Wisdom & Power [Part 2]

Pastor author and Bible teacher Alan Wright is the king of the greatest empire on earth suddenly thought of having no idea of the meaning of his life and that Daniel power or prestige or place of prominence captive in a foreign land and God is gonna show Daniel to answer a vinaigrette master Alan Wright to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole I'm Daniel Britton excited for you to hear the teaching today. In the series called Daniel is presented in an older church in North Carolina.

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More on that later in the program but now let's get started with today's teaching here is Alan Wright set up. This is do you see that yes he set up where Nebuchadnezzar knows that his his soothsayers often come up with bogus interpretations of dreams that are based on their own folly in their own minds and is like.

I will not be satisfied with anything other than a super natural revelation of my dream and it's an incredible set up because there's nobody that knows that dream, except for Nebuchadnezzar and God, who gave him the dream that they don't well but you know they are remind me of all those magicians in Pharaoh's court. They start trying sure to do all they can with all of their incantations and stirrings crystal balls and and everything I can possibly do. But of course they can't come up with is no digression to highlight here that part of this message is the futility of the worldly magicians and the dangers of the occult. The Babylonian soothsayers and sorcerers. They may have been the ones that were most steeped in in the literature of the Chaldeans, but there also the ones who practice all these ways of a cultic magic and the occult is man's attempt to to manipulate things supernaturally outside of relationship with God is a reason God condemns all cultic activity so sternly in the Scriptures is it you when you try in any way to manipulate things supernaturally outside of a simple personal relationship with God.

You are trying to put yourself into the position of a God. And so what happens in the a cultic is that in people that are reaching out trying to tap into the spiritual realm through all of these means other than a relationship with Jesus. What happens is, without realizing it. Often times, and sometimes on purpose. They are connecting up with demonic realities.

So the stern warnings against the occult, which by the way, in the Scripture include everything I everything be be aware Christians. Everything from the simplest seemingly harmless astrology reading a horoscope or palm reading enteric cards or crystal ball or magic eight ball or s�ance or or any sort of a cultic activity you have anything to do with that whatsoever, not even as a not even as a game, not even for a child to have a little game why because this is the realm of the demonic, any manipulation of the supernatural outside of relationship with Jesus trying to put yourself into the position of being the one who's in control. But, beloved, you and I will never be in control. God is in control of his were the world is in our father's hands don't have anything to do with the occult, ever.

These soothsayers and sorcerers. Some of them I believe were most certainly intimately connected with the demonic, but guess what the demons are just fallen Angels and they don't know everything there just creatures and the demons themselves didn't note Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

Only God and Nebuchadnezzar knew what Nebuchadnezzar had dropped and so the only way that anybody would ever build a note Nebuchadnezzar's dream would be that God would tell what is set up what is set up and the stage is set for therefore God to glorify himself in Babylon and to pour out favor upon Daniel because Nebuchadnezzar would not be impressed and he would not know God until there was a revelation that he was assured it was from.

So Daniel sought the Lord, he asked his three friends to pray for him and he sought the Lord and the Lord revealed the mystery is just an amazing thing when God speaks to you at all of us. Maybe you've been really observant.

Or maybe life just rushes by. You don't have much time to observe how much God speaking to you on a daily basis and you have moments in your life or you know God spoke to me and it changes everything is interesting how little we are told in this text and in all the Bible about how it is, God speaks to different people always told here is that the Lord revealed the mystery to Daniel that night.

One prophetic friend of mine said he thought that maybe Daniel just prayed about it. Went to bed and dreamt the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had tracked. I don't know. I often look at the Scripture. No one just fine.

Give us 10 steps on how to effectively hear the voice of God were not told.

Sometimes Angels show up. Sometimes it just as the Lord told them.

Sometimes I just had a witness of the Spirit, you know, I think God gives us a little information about this because he doesn't want to make it a technique is not a technique hearing from God is a relationship. Imagine a little child want to get some answer from his father and thinking he has to go through a technique I can imagine. Imagine my children saying you want to find out what would I do for the Super Bowl tonight. Can you imagine them get together say will it stir up a pot gives a brew and speak some incantations and maybe then we'll decipher what it is that that our father wants to do during the Super Bowl tonight. That's not the way children interact.

You just you just ask right what James says about wisdom, ask God asking for wisdom. He speaks in so many ways. Both had a beautiful story in our family this week it it's is one of those stories where where God speaks to you in the in the little ways and and in order to make sense of it.

I got a kind of start before the story and and make sure you know, our beloved family, my wife's sister Catherine and her husband Kevin there not only family to us there in our church there dearest of friends and partners in ministry. They have three children and Jake is as an engineering student sophomore year at Stayton Anna Catherine's a high school senior and and they have those acts asked special. He's a little guy you would know that he is 14. If you saw him eyes had developmental challenges whole life including autism and last week we were we were sponsored by my ever generous of father-in-law for four delicious days in Orlando, Florida.

