Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. When Daniel was deported to Babylon, the pagan empire tried to rename him Beltashazzar. Lady Protect the King, a reference to Pagan goddess. But the voice of scripture never calls him such. He's always called Daniel, or he's called Daniel.
called Beltashazzar. There's a battle. Which empire gets to name the man of God? and the word makes it clear. The Lord God alone names his servants.
He is Daniel. It means God is my judge. There's a battle for your name too. The kingdom of this world may dub you with dishonor, but only the one who made you can name you. Only the one who sees into your deepest essence can call you who you are.
So I bless you, child of God, to hear him call you by name. Royal priest, co-heir with Christ, beloved. forever. Beloved. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright.
You have pulsating within your own being the very heart of God. You have, the Bible says, the mind of Christ. And therefore, part of your inheritance is what is being restored to you, is the capacity to see things for what they really are. 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.
You ready for some really good news? Other people, the world, the culture, traumas, and circumstances may have sought to label you. And it may have hurt. But God has given you in Christ A new name. And God knows your name.
And you can hear him speak it. We're in Daniel. Daniel chapter 1. Daniel is timely, I think, for the season that we are in. Often I look around me and the culture has changed so fast now in a culture in America where the majority don't go to church, where other countries are sending missionaries to us, and sometimes you can feel like a foreigner in your own land.
Well, Daniel was amongst the early ones deported from Judah, out of Jerusalem, to Babylon when King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon overran Jerusalem, sacked it, destroyed the temple, and their policy was to deport their captives back to Babylon. And part of the policy was to try to indoctrinate and induct some of the very brightest and best and most handsome and skilled and clever and wise ones of Israel into the Babylonian ways and culture. And that's what we read about in Daniel chapter 1. I pick up reading at verse 3. The king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace.
And to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.
Now, all of that in verse 3 and 4 is therefore an apt description of the kind of young man that Daniel was. Daniel, according to the Hebrew word for a young man, is probably no more than 20 and more than likely younger than that. He could have easily been an older teenager. And he is described here as one who may have been of nobility of the royal family.
So some have conjectured that he was descended from King Hezekiah. But in any event, he's a good-looking Skillful Knowledgeable, intelligent, competent young man, and it was recognized. He was selected to go into this three-year initiation program into the literature and language and customs of the Babylonian Empire. Verse 5: The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate and of the wine that he drank. And they were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time, they were to stand before the king.
Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names. Daniel he called Beltashazzar. Henaniah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Mishach And Azariah he called Abed-Nego. And there is our focus for today in verse 7.
The chief of the eunuchs, the official Gave them along with their instruction in the Babylonian ways, he gave them Babylonian. Names. There's an old joke about former President Reagan that when he was in an older years, second term of presidency, that he went to visit a dear friend at a skilled nursing care facility. And as he was trying to get some directions from the woman in the lobby, he was a little frustrated. He wasn't getting his usual attention.
And so the president said, Ma'am, do you know who I am? And she said, No, sir, I don't. But if you'll go down this hallway, there's a lady down there at that desk, and she can help you know who you are. Pretty important that we know who we are. Knowing who you are is something that you don't discover from within.
It is something that someone tells you.
Someone gave you your name.
Someone called you what you are. And there is a battle. of empires Going on in the story of Daniel, and there's a battle of empires going on right now. And it's a battle over who it is that has the right to name you. to get your name right.
The one who names you must know who you really are. When Daniel and his three friends are deported to Babylon during this great exile. They are They are having to learn this new Akkadian language, very difficult, cuneiform. They are. They are trying to learn all these religious customs.
The Babylonians were so associated with the ways of the Chaldeans, and the ways of the Chaldeans. In general, we were known to be affiliated with sorcery, magic, and the occult. And so even just to say the ways of the Chaldeans was a manner of speaking to say the ways of their occultic and astrological wisdom, so to speak.
So, they were going to be exposed to all of that and given everything in Babylon to make them become like Babylonians. And As a final straw, is the focal point there at verse 7, they're given these new names. And Daniel's name is a beautiful name in Hebrew. When you hear the word, that little fragment of the word El, this is short for Elohim, which is the name for God who is the creator of all things, the one true God. And Daniel, Daniel, means the God, God is my judge.
