprised, Joe playing the accordion today? Pretty nice, huh? He said he'll be playing the bagpipes next week, so if you want to come that'll be good. Good to see everybody here. I got to tell you, when I was asked to speak on Valentine's Day, I thought I was going to get to do a talk about love. But no, complex, and crazy Daniel five, okay. Still, it is Valentine's Day. I see you got your pink on for Valentine's Day. Very nice, very nice. I wore my Valentine's Day sweater. How does it look? Do you think pretty good? Oh yeah, it's not bad. Yeah. You know, I was in class in this week because when you're the teacher you can do whatever you like.
There was a student sitting in the front and I said, "Hey, you got a date for Valentine's Day?" She was like, "No." I said, "Oh, that's too bad. What kind of a guy are you looking for? What do you want in a relationship from a guy?" This is what she said, she said, "I'm looking to be content." I thought to myself, content? What kind of a Valentine wishes that, to be content? I said, "Are you sure you don't want a little 'wow'? How about that in a relationship? A little 'woo-wow'?" She was like, "Yeah, I guess that would be all right." I looked at the guys in the class and I said, "Avoid this woman right here. I'll tell you right now."
Yeah, and then I told her, "Listen, I've been married for a long time, 40-something years, and the other day I was asking my wife, I said 'Honey, what do you want for Valentine's Day?' She looked at me with the sweetest face, she looked at me and she said, 'Terry, I want you to take my breath away.'" So, I bought her a treadmill. No, I did not. That's a joke, okay. I was telling this joke the other day where she said, "Take my breath away," and I hesitated like I did there. This guy I was telling it to, he said, "So, did you put a pillow on her head?" I said, "What kind of... You're sick. Come on, man."
Well, I hope you have a good Valentine's Day. We're going to have an interesting time here this morning. There's no question about that whatsoever. We're going to talk about the book of Daniel, particularly chapters five, seven and eight as we're going through the book of Daniel in this study. We're calling it "The Minority Report". It is the Minority Report. You'll see that I think as we go through. Let me give you two helpful things, because here's the deal, the book of Daniel is a little confusing, I'll give you that. It's a little confusing.
First off, it was originally written in two different languages: the beginning of it in Hebrew, and then the end in Hebrew, and the middle in Aramaic, and you wonder why is that the case, and what does that mean and so forth. It's not in chronological order. The things that happen and the stuff that they talk about, you can't sort of... It's not a pattern that this happened and that happened. It's out of order. It has all kind of apocalyptic metaphorical language in it though. When you read it, you're like, "Whoa, what is that?" If that's not enough, the names of the people are really hard to pronounce. We know it's about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but did you ever see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's Jewish names? Whoa, try to pronounce those three times real fast.
I thought what I'd do is I'd give you two things that might help you to get a little perspective, a little bigger picture on this would help you put it in context. The first one is this one here, it'll be an easy thing for you to do. There's a website, it's called BibleProject.com. You can look on your phone or on your computer. This BibleProject.com has a nice little eight- or nine-minute sort of... They draw it with pictures to give you the idea of how the book is kind of put together and how things are connected. Very helpful. I think if you've got 10 minutes and you're not going to read the whole book of Daniel, go ahead and look at this and it'll give you an idea of what it's about.
The other thing I thought I'd do is I'd sort of kind of show you a little picture of how some of these things are actually connected that we're going to talk about here today. To do that, I'm going to start with this: what happens is... a little background. Daniel is a Jew and they're living up in the Jerusalem area, in Judea up there. The prophets have been coming to the people quite regularly for quite a long time telling them they've got to shape up, they've got to live more faithfully, they've got to trust God, they've got to believe the promises that he's made for them. They've got to be concerned about doing this well. They seem totally unconcerned with it. So, the prophets keep telling them, "Hey, you don't do this, God. There's the blessing and there's also the curse. Keep this up and here's what God will do; he'll ship you out of here."
By the way, the northern Kingdom of Israel had decided not to follow God, and as a result the Assyrians, years earlier, had scattered those people, had come in and scattered those people. Now the word was, Babylon was coming and was going to take them into exile for 70 years. That's exactly what happened. Eventually the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, came up and he completely routed Jerusalem and took everything out, destroyed the temple. He exiled people. By the way, he didn't take everybody. He took the brightest, the wealthiest, the most well educated, the people that had the best... People like you. He took you people, and he took them back down to Babylon with him because that would add to his glory to have the best and the brightest be down there.
