Wisdom & Power [Part 1]

Pastor author and Bible teacher Alan writing wisdom. I could understand what to call himself mighty puzzling because he is in exile reported to Babylon, holding no political position having no no position of power outward sign of strength whatsoever and and he says that you give me wisdom and might Ms. Stone creates the strength that's Pastor Alan Wright welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life for no hold. 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. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program. I will make sure you know how to get our special resource right now you can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministry as you listen to today's message go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastoralan.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 here in the book of Daniel chapter 2, Daniel was exiled along with others out of Jerusalem and Judah, around 600 years before Christ, and he becomes favored while a foreigner in the land of Babylon, and today we pick up the story in Daniel chapter 2, where the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar has had a puzzling and strange dream that is perplexed him and he has asked his wise men not only to interpret the dream, but to tell him what the dream itself was an otherwise he promises to kill all of the so-called wise men of Babylon, and we pick up the story where Daniel realizes that he and his friends had and I Michelle and Azariah, they would be slain along with otherwise meant unless someone can tell Nebuchadnezzar not only the interpretation of his puzzling dream, but also tell him what the actual dream wise and we pick up reading it. Daniel to verse 17 then Daniel went to his house and made this matter known to Hannah and I am Ishmael and Azariah, his companions and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night the Daniel bless the God of heaven, and Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever. 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 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. Therefore, Daniel went into areata, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. They went in and said thus to him. Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon bring me in before the king and I will show the king the interpretation. When a focus on that part of Daniel's praise reset. You given me wisdom and my wisdom that I understand is Daniel was a wise young man. He was intelligent he was sensitive to the Lord. He had grown up in the Scriptures. He was recognized even by the authorities of Babylon that he was super gifted and intelligent. He was wise but he was a captive in a faraway land he had been captured and exiled, and he was in a position of no power. He had no political standing. He had no authority. He was not only a foreigner. He was a servant, and yet he described himself as full of wisdom and might mighty. How could you be mighty when you're a captive in a foreign land.

There's a relationship between wisdom and strength.

Victor Hugo, author of Lemos wrote elsewhere all the forces in the world are not so powerful is an idea whose time has come.

Those words remind us of the words that are credited to Francis Bacon. Knowledge is power, but the source actually has much more ancient roots for Proverbs 24, five, says a wise man is full of strength and a man of knowledge enhances his might. A wise man is full of strength and knowledge enhances his might. If you know something that others don't know no matter who you are or where you are. You're in a position of strength is all story of a man that was seated in a big office had a big desk in a big building of a big corporation and he was paid hundred thousand dollars sitting there in that big empty office and one day an employee passing by asked his manager said why in the world is this guy getting paid so much money just to sit there and he was told well some years ago this man had an idea, a wonderful idea that netted our company about $10 million and so he's paid to sit there with hopes it will come up with another good idea. It is amazing how if you had one piece of revelation that it could be so powerful you ready for some good news.

Every Christian has is his or her inheritance. The capacity to hear from God.

And if you lack wisdom, the Scripture says Ascot and give it to you generously you can hear from God. And when you have revelation no matter where you are or what season you are in life.

He increases your might, in fact, one little reassuring word from the Lord that he has for you today and you will find that your strength is renewed like the Eagles, subtitled the serious and I favored a foreigner because Daniel was unique in this way, he is in exile and he loses everything that is dear to him, his homeland, his temple, his people are scattered and now he and his three friends, along with so many other Jews are been deported to Babylon where they grieve the loss of the way things used to be for them.

That's Alan Wright 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 face the 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 foreign land. God's grace is upon you today. Your gift today would 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 and we say and that we can.

I think in some ways identify with this because so we have seen our world change so much strange times that we live in, and sometimes maybe you feel like this like a foreigner in your own your own country, something I've been on the watch for just these funny things that make me feel like a foreigner. You know, just reading the newspaper and and going and that that's what I'm talking about that makes me feel like what country do I live in but funny one this week at new Canaan Society on Friday morning our speaker was a friend who has moved to Portland, Oregon, and he was in town and he was our speaker and he was telling us a little about Portland and I didn't know I did know maybe you knew this to Portland's unofficial motto is keep Portland weird.