It's a beautiful, a beautiful name, and the official in Babylon ascribes to him. A name Beltashazzar, which means probably a reference to a lady. God, lady, husband in the gods of the god Bel.
So it's like a goddess. name that's assigned to to Daniel. That it's like, lady, wife of the god Bel, protect the king, is what it literally, literally means.
So this enemy empire names him Beltashazzar. But if you go through the book of Daniel, it's really interesting because I went through every reference to see. And the narrator of the scriptures, the Bible never calls Daniel anything other than Daniel. The empire calls him Beltashazzar, but our Bible always refers to him as Daniel. And sometimes it'll refer to him as Daniel, who was called Beltashazzar.
But it's almost like the message that builds up until finally the new king, Belshazzar, calls him directly Daniel. And so the name Daniel prevails. I say all this. To point the fact that this story, the narrative of Daniel, in one way of seeing it, is a battle between empires over who gets to name the man of God. And I'll let you in on the ending.
God wins.
Well, getting the name of something right is pretty important because you're identifying what something actually is. And poor Cooper Geis, he'd been sick a couple of times this past season. And so he's in the doctor's office with his parents, and the doctor says to the parents, so little Cooper hears it and says, I'm sorry, he's got pneumonia. And Cooper got right upset with this, and he just cried out. He said, I don't want pneumonia.
I want the same monia I had before. Funny sometimes as kids, the things that we hear, you know, what it actually is.
Some names just sound funny. If you're an expectant parent, I need to alert you: there is a website that will tell you what first names you should avoid if you have a certain last name. I will tell you only the clean ones of these. Relatively clean. If your last name is Hog, they say you don't want to name your daughter Ayma.
If your last name is Stein, you don't want to name your son Frank with the middle initial N. And I'll just give you one more and spare you. But if your last name is Dover, the site recommends not naming your son Ben. Yeah. The names that we like have changed over the years.
In 1962, in America, the popular girls' names included Lisa, Mary, Susan, Karen, Linda, Patricia, and Donna, and such. The favorite for boys in 1962 were Michael, David, John, James, Robert, Mark, William, and such like that. In 2012, here the most popular girl's name, or at least some of the top 10, Sophia. Emma, Olivia, Isabella, Ava, and Mia.
Okay. And the boys' names, some of those ranking in the top 10 last year: Aiden, Jackson, Ethan, Mason, Jaden, and Logan. And so essentially how the tastes change in names over the year. Interestingly enough, the popular girls' names last year, many of them ended with an A, with an A sound: Olivia, Emma, Isabella. And the boys' names, many of them ended with an N, Jackson, Ethan, Mason, with an N.
So I'd like for the record, for it to be noted: my name ends with an N.
So, I guess that makes me part of the in crowd. Moving on. Move. Moving on. Yeah.
It's my birthday. I'm in rare form. All right. Just one more funny or so here, a couple of them actually. Celebrities.
I get a kick out of the fact that celebrities they like to often name their kids in unusual ways. Jermaine Jackson had Jeremy Jordan Jafar, but the fourth was Jour Majesty. Nicholas, this is true. Nicholas Cage named his son Call L, which is Superman's kryptonian name. And uh I think most memorable, the old rocker Frank Zappa, who had the well-known child moon unit.
then named his youngest daughter Deva Finn Muffin Pigeon. You know the reason that sometimes parents give unusual names to their kids? Cool. The reason they do this is because they can. You ever thought about that?
There's nobody sitting in the emergency room that's telling that parent after that baby's born, and they're like, you know, what's this baby's name? Diva Sin, Muffin Pigeon. And uh Nobody's sitting there going, uh-uh. No, no, sorry, Mr. Zappa, you cannot call this girl Muffin Pigeon.
No. Nobody's doing that. It's just like you say, what's the name? Just write around here. Yeah, Diva Finn Muffin Pigeon Zappa.