Daniel and his buddies were among those people, and so that's how they got down there. They were going to be down there for at least 70 years to start with. So, they get down there and they're just regular guys. They're trying to be faithful still, even though this is an alien... They're the Minority Report, remember. They're the Minority Report in a world that has a different way of looking at things, a whole different worldview that dominates their understanding and things. Anyway, along comes this King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. The dream is weird, and he can't figure it out. His diviners, these guys must have been losers, his advisors and such. They couldn't figure it out either. So, somebody says, "Hey, we heard there's a Jew who he knows how to do this kind of stuff. He knows how to interpret dreams and stuff."
So, Nebuchadnezzar, "Get him." He comes in and he says to him, "Okay, here's my dream. I had a dream. I saw a statute. It had a gold head, it had a silver breastplate, it had bronze waist and legs, and it had clay feet. A stone came down and fell on it and crushed it, and then the stone turned into a stone into a giant mountain." Well, that's perfectly clear what that's about. So as a result, here's what he had to tell him. He said to him, "Listen, this isn't me, this is the divine word of God revealed to you because God wants you to know that he's the one in control, not you. In the future here's what's going to happen, something's going to come. It's going to destroy you, and it's going to lead to another kingdom, and it'll destroy it, and another kingdom and destroy it, and the final kingdom it'll destroy it. Then that thing will turn into a giant mountain."
Well, the king, I don't know if that's good news or bad news, or just maybe he was just glad to have somebody finally tell him what he thought it meant. He was like, "Okay, thanks. You're a good guy. Take care of this guy." But the king didn't change. He only got the news that somehow the future was going to be such that he was going... The king has another dream. In this dream here, he finds himself out in the wilderness. He's acting like an animal. He's walking on all fours. He's eating grass. This is an upsetting dream. So, he calls Daniel back, "Well, what's going on here?" He says to him, "Look, here's what's going to happen. It's the unmistakable hand of God that rules history and the individual lives of people. He's the sovereign Lord of all Creation. He not only called the world into being. He controls the world moment by moment. It's not like somehow you're sitting on the Throne of Life, and just because you think you're all that, you get to determine what goes on."
He didn't say it quite that way. That was my own interpretation. Anyway, he says, "You know what this dream's about? This dream is about that God is going to put you in your place. He's going to show you that you're not all that. He's going to drive you crazy. Then your insanity, you're going to be stripped, because it's God that gives sovereignty to people, not people who make it for themselves. You aren't the master of the universe controlling your own fate." He says, "So what God's going to do is he's going to take us away from you and it'll drive you crazy. You're going to go out and you're going to act like an animal. But then you know what he's going to do? He's going to be merciful to you and he's going to reveal himself again for who he is, and you'll be restored." You'll be restored.
That's exactly what happens. Nebuchadnezzar is deposed. He finds himself out in the wilderness eating grass literally it says with animals. Eventually though, he comes to his senses and he says God gave him a heart. You know how it was evidenced that God gave him the heart? He wasn't the proud guy that thought he was the center of the universe anymore. He came back and God restored him to his position of power and Nebuchadnezzar confessed that it was this God, the God that Daniel had revealed a dream from, that was the true God sovereign over all things, and that his kingdom was the kingdom that would never pass away, not his. Well, we don't hear much about Nebuchadnezzar after that. Eventually, he dies a little bit later.
He has a successor who some translations call him "The Son". I think it's because he took over the control of it, but I think it was actually his grandson, who his name is Belshazzar. Belshazzar is the next guy, okay? What happens during Belshazzar's run is we get a vision and then these other visions of the seven and eight actually are ones that happened back before Belshazzar comes in, chapters seven and eight, actually come before Belshazzar gets to power in chapter five. These two visions that were a little early were sealed up. They didn't get to see right at first. Here's what they're about. Ready to hear this?