It's on the thousands of bumper stickers all over the city you'd see it I think is a keep Portland weird and so he shared some stories about him where it was, but he said that he also saw walking on the street with his wife in the end of the sidewalk also need his size always kind of caught by surprise you. You see something you can't believe just all that but as it is a man he was using went by and and he had a bicycle helmet on, but we didn't have anything else on and I thought it was kinda weird and so we learned was I didn't know this.

Maybe you were aware that one of the big events and Portland Oregon. This is our country.

They they host an annual event.

It's called the world naked bike ride.

The event host as many as 10,000 participants who ride en masse through Portland on their bicycles with nothing on but their helmets and they that this past year. Organizers were a bit disappointed they didn't reach their goal of 12,000 bike riders and they blamed it on the light drizzle that night.

The organizer of the event said the goal of the world naked bike ride was described by the think I'm making this up, don't you, I'm not like this is our country at the goal he said of the of the of the world naked bike ride was where using nudity as a way to draw attention to cycling and the folly of oil dependency.

We hope motorist hope motorist will begin to suspect cyclists have more fun, and hence, maybe they don't need their cars as much as they thought say this is the kind of thing that makes me feel like a foreigner in my own country because you know I'm not mad or upset or anything.

If they want to ride their bicycles make around Portland. I don't care but I just don't understand this. It's unusual, custom, and that the that the thought of seeing 10,000 naked bike riders in a it. It doesn't it doesn't make me want to ride a bike more. I'm all for my grad and I'm all for using less fossil fuel but but it doesn't seem fine honey. The problem or ride a bicycle already is if you're uncomfortable because those little narrow seats that you said on and the idea of sitting on one of those you know directly is not. I can't envision modestly. I can envision this. I can envision this.

This is as I can see this honey can you envision I don't try to going on my ride around pastor Chris how you doing me a nice night you seen anybody else saw Pastor Keating and Gladys] I can with this funny world we live in now around the Buddha really saying is is is something deeper than that.

A lot of people under the sound of my voice right now you especially if you grew up in the South.

You probably say you might could remember a time that you didn't haul even though a by the didn't go to church and and now for some some reports just in one generation and one generation. Some reports, 85% of people don't go to church regularly and really talking about about that below is something more than that.

It it seems to happen where there is so much judge mentalism in our in our culture, and honestly it has gone both ways and sometimes you do report you soon and maybe there's been too much hypocrisy and judge mentalism in the church and people have now sown it back towards the church, not this particular church, but just the church in general, thinking that Christian so many people think Christians they think they are there selfish religious bigots that are just interested in forcing their opinions and behaviors on others and this hurts.

This hurts because the real Christians.

The people that I know you all are not perfect by any means, and we we stumble and we we need to ask for forgiveness and we need we need to keep growing up but but the Christians the real Christians that I know they love people and they love God and they want to serve and they want to make a difference and they say they want to help people and they want the world to know about the love of God and about forgiveness and mercy that is available in Christ and and they want people to know that if you're lost, and without hope that there is a way of salvation and and it hurts and I grieve that our message is lost upon a culture that is made a judgment against the church without knowing who the church really is that's that's more of what I'm talking about. I had a dream I had a dream the first week of January of this year and it was unusual because it just appeared out of nowhere was and after some troubling thing is been going on in my life. It was after. Of course the atrocity the murderous atrocity in Newtown but but I think that was more than just processing something I think it was a message from the Lord. I've learned over the years I can I can get a sense usually when a dream is got a message to it, and sometimes they do and in the dream I dreamt there was a wicked man who I somehow knew he had an assault weapon and that he was no harm people with it and knowing this I in the dream I I bravely extricated the weapon from the man by overpowering him and I'll just save pastor Chris from having to say it later.

Okay this is how you know it was a dream I overpowered him with. You can do things in dreams you can't do otherwise overpowered him and extricated his weapon and in so doing. I left him lightly wounded. Perhaps a broken nose some blood on his face and the wicked man in the dream cried foul and he complained to all the bystanders that he was never intending to harm anyone, and who was I to come and attack him like that, and very soon the whole crowd turned against me with criticism and scorn accusing me of being overbearing and insensitive and intolerant for the innocent man, and I was condemned for being so intolerant and when I woke up told the wife my wife.

