Validated

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. We're not supposed to be huddled up in small groups singing Kumbaya, waiting on Jesus to come back and rapture us off this trailer park of a planet and then destroy it. We're supposed to be in Babylon, living in Babylon, seeking the well-being of our city, praying for it, for as it thrives, we thrive.

Okay. Welcome back to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor Jiddy Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. We've just begun a teaching series through the book of Daniel here on the program. And today, Pastor JD walks us through Nebuchadnezzar's confusing dream in Daniel chapter two.

Through this wild and startling story, we'll learn to view our culture the way Daniel viewed his. Not through assimilation, not through separation, but through transformation. This sounds like a perfect message for today, so let's get started right now with a message Pastor JD titled, Validated. Daniel chapter 2. If you got your Bible with you, and I hope that you brought your Bible, if you will take it out.

Open it up, turn it on. Daniel chapter two, I have up here with me right now. Two pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses. One of them is a fake pair, and one of them is a real pair. I don't really know if you can tell a whole lot of difference between them if I put them on.

I would imagine that from your perspective, you're like, you look dumb in sunglasses. I get it. I own that. But they both look, you know, equally dumb on me. I don't think there is any one particular one that you could say.

So they look very much alike. This is the fake pair. I ordered them from a clearance website, which should have been indication number one, they were probably fake. But the site looked legit, totally legit. And I fall for stuff like this, so I ordered.

They took like three months to get to my house. And when they arrived, they were in a box that looked like it had been drugged through rural China by a mule and then dropkick across the ocean, which should have been my second clue that not everything was right. But when I opened the box, they actually looked good. In fact, honestly, in some ways, I like the color and the design better than this genuine pair. But the moment that I Putting them on.

The moment that I put them on, y'all, I just didn't, it didn't, they didn't feel right. The metal feels really brittle. The view is not as clear as you expect from a quality pair of sunglasses. I am sure that an expert could pick these up and in a millisecond, they could tell that they are fake, but I am not an expert.

So I did just a little bit of research to tell how can you tell fake Ray-Bans from real ones. And I found out that one of the little signs is in the upper corner of the non-labeled lens, not the one that says Ray-Ban. If you look, you got to hold it just right to the light. You can see this itty-bitty teeny tiny RB that is engraved on the right lens. It's a really hard mark to produce because they don't want to scratch the lens, so it's very subtle, but it's also got to be deep enough that you can't just rub it out.

And they say that counterfeiters have a really, really difficult time getting it right. Sure enough, upon closer investigation, I was able to rub this little guy right out and confirm that these are indeed fake Ray-Bans and I had wasted. $75. I share that because what you're going to see today, what you're going to see today is how God distinguishes his kingdom from counterfeit ones. How does he distinguish his kingdom?

Because sometimes his kingdom and the world's kingdom to somebody looking from a distance or to somebody untrained, they might actually look similar. How can you tell the difference in the real one from the fake one? To remind you, we have titled this series, Shining in Babylon. That phrase comes from a phrase in Daniel 12, 3, one of my favorite Old Testament verses that says, those who have wisdom will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens. And those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.

What an amazing, amazing promise. You see, unlike most other Old Testament books, The book of Daniel, Daniel wrote his book outside of the confines of Israel. Most of it, in fact, I explained to you, is written in Aramaic, which was the language of Babylon, not Hebrew, the language of Israel. The book is about how to live wisely in a place where God is not respected. how to shine in a culture where everybody around you lives by different values and sees you not just as odd, but as an enemy of or even a threat to the current regime.

And the book is about how not just to survive in that kind of environment. The book is about how to be a witness there, how to shine there, how to lead many to righteousness, like Daniel 12, 3 says. You see, when it comes to living in a hostile culture, many Christians back then and today, many Christians feel like they gotta choose between either assimilation or separation. Assimilation or separation. Assimilation means that you just gradually look indistinguishable from everybody else around you.

It means their values become your values. Your lifestyle becomes theirs. How you talk is similar to them. All the kinds of music you listen to. Everything about you just looks like the world around you.

Well, if that's assimilation, separation would be the opposite reaction. Right, you see the world around you as so evil that you must come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord. Uh, growing up in my little independent Baptist Christian school environment, we that was totally where we were. We had a Christian version of everything. We had these little things called shepherd's guides.

Anyone remember a shepherd's guide? It's like a little yellow pages where all the business owners were Christian, so you could just do business 24 hours a day, seven days a week with nobody but Christians, and you could not get contaminated by all those unbelievers out there in the community. We had your own little Christian sports leagues, and Christians were expected to listen to their own kind of music. No drums, of course, at all. We were supposed to style our hair a certain way, right?

Because long hair on boys was a sign that demons were at work in your heart. We had to dress in distinctive ways. Boys in church should always be in ties, and girls in, well, at least culottes. Anybody remember culottes? You know, they say all fashions come back.

That one ain't coming back, I promise you. But you, the point was, you dress like a Christian. And the idea was that the more isolated you were from the world, The more faithful, the weirder the spiritual lure, I guess. Interestingly, real quick, let me show you this. This was actually a controversy in Daniel's day, also.

Let me give you a little background. I'll show you the controversy, where it comes from. The exile actually happened. The exile happened in two stages. Stage one took place around 597 B.C., and King Nebuchadnezzar carried off about 10,000 Israelites, mostly the elite, military leaders, government leaders, scholars, teachers, Daniel and all of his friends were in that stage one.

Stage two took place about 10 years later, and that's when King Nebuchadnezzar brought everybody else.

Well, in between those two stages, that 10-year gap, a bunch of false prophets rose up in Israel and they began to prophesy, saying, Look, we got to resist this exile. Babylon is bad, right? I mean, Babylon is bad. That's easy to say. Babylon is bad.