The one is about four beasts. The first beast is a lion, but it has the wings of an eagle. The wings are torn off and it stands up on its back feet and it's given the heart of a man. The second beast is a bear that's laying on one side and it's got three ribs in its mouth, and it's encouraged to go ahead and feast itself on everything that there is. The third one is a leopard that has three heads and four wings and seems to destroy the other beasts easily by simply sort of flying over them. The fourth one is unlike any beast, but it has iron teeth, and it is so devastating, it crushes all that it sees, and it particularly attacks the people of God and their ways, and it ends up with a final kind of what's called the "Abomination of Desolation" against the people of God. It has little horns that comes out of its head, 10 horns, and then one horn seems to have a mouth and some eyes, and it's the evilest of all of them. It does unbelievably terrible things.
But you know what, it's destroyed. But not by humans, but by God. Then the other one is about two animals that fight. The first one is one that seems to conquer all things. It's a ram that has two horns. The other one is a goat that has one horn. Really what these things are, the two horns are the Medo Persian Empire, which was the one that overthrew Babylon, and the other one is the Greek Empire that overthrew the Medo Persian Empire. The one that was the one that the 10 horns, or the thing that was abominable, that's the Roman Empire. By the way you might say, "Well Terry, how do you know that?" Because in the Bible, he interprets the dream, and he tells us what they are. An angel tells Daniel, "This is what it is. Write these things down. Seal them up."
Maybe they're out of sequence because they weren't open to everybody else. Maybe some parts are written in Hebrew and some are written in Aramaic, which was the language of the day that everybody could understand. There was a language that Daniel and his buddies had to learn how to read and write when they went to Babylon because it was the world language. They had been stuck in the Hebrew's words. Whatever the reason is, you see what's happening. The four kingdoms that are in the statute, they are the four beasts that align with the four kingdoms and then there are these two others, the goat, and the sheep, that are really about the two middle ones that are about Medo Persia and Greece. You might say, "Well thank goodness we got that out of the way."
Well, here's the point though, the point is that this is predictive prophesy. This is God saying, "You want me to show you that I am the controller? I have the world in my hand. That I make people's lives and I take people's lives? That I'm the ultimate one? I'll tell you what's going to happen, and it'll happen." Daniel wrote these things about the Medo Persian Empire and about the Greek Empire, and about the Roman Empire hundreds of years before some of these things happened. So, what you have is, you have a great argument to be able to say, "God has the worldness, and he can prove it. He can show that that's the case." By the way, just as a little side point here, if you know the future don't you think that would influence the way you would live right now?
Don't you think your ability to know the future would determine, give meaning to the things that you do, direction to the things that you do today if you knew what the future was? Wouldn't it? As I was preparing for this, I came across a story about an avalanche that happened out in Peru in 1962 on an old volcano that had been dormant for a long, long time. It had a gigantic glacier on top of it. 22,000 feet, the mountain with the glacier on top of it. In 1962, one day a chunk of the glacier fell off the front towards the ocean. They estimated it was about the size of two skyscrapers, a mere six million pounds of ice. It rolled down the valley, and there were a bunch of villages and little towns and so forth that were there. It rolled over all those people in that valley and it killed 4,000 people.
Because this happened, some geologists decided they ought to go up and take a look at the mountain and see what the issue was with it, and so forth. So, they go up and they get up to the top, they look around and they do their tests, they do their readings, and so forth. They come back down, and they say, "Listen, that mountain is going to do it again. There's going to be another avalanche here, and it could be much worse than the one before this. What we ought to do is we ought to move the people out of the way." One of the things the capital of a particular providence was in that area, they said "We got to move that. Also, it could be done." And so forth. You know what the government said? No. They said, "No, don't tell people about this. It'll cause a panic."
Can you imagine that? The government telling people not to tell us something because it might cause a panic. They said, "No, we're not going to tell them about that." They were like, "But wait a minute, people need to know this because it's a dangerous situation of what the future holds -" they were like, "No, it would be too expensive. It would be costly. It would be panic. We wouldn't be evidenced of being in control of things." Whatever all the reasons were, but they decided to suppress the information about this next fissure in the glacier. The guys said, "I'm sorry, we got to tell people." They were like, "No," and they put them in jail. They put the geologists in jail. They told them, "If you tell anybody, you'll never get out of jail."
