Sermon Tone Analysis

/Dan 1; 1-9/

/tv 8/

/ /

          How did a tyrant like Adolf Hitler rise to power?

How could just one demented man lead a whole nation to try to conquer the world and crush everyone who stood in their path?

There’s a saying which goes; “/control the mind and control the man.”/

If you can control the mind then you can control the masses, which eventually snowballs until you can lead a whole nation to their own doom.

Of all the things that Hitler was; he certainly wasn’t a fool.

He knew that if his movement was to reach a national level he was going to have to control even more minds; or I should say, smaller minds!

Hitler saw too it that:    

Schools taught Nazi ideology.

Soon the spare time of the young was absorbed by the Nazi Party as well—boys were drawn into the Hitler Youth, and girls became members of the Nazi-led League of German Girls.

His goal was simple, indoctrinate people into the party starting at a young age.

By the summer of 1933, the Nazi Party was in complete control of the country.[1]

Hitler wasn’t the first tyrant to indoctrinate the young minds of tomorrow.

For that was the plan of the king of Babylon; Nebuchadnezzar.

Last time we looked at Daniel we saw Him and his three friends as nearly arrived slaves from Judah.

Yet these four were apart of a select group of young men that were slaves of a higher sort we could say.

The King had taken them not too be his janitors, or yard laborers, or to feed horses; but to be his future leaders.

King Nebuchadnezzar wanted the cream of the crop from the nation of Judah; he wanted Judah’s brightest, most capable, most clever and dexterous persons; that’s why Daniel and his friends were taken!

Of all the things that Nebuchadnezzar was; yet he sure wasn’t a fool.

He like Hitler; knew that once you conquered a people, then you took it to the next level; you exploited and changed them, you melted them down and poured them in your mold.

You make them what you want them to be! That’s exactly what the King was trying to accomplish; he had all these promising youths and his goal was to denationalize them, demoralize them, and degrade them down until they are nice, neat, little Babylonians.

The king had a three year training course where they learned to talk like Babylonians, dress like Babylonians, walk like Babylonians, and think like Babylonians; in fact be Babylonians.

At the end of this three year course they probably received a little degree, saying that they had all the rights and privileges of full fledged Babylonians.

That was the king’s ultimate goal for those young slaves, to brainwash them, taking away all that their parents had instilled into them and replace it with Babylon’s way.

Yet, there is another tyrant bent on conquering this world, who never rests, who never gives up; whose never discouraged by defeats; he’s none other than the devil.

Just as much as I believe there is a God, I also believe there is a devil.

I don’t understand how that 70% of professing Christianity claims that they believe in a God; but don’t believe a real literal devil?

They probably think that the devil was made up as some bedtime story to scare kids.

They think that real; intelligent people don’t believe that there is a literal person that is behind all the evil that is in the world.

People like that have never read the bible, because the devil is real, alive and just waiting for you and I to hand him the ammunition he needs to wound us and leave us suffering for all our natural lives.

However the devil’s goal doesn’t stop with just the things of this world; he wants more, he wants to doom a person’s soul to hell for all eternity.

He knows nothing else would break God’s heart more than by having a soul that God created for himself; tricked and doomed for all eternity in hell.

You know, if I didn’t want to go to heaven because of God wanting me too; I still would because the devil wants me to go with Him!

The devil is also in the business of brain washing the ones he needs to suit his kingdom!

Just like what we see here in Daniel’s day, we have in our own day.

Paul said,  Rom 12:2  /And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

/

Paul tells us not to be conformed to this world.

The word /“conformed”/ means to: to conform one’s self (i.e.

one’s mind and character) to another’s pattern, (fashion one’s self according to).[2]

Paul warns about being conformed to the image of the world.

He doesn’t mean that we stop using indoor pluming, or stop using phones or computers.

Believe me if that would do the job of bring us closer to God; I would be the first person to in line!

But those outward things don’t do it!