I know it was the coldest week of the year here.

Sorry I was away and spent three of those days at Disney World and you've never seen what real excitement is you never seen you never seen until you've seen Zach Curry at a character breakfast with Tigger or piglets if you seen that you've seen the definition of an overly excited child can't contain himself and throughout the weekend was once again just morally Catherine Kevin and how outpatient they are in their commitment to care for Zach and face the challenges go into the themepark and go out to eat and do the things that that that that you do as a family, even though it be easier just to withdraw and just stay at home, but they don't do that and and they're just so full of God and is just wonderful to watch with their lot lot of challenges every day was acting on the last day of the trip.

We just we just enjoy the sunshine in Florida and swam and rode bikes and that even went to downtown Disney and shopped about and we ate at the crowded, noisy rainforest Caf�. If you've ever been one of his restaurants loud anime Tronic animals are making noises and there is an occasional realistic sounding thunderstorm and that we were seated near anime Tronic elephants that would would waggle their ears and raise their trunks and trumpet at us very loudly. This is unsettling for Zach to say the least. It's it's not necessarily easy place and so in the midst of that it was challenging for Zach. He didn't want to eat and he wanted to, can get a lot of attention. He needed it and but in the middle of it. Catherine told a story that was a highlight of the dinner and she said I have a God story to share and and so in the midst of the animals trumpeting and Zach crying and all she told her story. The precious story began actually with something that happened a couple weeks ago at our new your blessing service for anybody unfamiliar with the way we begin the new year at Rinaldi instead of exhorting one another with the law and say let's try harder to be good Christians this year. Instead, we we speak. The promises of God over one another, believing that blessing empowers us for righteous living. And so we have this incredible weekend of ministry encounters and Catherine and Kevin and her family.

They were blessed by another precious couple in the church.

Rick and Pat Peacock and in the midst of that ministry time it came up. Don't know if it was rigor pack. That said, they've had a sense that the Lord might be saying to Catherine to be on the lookout this year for those little signs a little evidences of God's love and how much he really loves you and that he's really with you and noticing you in and Pat shared an example from their own lives and she said that that for her.

She said it, for whatever reason, this little reminder of God's attention to them was always Canadian geese that would fly bocce. They lived up north and and and and seeing these geese that all these important moments in our life. You do you have some like this in life just these little signals you like yeah that's God's little thing from it just keeps coming up and severely move down here and and and then they're just there be a moment where to do some little reassurance and there be a Canadian goose honking or something and she said that maybe God got something like that for you and Catherine thought about it for a moment and it became clear to her what her little God wink thing was pennies all her life. She said she she tend to find pennies and the and this was what came to her mind. She said that I think it's pennies. She said when I when I find a penny. I think of God, and I'm going to think of God. This year, when I find a penny and I'm going to think of how much God thinks of me and and and so it was, and on that day that we ate the rainforest Caf� would been by the pool and Catherine. She went into the locker room and and their level things you look down and there she saw in her first penny of the year assistant line and she picked up penny and she said thank you God. I'm thinking of you.

There's a penny and I believe your thinking of me and then she moved about and there she saw on the little shelf. He looked over and there were three pennies right next each other. 123 and she said three pennies right there. She picked him up she said you you really are thinking of me. Hard chair and I'm thinking of you and I love you and as she was leaving the last he looked and she saw was a dime as he picked up the dime. She said West End pennies talent right will have more teaching in a moment. Today's important series. It's shocking how quickly American values have changed. Suddenly, most people go to church or have a biblical worldview. Everything has changed so much that maybe you feel like a foreigner in your own culture. I was a Christian supposed to live in a post-Christian world we fight against it. We decide our light in the midst of it.

We pull away from it. These are the same questions that faced a young exile named Daniel in Babylon 600 years before Christ. Though he was an alien God showed the young man favor when you make your gift to Alan Wright ministry today will send you Pastor Alan's eight messages on Daniel of favorite foreigner in an attractive CD album on a USB thumb drive or through digital download is our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

You may feel like a stranger in this world is God should favor to gain his farmland God's grace is upon you today. Your gift today will only help you walk in the grace of God during these troubling times will also help someone else.

This ministry is only possible and prayerful support listeners like you when you give today will send you today's special offer call 877-544-4860 877-544-4860 or come visit Pastor Alan.org today's teaching now continues here once again is Alan Wright Catherine told me later that she'd been picking up pennies ever sent some years ago I made an illustration in a sermon in which I had talked about how it's maybe not worth it to most of us to bend down to pick up penny but I figured out how much in relative terms.

A penny would be to us as compared to how much would be to Bill Gates and anyway I figured up of roughly about like us picking up a penny would be about like Bill Gates picking up $10,000 and I just kinda made this blessed you know. Even Bill Gates would pick up $10,000 but is only like a penny to him anyway. Don't get lost on that.