So, after a while, they promised that they wouldn't tell anybody, and they let them out of jail, and they left. And they didn't tell anybody. Eight years later in 1970, a larger chunk of the mountain fell off. It moved at what they estimate 200 miles an hour down into the valley and all the way to the ocean almost, where it was. It rolled over cities and farms, and people, and towns and so forth. The devastation covered they estimated 40,000 acres. It killed 70,000 people, some of which bodies ended up in the Pacific Ocean. 800,000 people were left homeless. 40 feet of ice and debris and so forth in the early parts of it. Now let me ask you this, don't you think if you knew that was coming, you'd want to know? Wouldn't you want to know the future and its influence of things?
I was wondering this the other day; would you like to know when you're going to die? Well, you know, if you knew when you were going to die maybe you would reprioritize some things for you in your life. It might tell you what's really important and not so important. It might tell you how you might want to spend your time, your money, who you might want to be with, or talk to, or see, or what kind of relationships... I think you would have a big difference in the right now if you knew what the future was. Here's the point, the point is that Daniel shows up when this handwriting on the wall thing happens. The handwriting on the wall is a result of this, our buddy Belteshazzar, who's not a king of Babylon, he's having a party and it's a wild party. Thousands of people there.
They emphasize two things: drunkenness and concubines. So, you can imagine what kind of party this was. They were going, "Wow." They were having a great time. You know what they were celebrating? That they were it. They were what it was all about. They were the center of things. They had it happening. You know what they were doing? They were just being prideful about who they were. You know what pride's like? I got a little story about what pride is. Listen to this. It says a freshly minted Lieutenant wanted to impress the First Private to enter his new office. He pretended to be on the phone with the General so that the Private would know that he was really somebody.
"Yes, sir General. You can count on me." He said as he banged the receiver down. Then he asked the Private, "Now what are you here for?" The Private said, "Well, I'm here to connect your phone." Yeah, you know on one level, maybe people who are really proud know they aren't all that, but they try to convince themselves they are. They try to convince other people that they are. They live in accordance with the way that they think things ought to be. The Majority Report, not the Minority Report. The Minority Report was he was present, and so as a result when this handwriting on the wall. This threw them all off. So, he calls in his advisors and everything to say what it is. When he calls in his advisor, get this, it's in Aramaic and they could all read Aramaic, and yet they don't know what it says.
I'll tell you what it says, it means this: "Your days have been counted. You've been found on the scales wanting, and now you're going to be torn up. You're going to be divided." People knew what those words meant. Here's the deal, I think the advisors were like this, "Are you telling the king that? Are you telling him that his days are numbered, and you're not all that?" By the way, this is how proud the king was, as they were having that party, you know the people that were going to conquer them, the Medo Persian Empire people? Guess where they were? Outside the gates of the city.
But you know what, that city was... Oh man, it was the greatest thing ever. It couldn't be broken. It had a 60-foot-thick wall. Who's going to get through that? The wall was 60 miles around the territory. They had food enough to be able to keep for a siege for two years. They were celebrating how safe and secure, and how smart they were. Oh hey, and if you wanted to take a rest from the party, you get a little sober or whatever, you wander out and you can look at the Hanging Gardens. Beautiful place. Spectacular. How could this place of splendor and wealth, and great knowledge and the center of world...? "We are it, so much so that if somebody's to oppose us, well we're the Majority Report. Nobody's going to ever overcome us."
By the way, those Medes and Persians were pretty smart critters. You know what they did? They went up the Euphrates River and they redirected it to a swamp. So as a result, where the Euphrates normally went through the wall into the City of Babylon, it turned into a tunnel and they went through the tunnel. So much for smart alecks, huh? Yeah, and so as a result here's what happens, while this is going on, he's so proud that he's having a party celebrating how great he is. It's not good enough though to just be so great. You know what, you got to rub into the face of other people too. He says, "Hey, somebody go down and get those goblets that Nebuchadnezzar got out of the temple up there in Israel and bring them down. We'll drink in those. We won't just drink in them; we'll use them to celebrate our gods. We'll rub in their face, 'Hey we're number one. Bob, the God of Donuts, he's our man.'"