I told her the dream I supply the world. I have a dream like that and she laughed as she said boy you must be really feeling unappreciated these days is there there you're trying to save the world and nobody is thinking about their booing you instead. And we chuckled, but as time went by, begin to make more sense to me because this is closest. Anyway, when I say feel like a foreigner. This explains it here is that in many ways I think that Christians feel this way and our culture that that this wasn't a dream about weapons. This was in a dream about violence.

It was about ideology. It was it was to say that the supreme value in our culture today is his tolerance and at risk of vastly oversimplified the whole psyche of a nation.

I would say that that because people have perceived too much intolerance and have seen judge mentalism they don't want anything to do with that.

They see that this is the problem and there is a sense in which tolerance is a virtue because we we need to be able to tolerate people who have different views then yes we do course we do and and and when you see intolerance carried to its extreme, you get fundamentalist terrorism and no one wants that it's very important that we are able to tolerate people with different beliefs. But in this is a big big but there are most certainly times when it is not the loving thing to tolerate someone in my dream.

It wasn't the ultimate loving thing to just tolerate a wicked man with an assault rifle when it was going to kill people, people need to be warned of such a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Such wickedness needs to be confronted.

If here's the point. If others in that dream had known the wicked intentions of that man.

Then I would've been heralded a hero for stopping it.

But if you are blind to the intentions of the enemy. You will not even recognize an heroic effort.

When you see it in the Bible teaches that the god of this age. Satan himself has a way in which he has been allowed to blind the hearts of men and women of what the gospel does is it is a light that comes into the darkness and you see things you had not seen before and it is never been a message it was tended to be intolerant in the sense of being and judgmental, but it is always been a message of truth, for it is the truth that sets us free. If you've ever had only good in mind for someone only for them to misunderstand you and condemn you, then you have a faint glimpse of the pain of the Savior.

Jesus came into his own, but his own did not receive him, and he was treated like a foreigner about his own people. He came to save them and they killed him just like they killed the prophets and Jesus stood over his city and said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, along I how much I have long to gather you like a hand would gather her chicks under her wings, but you would not you are not willing to go to Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you could hear Jesus weeping, as if to say, I came to love you to redeem you to teach you to lay my life down for you, but you have rejected me because you do not even recognize your own Savior.

This is the essence, I think of the emotion of the Christian and the culture that does not understand Christianity is much more than seeing unusual customs and strange things and people not going to church. It is, it is being put into the position of having the power of the gospel which is powerful enough to dismantle and disarm the enemy by the truth of God's goodness and grace.

And yet to be misunderstood. It is into this kind of culture that Daniel is thrust he is exiled and deported and placed in the middle of a pagan culture that has no knowledge of God Alan writing in today's wisdom and power.

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, 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 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 wisdom creates the string. Is this a universal truth that all the world can use and how was it helpful for the follower of Christ.

In particular, but I do think that there's a lot in all truth is God's truth and so even so I doesn't know the Lord. But if they've gain practical wisdom and life that that really is associated with their strength for living as well so note the Proverbs.

For example just chocked full of this wisdom and so many of those pearls of wisdom.

They really apply to the believer. The unbeliever is just that the believer is the one who has the access to the word of God into the insights of God through the Spirit.

And so the believer is promise that if you lack wisdom, you can ask God to give you wisdom. What were just making the point here is that you might think of Daniel in a very powerless position and yet he praise God for giving him wisdom and might, the two always go together.

I've heard it said that even if you're not a believer in and you don't trust Christ if you take the Bible and you follow this book. Inasmuch as you can abide by it.

You will be more successful, happier, healthier, and thought that since it is the universal truth there. They all truth is God's truth and so if somebody is living in truth that they didn't they didn't learn it directly from the Scriptures, they didn't learn it because they knew the Lord. It's just part of God's what we call his general rates.

His his common rights that is extended to all people. He is merciful.

Rain falls on the just and the 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@pastorallen.org that's Pastor Alan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production Alan Wright ministry