Paul is meaning don’t let yourself be poured into the world’s mold of what it says a Christian ought to be.

The lost world has an idea of what a Christian ought to be, if you don’t believe me, just ask the next lost person you meet and they will tell you.

For that matter, the world has its own Christian everything; worship, bible, idea of how to rear kids, how to handle your finances, how to be married, etc.

All you have to do is let the world pour you into their mold!

And you can be just like them and christain!

But we should settle to be conformed to the world’s image, because we ought to bear Christ’s imagine.

He says, “/but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” /

That word /“transformed”/ means literally a (“metamorphose”):— change, transfigure, transform.[3]

Just as a caterpillar will go through a metamorphose and become a beautiful butterfly, so will the Lord make something beautiful from our lives if we yield our minds to God! God will control our minds and thereby change us into his image.

Some think that Christianity is but conforming to a list of ‘dos and don’ts’ but its not!

It’s about living differently because of an inward change of heart!

Jesus didn’t die so we could obey a list of dos and don’ts.

He died so we could have a chance at a new life in Him!

If we are going to be a disciple in dark days, we must understand that what we see Daniel going through here is what we shall go through as well.

I.

The Devil’s Trap.

V5

That sounds like a real good deal doesn’t it.

To eat like a King!

Who wouldn’t like to do that?

Anyone who had to first surrender their conscience!

A. The Surrendering of their Conscience

This meat that was being offered to these youths was meat that was perilously offered in worship to their pagan Gods.

For them to eat this meat, they as Hebrews would have to ignore their conscience and go against their conscience.

What is a conscience?

CONSCIENCE — a person’s inner awareness of conforming to the will of God or departing from it, resulting in either a sense of approval or condemnation.

The conscience of the believer has been cleansed by the work of Jesus Christ; it no longer accuses and condemns (Heb.

9:14; 10:22).

Believers are to work to maintain pure consciences.

They also must be careful not to encourage others to act against their consciences.

To act contrary to the urging of one’s conscience is wrong, for actions that go against the conscience cannot arise out of faith (1 Cor.

8:7–13; 10:23–30).[4]

A mother was helping her son with his spelling assignment and came to the words /conscious/ and /conscience/.

When she asked him if he knew the difference between the two, he responded, “Sure, Mom, ‘conscious’ is when you are aware of something and ‘conscience’ is when you wish you weren’t.”[5]

A conscience is like the old sun dials of the ancient world.

A sun dial was the way they told time, before clocks were invented.

In fact, they were so common and so used that they even became portable, hand held.

They told the time by the sun casting a shadow on to its face and wa’ al’ there’s the time.

In fact, they were so acute, they not only told the time, but the told the season, and what hemisphere you were in.

But the only drawback was of course; you could only use it when the sun was out.

Think of your conscience as a sundial, and the bible as the sun shining on it.

When it is being shined on, there is no bad readings, we not like what it says, but that doesn’t matter, it is an acute reading.

But what if, we didn’t use the bible, but maybe the Koran, the book of Moran, or the newspaper, Tv digest, to shine upon our consciences, what would happen then?

We would be just those who stand up, in their sincerity and promote Islam and Monism, and every other ism that needs to be a wasism.

Yes, they are sincere; but they are sincerely wrong!

Because they have the wrong light shining upon their conscience.

When you read about the founding fathers of this country, you will notice that they talk a lot about following their conscience.

They wanted to follow their conscience, because it was being shined upon by the word of God!

But today, folks don’t want the bible shining on their conscience, but they still want to follow their conscience.

That’s where you get into trouble!

Surrendering your conscience to whatever comes down the pipe!

Neb.

was trying to get these youths to surrender their consciences and he could replace what their parents taught them in Judah with his own light of paganism.

B.

Defiling your conscience v8

 

Daniel doesn’t surrender his conscience that easily.

He holds on to the true light and because of that, he decides to stand against the king’s command and refuses to eat what he knows goes against the bible!

(Lev.