Yeah, I mean this was just sort of rubbing in their face at this point. Rubbing it in God's face particularly. So, what happens? The handwriting comes on the wall. None of the advisors seem to be able to figure out what it says. So, there's a word that gets out from the queen, "Go get that Daniel guy. Remember, he can do stuff." Okay, Daniel comes in. You know what the king says to him? "Listen man, interpret this saying. Tell me what it says. I'll give you robes and a gold chain, and a position of power." You know what Daniel says to him? "You can keep it." Because Daniel knew the story. He knew the heart of it. He knew it was about promise and patience. That's what life was about for these guys, the promises that God made and patience. They weren't proud. They didn't try to become the center of the universe. They knew who the center of the universe was: The Ancient of Days, the true God, the Sovereign God.
Here's what Daniel decides to do, he'll tell him what he says, but before he tells him what it says, he's going to preach at him a little bit. Listen to what he says, this is in chapter five. He says to him, "The highest God gave their father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness, and glory and splendor. He gave him a high position and control over all these other nations in every language. People dreaded and feared him. When the king wanted to put somebody to death, he put them to death. When he wanted to spare them, he spared them. If he wanted to promote them, he'd promote them. When he wanted them to be humble, he humbled them. When his heart became arrogant and it hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven away from the people, and he has the mind of an animal. He ate with the wild donkeys and ate grass, and the dew fell on him," and so forth.
"Until he acknowledges the highest God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes. But you, his son," now he's talking to Belteshazzar a little bit, "You have not humbled yourself, even though you knew all this." Even though you knew all this. "Instead, you've set yourself against the Lord of Heaven. You got the goblets from the temple and you brought him. You had your nobles and wives, and concubines drink the wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, and bronze," and blah, blah, blah, "But you didn't honor God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. So, he sent you this inscription on the wall." He says, "You want me to tell you what it says? Your days have been counted. You've been found wanting. It's time to get divided. It's time to get ripped up."
You know what Belteshazzar does? "Hey, give the guy the robes and a thing, the chain," he just keeps on going even though he knows the future. He just keeps ongoing. Can you believe that? You'd think if you knew the future you would change your way, wouldn't you? You'd think it would have an influence on the way that you would live your life. Apparently, not here. By the way, your days are numbered. Apparently, the day was down today one with Belteshazzar, because that night the Medo Persians killed him. That night, the stone hit the first part of the statue and the golden head fell off. That night, the bear that had the thing in his teeth began to devour the kingdom and become the next kingdom to take control. That night, the ram with two horns from chapter eight, it pushed its way in and began to stomple... Stomple, is that a word? Stomp on all the things that were a part of the pride of Babylon.
It wasn't over with that. More was going to happen. The Medo Persians, they were a little different. They acted a little differently. They let some of God's people go back to Israel and so forth, but they were still pretty prideful people, and they were headed for destruction. It was just a matter of time before the Greeks would come. When the Greeks came, it went down to the next piece of the statue and the leopard would come in and the ram with the single horn representing Alexander the Great would come in and they would destroy them and move on and keep on going. You know, there's a passage in chapter seven where it's talking about this. This is after they've talked about the various beasts and so forth.
It says this, verse 11, "Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking," this was that horn of that fourth beast. It says, "I kept looking until the beast was slain, and his body was destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. The other beasts had been stripped of their authority and were allowed to live, but only for a short period of time. In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was one like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of Heaven. He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence, and he was given authority and glory, and sovereign power. All people of nations and men of every language worshiped him, and his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and it will not pass away. His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."
This is the first time in the Old Testament that we get a really, really clear reference to Jesus coming as being that rock that's going to destroy those earthly... And set up a kingdom and it's never going to pass away. You might say, "Well, how do you know that?" Well because Jesus chose among titles to give himself in the New Testament the title, The Son of Man. Jesus never called himself the Messiah. He never called himself the Savior. He never called himself the Christ. When he talked about himself, he called himself the Son of Man. This is the first place where that notion is mentioned in the Bible, in this picture of world history leading up to Rome and the desolation of abomination that was going to happen as a result.
By the way, you know what the desolation of abomination was? That the Roman Empire tried to kill the Son of God. Now, that's the ultimate pride right there, that you think you can shut up and kill and put to death God himself, and yet that was what the attempt was. And yet here's what he says, "You know what I thought of after all these things got put down because God's the sovereign, I saw the Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven." By the way, that phrase "The clouds" just in case to be clear, the phrase "The cloud of Heaven" is used exclusively about God appearing in situations in the rest of the Old Testament, like in Deuteronomy 33 when God comes, he comes with the clouds of Heaven.
