Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Easter is big like Christmas at our house, overflowing with presents for grown kids and the grandbaby and nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews. But as gift giver Ann requires, no child can get their giant loot of Easter presents without surrendering a special gold coin that was tucked inside their special golden egg that was hidden somewhere during a pre-gifts egg hunt. when the little ones struggle to find their special egg and helps them find it. She all but points at it.
Because she spent half a year buying up Easter goodies for them, and she wants them to find their egg. She needs them to find their egg so she can give them. what she has long prepared for them. I think Jesus wants you to see spiritual treasure like that. He's purchased so much for you.
He doesn't want you to ever be blind to it. He wants you to find the spiritual riches. I bless your spiritual eyes, child of God, to see the treasures Jesus sees, to see the sea. The spiritual gold. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright.
Our gods are greater than the God of Israel, and we can take the holy things of Israel and use them any old way that we want. If you want to understand the spirit of Antichrist, this is it. If you want to understand the spiritual battle that we are up against, this is it. We who are holy unto the Lord. Everything the enemy wants to do in our lives is essentially to try to treat us and get us to think of ourselves as ordinary.
That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series called Daniel, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now.
It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program.
But now, let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright.
So you'll have men, you'll have a far, far more victorious life. And guarding your eyes from those things you should not be looking at, and you know it, and I know it, we all know it, we feel bad, and yet. We tend to say, I ought to be more holy. What happens for those who gain victory if they start realizing I have been, my mind, my eyes, I have been set apart unto the Lord? That there's something that begins to happen.
You go, I'm too holy for that. I'm too special for that. That is not my design. You say You see, my body is holy unto my wife. Her body is holy unto me.
What it means is that we are set apart unto one another. Young women, your body is set apart unto the Lord and to your future husband. See, we try to fight our temptations out of this fleshly notion, and then we come and we hear churches proclaim, Oh, you're such a sinner and you need to try to be more holy, when the fact of the matter is that the gospel is far more glorious than that. The gospel has announced something that is absolutely finished in the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot change the fact that you have been set apart unto God.
When the prodigal son is in a faraway land, he is still holy unto his father. That's why, when he comes back, his father won't even listen to his speech about being a slave because he's always been a son. He was just living contrary to his holiness. You might live contrary to your holiness, but you are holy. You're a holy people.
A royal priesthood. And you're gods forever. That's what a holy vessel is. And I don't know what it was that made Belshazzar In the middle of this feast, on an odd night to be throwing a great banquet Because the Persians We're literally breathing at the gate. He was about to be overthrown.
Was he throwing this feast to try to show off? Was he trying to encourage his noblemen? Hey, look, we're still secure. We're here. Look at our walls.
The Euphrates runs right through our city. We've got all the water we need. Nobody can get us. Whatever it might have been that he was trying to accomplish, you must. in the end say it was demonically inspired.
Of all the vessels that they had and all of the peoples they had conquered, he knew that the God of Israel had humbled Nebuchadnezzar. And he deliberately sent people to go and specifically get those golden goblets that they had gotten 50 years earlier out of the temple in Jerusalem and bring them out here and let us desecrate them and use them to toast. our pagan gods. And announce. That look.
Our gods are greater than the God of Israel, and we can take the holy things of Israel and use them any old way that we want. If you want to understand the spirit of Antichrist, this is it. If you want to understand the spiritual battle that we are up against, this is it. We who are holy unto the Lord. That everything the enemy wants to do in our lives is essentially to try to treat us and get us to think of ourselves as ordinary.
Holy means set apart. Mundane means of the world. Profane means to be outside of the temple, and vulgar means simply to be common. The temptation. And the battle The whole spirit of the age.
Is to try to take that which is holy unto the Lord. And just use it for any old thing. Belshazzar. And this drunken feast has no idea. that in just moments The handwriting will be on the wall.
Now more specifically, think with me about this. Image of the cup. which is a predominant image throughout the scriptures. Yeah. What's interesting about the metaphor of the cup in the Bible.
is that And you read one text, it seems to be a symbol of magnificent blessing, and you read another text, the cup seems to be a symbol of great judgment.
So, for example, Psalm 23, which we're so familiar: my cup runneth over. Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. But In Psalm 75, in the hand of the Lord there's a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it. All the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. Psalm 116 extols, What shall I render to the Lord all of his benefits to me?