I remember what my point was, but she she started picking up pennies.

After that, partly also because she ran into another.

Remember, your Dick Stone who who they had a conversation. He said always that I pick up all the loose change in and declared that he had a couple thousand dollars of it. By this time which says something that whole Dick is sorry Dick but I know both of these things that they they led her to be picking up pennies and so she she picks up these pennies out of the locker room at the pool and it really touched her because it was just a week. I have earlier that she had this moment in the blessing service and said pennies will be my thing and none of the rest of us all a penny and then three pennies and a dime. She did and she knew God was was thinking of her blaster has little thing and it blessed us. It was a blessing because it was a difficult dinner that night was action and anyway, we went on we got back in our busy lives. Well, and my wife is teaching at awakenings or women's Bible study on Thursday morning as you're speaking about how to build your faith.

When God speaks to you and that's how faith grows and so she thought would be a good thing to have Catherine come and share about her penny testimony and Catherine said sure she would do. And Catherine got up on Thursday and was. Leave and calm and share her testimony about the pennies that I just told you, but she checked her email before she left and there was a surprising thing. I'd not known about it myself. Neither had an but our daughter, 14-year-old Abby had sent Catherine a note and email and I had never known Abby to send an email like this before, but this is what she wrote. Hey auntie Catherine at the rainforest Caf� when you were sharing about seeing the pennies in the locker room, God spoke to me and gave me a word I completely forgot to tell you I wanted to email you because by the time I see you next I will have forgotten you said that the first penny you saw was right at your feet will God says that that penny was you. Next you saw three pennies on that little shelf and those were uncle Kevin Jake and Anna Catherine.

Last but not least you solid dime that God says is back God's work in 10 times more and Zach. Not that he is it working through your whole family.

The dime was the last coin you saw is act as the least likely in your family to look at for what God is working in his life, but God is working in Zach 10 times more than you could possibly imagine.

You just can't see it now is hard to quantify the kind of strength that comes into a mother soul when she gets a word from the Lord like that. So simple. It's not so much about even the content of the word something as silly as pennies.

Something as simple as a 14-year-old girl sharing a God inspired thought. What's important is it is a word from heaven, and it witnesses to something that makes you know this is God.

They can be a word from the Lord to you.

That would mean nothing to anyone else in your heart in your spirit.

You know only God could no that that that was trying to be at the rainforest Caf� and instead of being I will just relax, parent of a special needs child is is always on and sometimes you feel like you not seeing the fruit of your labors and all of the secret things that might go on and a mother's heart that God sees in the do some simple means he speaks and suddenly your strength is renewed like the Eagles. For where there is revelation. There is strength we get only a scant statement about how Daniel received the revelation but then we get four full verses of Daniel praising the Lord blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might be changes times and seasons, he removes kings and sets up kings gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things he knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him to you, O God of my father's I give thanks and praise for you have given me wisdom and might and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king's matter. Daniel went in to the king, and he said do not destroy the wise men of Babylon bring me before the king.

I'll show him the interpretation. God spoke and he made Daniel strong he was in a foreign culture, but he was favored because of the word of the Lord.

So are you.

And that's the gospel. Helen writing in today's wisdom and it's shocking how quickly American values of changed suddenly most people go to church or have a biblical worldview.

Everything has changed so much that maybe you feel like a foreigner in your own culture. I was a Christian supposed to live in a post-Christian world we fight against it. We decide our light in the midst of it.

We pull away from it.

These are the same questions that faced a young exile named Daniel in Babylon 600 years before Christ. Though he was an alien God showed the young man favor when you make your gift to Alan Wright ministry today will send you Pastor Alan's eight messages on Daniel of favorite foreigner in an attractive CD album on a USB thumb drive or through digital download is our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

You may feel a stranger in this world, but as God should favor to gain his farmland God's grace is upon you today. Your gift today will only help you walk in the grace of God during these troubling times. It will also help someone else. This ministry is only possible through prayerful support listeners like you when you give today will send you today's special offer call 877-544-4860 877-544-4860 or come visit Pastor Alan.org so we've heard a great message. Allen at this point the person listening and they now understand this, we have to sing to them.

How does this make all the difference.

What is you begin to see your life more like Daniels. What if you begin to see. I feel like I'm in exile for ligament. A place where I don't fit in, but perhaps you could begin to envision that. Nonetheless, the favor of God is on your life and what this does is you begin to wake up in the morning rush and I may be going through a hard time but I am still blessed and highly favored is it you began to have a confidence from moving into your environment, and this is what happened with Daniel and there is a way that God joins together the wisdom that he gives us with power for influence in the world and so we want to say Daniel to each and everyone who's listening now in Christ you though may feel like you're alien in this world are highly favored.

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