So, it's clear that Jesus is explained as being a being who is God. He's not just a human being who comes to be an earthly king, he's the God-king. He's fully human and fully divine, and he comes to usher in the Kingdom of God that's going to be final. By the way, in case you don't think it meant that he was the God-king, when Jesus used it when he talked about himself as the Son of Man, he meant it to be referencing to the fact that he was God. Realize that in this passage right here, this Son of Man, guess what, he's given sovereign power. Nobody's got sovereign power except God. So, if the Son of Man has sovereign power, that means he is God.
So once again, we see a second way in which... right in this passage, the Son of Man is equated with being the Son of God, God himself who comes present. Not only that, but it also says this, "And people worship him." The Bible doesn't talk about any man ever getting worshiped as being a good thing. He gets worshiped because he is God. So later on, as he's about to be crucified, as that abomination is about to take place and he's before the Jewish Tribunal and they say to him, "Are you the Christ?" He says, "I am." Then he says, "But you'll see. The Son of Man will descend with the clouds of Heaven and he'll be worshiped." Immediately, the High Priest was like, "Don't need any more evidence. Kill him. That's blasphemy."
That's the exclusive title that Jesus uses, he's the Son of Man. In the presence of them, he shows up in this sense, for predicting of the future about what God's going to do, how he's going to be in control. He's going to set up a kingdom that'll never pass away. These other ones were all going to pass away. They were all just temporary. By the way, my predicting the future is clear and accurate about every one of them, including this last one about the Son of Man, who's going to set up his kingdom. That stone that breaks the final thing, that turns into a great mountain, he's the rock. He's the one at who we're going to stand. And yet, the dream comes to every one of us.
I mean, not the dream, the vision of the handwriting on the wall. Your days are numbered. You've been found wanting. If you're found wanting, you get torn up. You get divided. You know what you need? You need that scale to get tipped the other way. If it's going to be based on the things you've done, you're in trouble. So, you know what you need? You need the righteousness of a holy God-man to be given for your righteousness so that it tips the scales. You need somebody else to take the penalty for your sin and be torn up for it. That's what Jesus and his love decides to do. Graciously he says, "I'm going to give you my death to cover for your sin. I'm going to give you my righteous perfect life to be accounted for the goodness that you need to be able to stand before God."
So that's the promise. The promise hasn’t also quite taken place yet. But I'm good for it God, you can trust me. Trust me when I make a promise it's good. Promise and patience. Promise and patience. So, we're in class the other day and we're talking about calling, how do you know your calling and what you ought to do with your life, and so forth, and so on. A lot of times, people get calling confused with simply job and so forth. It's bigger than that, but we're trying to get this message across to students we're talking about. By the way, college students are very interested in determining the issue about calling, because a lot of them don't know what they were going to do in the future, what their life is.
By the way, if you knew the future, it would help you right? By the way, 80% of all college students change their major at least once, which means they're not quite sure always what the future holds, where God is directing them and what his will is. So, we're talking about this and so forth, I said to this one woman, I said to her, "Hey listen, if you could ask God one question about the future, about your life, his will for your life, what would you ask him? What do you want to know?" She said this, she said, "I'd like to know who I'm going to marry." I thought, good question. You don't want to screw that up. Marry the wrong person. I said to her, "One of the things you might do right away is this, you might determine what kind of lifestyle you want to live and what kind of person you are, and how you identify with the agenda of the King of God, that Minority Report, because what'll happen is the list of possible candidates to be that person will get a lot smaller and you won't have to go through a lot of trashy boyfriends."
She was like, "Yeah, okay." I said, "What about you," I said to another person. "Well, I'm thinking of buying a car, and I don't know whether to get the intermittent windshield wipers or the ones that stay on all the time." I was like, "Really? That's the question you would ask God? You think he'd tell you what to do?" I said, "You're pathetic. You're going to waste yours on a..." I don't know, what kind of question would you ask him? What do you want to know? The God who makes promises, the God who has history in his hand, what do you want to know? You really want to know his will, that's the question because he's into giving it to you. That's what the whole thing about Daniel is, he's about explaining to people what the will of God is. He's making it clear where God's going, what he's about, what his agenda is.