I'll lift up the cup of salvation. And call upon the name of the Lord. But Isaiah 51 says, Awake, awake, rise up, O Jerusalem, you have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath. You have drained it to its dregs, the goblet that makes men stagger. What is it?
Is it a cup of wrath or is it a cup of blessing? This seems to be the paradox in the scriptures, which isn't. And then you come to a story like the story of Joseph. Which is this fascinating moment. That is reaching towards the climax of the story.
Joseph is the one who was sold by his older brothers into slavery because they despised him. And they thought that he was dead, but in fact, God had promoted him to be prince of Egypt. And the brothers have come to Egypt because it's the only place in the known world that you could find food in this time of great famine. And Joseph has recognized his brothers, but they don't recognize Joseph. And Joseph wants to test them and see if their hearts have changed.
And so he has his servants to secretly place one of Joseph's own silver goblets. into little Benjamin, the youngest son, Joseph's little brother. into his sack. And he sends the brothers away. They're going to return eventually, but on their way out, the.
The servants, the soldiers go and they approach him. They said, Someone has stolen our master's silver goblet. And they said, Far be it from us to have stolen anything from him, none of us have. And they said, If we find a goblet in one of your one of your packs then There will be punishment. And they search through them, and then they pull out of out of young Benjamin, they pull out this silver goblet, and they tear their clothes, and they weep, and they wail because.
They know that there's some doom that is going to come to them, for the cup to them was a sign of judgment. And yet when they come, Their hearts are truly changed and And one of Benjamin's older brothers says, We cannot leave Benjamin with you. Take me, imprison me instead. And it's in this moment, in this conversation about this silver cup. About this special vessel.
It's in that conversation that Joseph, he says, depart from me, everyone. He sends all of his servants out, and he's there alone with his brothers. And the Bible says he wept so loudly that you could hear it in Pharaoh's court. And he said, I am Joseph, your brother. And they fell at his feet and they trembled.
And he instead blessed them and forgave them. The cup that they thought was going to be their judgment and their death became the sign of their blessing. Is this what the Bible is pointing to? Like a golden cup that has been there from the beginning. I envision This the picture of paradise and Adam and Eve and they are given the holy vessel They are given They're given symbolically a golden cup.
Their lives, their hearts, their bodies are all set apart unto the Lord. And in that holy cup was the sweet nectar of paradise and all living water. And they were told, you could eat of the fruit of all these trees, you could drink of this cup. at your pleasure as deeply as you want. Just do not disobey by eating of the one tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And their disobedience and sin comes into the world, and that cup becomes contaminated by not only the sin. but the shame that accompanied it.
Now in that cup is not just the poison. Of sin that will be handed down from generation to generation, but also is the loneliness. and the despair of a life that is separated from God. In that cup, there is A murderous poison. and Adam and Eve's own son Cain He kills the younger brother Abel and And he drinks deeply of that poison and passes it on to the next generation.
And there is The Poisoned saliva of a thousand generations that continue. to drink of the cup of suffering and sin. It is if you dare to envision such a thing so vile. It is not just in that cup that there is the small offenses. and the stumblings and little sins.
It is Oh of the hatred and judgment and lust of generation after generation. the sin and the shame of the world. Not just the sin of the abuser, but the shame of the one who was abused, all in a confluence of horrid poison. year after year Generation after generation. And let us not Let us not gloss over the fact that we We too have added our spittle to that cup.
That is a. A picture of the foaming Cup. of God's wrath. and as a poison. of sin.
It was this. that Jesus knew of. when he was in a garden That is called The olive press. And he sweat blood in Gethsemane. And it was there that he said, knowing what he was about to experience in taking upon himself the sin of the world, It was there he said, Father, If it be possible.
Remove this cup from me. I heard someone speak of uh Uh uh uh unusual Uh and and Oh. offensively unfair Roman practice. That if a Roman official over a regiment of soldiers discovered that there had been disobedience in the ranks. And yet, no one would come forward to identify himself or identify properly the perpetrator.
That there would be sometimes a practice in which the Roman official would fill a cup with poisonous hemlock. And this would be the the law. That every bit of this poison must be drunk to its very dregs. And what he would do Is then pick out randomly one soldier. Out of the group.