Alrighty. There's nobody down at the register of deeds that look at that and says, No, we're not going to issue a birth certificate on this. No, no, you can't name a child after Superman's Kryptonian name. You can't do that. No, nobody says that.
Why? Because the parent. has the right to name the child. Kind of odd, isn't it? It's a big, big thing.
Maybe there might be a small number of people here. You've changed your name. But normally, no. Name you were given, you're given name. the one you've taken.
Isn't that odd? Have you ever thought about it?
Someone names you. You don't Name Yourself. It means That the person who named you had an authority over you.
So As I continue this message, just tuck this point away. A lot builds on this. If you have the authority to name It gives you a lot of Authority over what you've named. Thus The empire wanted to name Daniel. Belt of Shazar.
What I'm saying, beloved, is be aware There is an empire that clashes with the kingdom of God. and whose rulers and principalities do not know The Lord Do not follow the Lord. And yet will try to name you. As they please. There's a spiritual battle.
When you Are naming someone or something, it suggests an intimate alliance. connectivity and even authority.
So my daughter Abigail She did a very sacrificial thing, and it was all an attempt to claim more space in her room. She went in her closet. and she made the decision to give away most of her bilde bears. This is a big decision. And by my count, She gave away $1,000 worth of Build-A-Bears.
Yes? Yes, I have had a weakness for Bilde Bears myself because they're just so. cute and fun but If you're not familiar with Builder Bears, it's not technically true that she gave away $1,000 worth of Builder Bears because. The Bilda Bears are not worth as much now, not because they're old and dirty, but because they'd already been created and named. See, that's the fun of the Builder Bear.
If you're not familiar with Builder Bear. then well in the first place you're missing something really cute Bel-Debear has taken off. The lady that envisioned this, it was a brilliant idea. It's one of those ideas you just go. Man, I wish I'd had that idea, you know, that kind of thing.
And I've been down at the Build-A-Bear at the beach at times where they stationed somebody at the door just to tell you when you had the privilege of going in the store because there were too many people in the store. And the sales are still robust on Build-A-Bears. Why? Because what you do is you go in and you pick out the empty animal. A bear or a tiger or elephant or whatever is to your pleasing that you're drawn to, and then you take that that that that that furry animal that has no fluff whatsoever and you select a heart and you put the heart in and then you go over and the the the child gets to put his or her foot on on the the the machine that puts the stuffing in and you you stuff your own bear and then the most important part after the bear is all sewn together you go over to the computer where you get to Name your bear.
That's the point of it. You get to name your bear. A pretty powerful thing for a kid. Because at that point, you hadn't had very many real authoritative decisions in your life. But you get to name that bear.
You didn't name yourself, but you do get to name that bear. And then the computer prints you out a birth certificate, and you walk off. With your own bear that you've named. The fact that you named that bear makes it much. more valuable to you.
and much more yours.
So could you see why There would be a spiritual battle. To try to name you. Because if your enemy could name you and get you to accept that name. It'd be like you were owned. Just a word.
Just a word. To the many who have received a lot of verbal abuse. Part of all that name-calling is an attempt not just to demean and lower you. But if I could name you, I could control you. Don't let anybody name you.
that doesn't know who you really are. It's important Because In the beginning, Adam was given the authority he was entrusted by God. to name the animals. He put the names on the animals. And a lot of secular Commentators would look at this and say, well, that's just a A part of the creation myth as a cute part of the story.
But actually, for us who believe the scriptures, we see a deep theological. intent. in what God was doing. Alan Wright. And today's teaching What's your name?
Rejecting false labels over your life. Ever feel like the pressure is always on? What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution. The grace of God that lifts our shame.
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So the bumper sticker is wrong. God loves you. Don't let it go to your head. No, no, no. Let it go to your head.
If we truly understand our identity, if we get that, then we can reject the world's labels over us, right? The world's going to try to label you, rename you, just the way that the establishment in Babylon wanted to give Daniel and his friends new names. Whoever names you has a sense of control over you.
So we must let our no matter what, no matter what happens in our culture, our identity comes from God. Get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox. Free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org.
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