Granted, it's the Minority Report, but that's what he's reporting. So, I'm driving home, and I thought this was kind of interesting. I said to somebody, "What if I told you this, what if I told you that when you ask God what should I do in the future, what kind of job should I have, or what's my calling, what is he asking me to do, what's his will and so forth," I said, "What if the answer was this, that whatever it is you're going to do, you're never going to get married and you're not going to have a family." I said, "Do you still want to know the will of God?" I said, "What if it meant that when he tells the future, what it should be about for you, what if it meant that you're not going to be wealthy, you're not going to get a great job, you're not going to be able to live the American dream of health and wealth," and blah, blah, blah.
I said, "Would you still want to know the will of God? You still want him to answer that question for you?" What if it is that the future that he has in mind for you is going to take you to a place where you're going to have to deal with unbelievable brokenness? Where you're giving yourself away and love to other people, it is going to break your heart. It won't always work out, and it won't be always sunshine and unicorns in the end. You'll go to bed many nights crying. Do you still want to know the will of God? Do you want him to answer that question? I don't know what your question is. Do you really want to know? Because I can tell you this right now, you may not like the answer.
But you know, he's got your days numbered. If you've tipped the scale by faith in Christ, he's never going to let you go. You got to get your life together. Don't have it divided. Don't be living in two different worlds. Don't be trying to live the Majority Report at the same time as the Minority Report. Be consistent. I got one last thing. This is from a commentary on the book of Daniel. It says this, "We must apply this personally," he's talking about Daniel. "If you're in a position of power and influence, you're in danger of thinking that the power you exercise somehow flows from you because of the exceptional person you are. If you're the wealthy, you're in danger of thinking that your wealth is self-generated and that you're wealthy because you're better than other people."
"The same danger exists if you're good looking and have a natural way with people, or a talent that's in much demand." The point is there're all kinds of ways to be proud. There're all kinds of ways to oppose the God who has his unmistakable hand on history, who's proved it in the biggest arenas of life over and over, and over again. It doesn't mean you have to trust him, that you want to hear the answer. Anyway, "None of these things come from yourself. Rather, all of them are God's gifts to you, and he can both give them and take them away. He can raise a person up, and he can bring one down. He does it, and he does it constantly." The truth that God rules history may also be applied in a comforting way. I think that of the section of our Lord's sermon on the Mount of Olives shortly before his arrest and crucifixion in which he gives his Disciples a forecast of the things to come.
He says, "There will be many false Christs. There's an Anti-Christ who will deceive many people. There will be wars and rumors of wars. There will be widespread apostasy as many turn from their faith. People will hate and betray one another. Wickedness will increase. Indeed, in the very end, the abomination of desolation will appear. It will usher in a time of great distress and unequal from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be equaled again. Still, in spite of this great turmoil that will cause the hearts of many to shake with fear, Christ's words to his Disciple are words of comfort." This is verse six in Matthew 24. "See to it that you're not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come." His end. His promised end. His sovereign reign.
The Son of Man comes on the clouds and is given worship by all people, and he invites those who are with him to reign with him and enjoy the future. "How is it," he says, "That Jesus can tell his own not to be alarmed in such circumstances." False Christs, war, apostasy, hatred, betrayal, wickedness, how can you not be troubled? So long as you still have a heart that feels and a mind that grieves for those who are suffering, you know what the answer is? The only possible answer is this, in spite of these things God is in control of history and will yet work all things out in accordance with his just and all-wise plan for humanity.
As Daniel shows us in the end, the wicked will be judged, and the saints will reign with Jesus. There's the promise. No matter what it looks like, there's the promise. Hold on tight because you're being held on tight. Be patient. Let's pray. Lord, thanks for this time together. We thank you for a chance to consider these things. We pray that you impress them on our heart and that as we begin to see what your will is and we recognize that it's a will for us for the future, whatever it is, give us patience and ability to be able to suffer in the midst of it. As we share your suffering, we also look forward to the promise of sharing in the power of your resurrection. Bind us and keep us close. Direct us in the way that we should go. We praise in Jesus's name and for His kingdom's sake. Amen.
Good seeing y'all.