And that soldier knew that he could take a sip. and then pass it to the next. and just one sip of the hemlock may be deadly to him. And therefore the noble soldier Would take it and he would drink it all. For once it was all all consumed, there was none left to poison the others.
Maybe this dark image loomed in the back even of Jesus is mine. And he sat up. If it'd be possible. Take this cup from me. But then he added Not my will, but yours be done, Father.
And what happened? Was it this holy vessel Jesus? Was taken outside of Jerusalem. And there, upon a hill called Golgotha, The same spirit that had filled Belshazzar. Lived in the religious aristocracy, in the political allies of the day.
And they took that one who was Absolutely pure. He never sinned. And they made him to drink of the cup. But it was by God's Foreordained plan and purpose. that Jesus would drink Fully And deeply of the cup.
of wrath. The Bible says it pointedly. He who knew no sin became our sin. Literally. He ingested into his being the sin and the shame of the world.
And as He breathed his last. It was as if He had drunk the last drop, And he said, It is finished. Therefore, for anyone who would believe upon his name. All that would call upon the name of the Lord. would be given this cup now.
not as a source of judgment and wrath. for all of the debt had been paid in full. And there was no poison left to give to you or to me. But instead, it was the cup that Jesus had spoken prophetically of at the Passover feast when he raised it high and said, This is the cup of the new covenant. All of you, drink of this.
Because as often as you'll eat the bread and you'll drink this cup, you will be proclaiming the finished nature of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. When you drink the communion cup today, you will be announcing to yourself and rejoicing before the heavenlies and communing with your brothers and sisters that there is no poison of the debt of sin left in my life, but I have been made by Christ holy and blameless in His sight. When you start seeing yourself as repositioned in Christ, you may still stumble in your sin, but you never again call yourself a merely old, wretched sinner. You'll call yourself a saint who's set apart unto the holy things of God. We're talking about your destiny.
We're talking about God using you for magnificent purposes. We're talking about saying no to the spirit of Belshazzar. We're saying that there is a victory that is in Jesus Christ because he drank the poison. In our stead. Glory to God.
The story of Daniel 5 doesn't end in Daniel 5. You you gotta you gotta read the Rest of the story about the handwriting on the wall. Because while Belshazzar was having his nice drunken feast. It's just a moment. The handwriting is going to come on the wall.
and announce Your empire is over. And Ezra one tells the rest of this story about the holy vessels. Ezra 1 verse 2 Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah. and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel.
He is the God who is in Jerusalem. This is the king of Persia, Cyrus, announcing this. The people are going to be restored. And Cyrus, verse 7, the king also brought out the vessels. Of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.
Cyrus, king of Persia, brought these out in the charge of Methridath, the treasurer, and then goes into all the specific count of all of these vessels of holiness. This was the number of them: 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, 1,000 other vessels. All the vessels of gold and silver were 5,400. All of these they did bring up when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem. In other words, the golden cup was restored to its rightful place in God's presence.
The holy vessel, Jesus, once abused. by the world and mocked as if he were powerless. Raised from the dead, behold, rains. Forevermore. And we the ones who are in Christ.
are positioned forever. with him The golden cup. You and I. have been restored. And that's the gospel.
Okay. Helen Wright. In today's teaching, on the Golden Cup. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God.
The values of our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or have a biblical worldview. It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did.
When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a Favored Foreigner. You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel in his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries.
Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. or come to our website, pastorallen. org.
So Alan, we have some that may be listening right now and in this moment they long for restoration. If we're children of the king, you're saying that restoration has already happened. The wait is over. Yeah. For that golden cup to be restored to its rightful place in God's presence meant that a holy vessel, once abused by the world, didn't lose its holiness.
That When You are called holy. It just means you're set apart unto God. And this is what happens for us in Christ. And that's why Paul, over and over in his letters, calls us the saints or the Holy Ones. is that you're now positioned with Christ.
So Jesus, the holy vessel once abused by the world, He never lost his holiness. Jesus tossed and battered and mocked and crucified, but he never ceased to be holy. And so what happens in Christ is we are restored to our rightful place. And it helps Daniel. It helps every day.
to just thank God that we're We're now his holy vessels. Makes all the difference. It does. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