So stay away from Babylon. And if you have to live there, well, keep to yourself, right? Stay in your little conclave. And if you pray anything about Babylon, pray against it. Pray that God would destroy this wicked city.

Well, the prophet Jeremiah, by contrast, he was actually a true prophet of God. He lived in that 10-year window and he said the opposite. He said, no, it is God's will for us in this moment not to stay separate from the culture of Babylon, but to infiltrate it and to influence it. In fact, he wrote a letter to all of the exiles in Babylon that is recorded in Jeremiah 29 that we actually quote here a lot at the summit church. If you come here, you should be familiar with these verses.

Jeremiah 29, verse 4. This is what the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles. Build houses in Babylon. Live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce.

Have sons and daughters. Multiply there. Do not decrease. Seek the well-being of the city to which I have deported you. And pray to the Lord on its behalf for when it thrives, you're going to thrive.

Now, y'all, we use that verse a lot at the summit because, like Daniel, we live as exiles in a hostile culture. And that means, like Daniel, like Peter explained, we're not supposed to be huddled up in small groups singing kumbaya, waiting on Jesus to come back and rapture us off this trailer park of a planet and then destroy it. We're supposed to be in Babylon. living in Babylon, seeking the well-being of our city, praying for it. For as it thrives, we thrive.

Most Christians like the Jews in Daniel's day I think the options are either assimilation or separation. But there is a third option. Transformation. We are called neither to assimilation nor separation. We are called to transformation.

So Daniel and his friends take on Babylonian names. They speak the Babylonian language. They work in the Babylonian palace, but they do so as faithful servants of God.

Some of the reason we end every single service here by those three words, you are sent, is because we believe this. We gather in here as God's community for just a few precious hours each week in Israel, so to speak. And then most of you, most of you go back out there to Babylon, except for me. I stayed here in Israel. Right?

But you, you go back out to work in and pray for Babylon. That's why we tell you the church is supposed to feel like a spiritual tornado. You get drawn in here for a few hours only to get flung back out. It's what we see happening in the book of Acts, right? The majority of the stories in Acts take place outside of the church.

I've told you before of the 40 miracles in the book of Acts, 40. 39 of the 40 happened outside of the church. What's that tell you? It tells you that's the place where God wants to demonstrate His power today in the neighborhoods, and the businesses, and the hospitals, and the jails.

So y'all, that's the context we bring into. Daniel chapter 2. Chapter 2 opens up with King Neb. By the way. Is it okay for me just to shorten his name?

Because I feel like I'm going to spend about a third of this sermon just working my way through his name: Neb Euchadnezzar. What if we just went with Neb Nebi the Nebshur, something like that? And by the way, while we're talking about this, what Babylonian mom chooses a name like Nebuchadnezzar for their little baby? How do you look at a little infant in a crib and say, oh, Nebuchadnezzar, isn't he cute? It just doesn't seem to fit.

So, Neb, Neb, this chapter opens up with Neb waking up in a cold sweat. He's had that dream again. He's had that dream again. Not a dream, a nightmare. And every time he has it, he gets more and more upset.

Chapter 2, verse 1. In the second year of his reign, Neb had dreams that troubled him. And sleep deserted him.

So the king gave orders to summon the magicians, the mediums, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams. When they came and stood before the king, he said to them, I've had a dream and I am anxious to understand it.

So they replied, Oh king. Live forever. Tell your servants to dream and we will give you the interpretation. You see, Babylonian wise men had this little book. It was like a little interpretive key that had all these explanations of what various elements in dreams meant.

A cow meant this, a bird meant this, puff of the magic dragon meant this. If you appeared before the royal court, nothing but your underwear, that meant this. And so, when somebody would tell you a dream, you'd look up all the images in your little book, and boom, dream interpretation. And of course, they would give their interpretations in these sweeping, generalized terms, like a horoscope or fortune cookie today, where you got broad categories that can always, in some sense, be true, like your patience will one day be rewarded, or don't trust people who gossip about you, or something like that. And then they give the interpretation, and they get paid the big bucks.

But old Neb, old Neb had started to suspect that this was all a bunch of malarkey, which is a Hebrew word for a bunch of made-up stuff. And he said, verse nine, I don't trust you fools. I need you to prove that you got the power of God by telling me first what the dream was. And then I'll know that you have the power to interpret it. Pretty smart, Ned.

Pretty smart, Nev. Verse 10. The Chaldeans answer the king, but no one on earth can make known what the king requests. No king, great or small, has ever asked anything like this of any medium. What the king is asking is so difficult that no one can make it known to him except the gods.

whose dwelling is not with mortals. Because of this, the king became violently angry and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. Oh, there is trouble in Camelot. You are listening to Summit Life with JD Greer. Remember, you can always find more resources online free of charge by visiting jdgreer.com.

We'll return to our teaching in just a moment, but I wanted to remind you about what we do here at Summit Life. Every week we deliver gospel-centered resources to people everywhere, from daily devotionals to podcasts and radio programs and even a television show. You see, our mission is to make the gospel accessible and help people grow in their faith. You've heard us say it before, deep and wide. We want you to grow deeper in your understanding of the gospel, trusting God more each day and relying on his power.

And then we want you to take that good news and share it widely with a world in need. Everything we do is meant to point you in those two directions. But this work is only possible through the prayers and support of friends like you.

So I'll ask you again, would you consider joining with us in this mission? It takes a team of committed Jesus followers to accomplish a vision this big. Visit jdgreer.com to learn how your financial gift or prayer partnership can make an eternal impact. And when you give, we'll send you our newest resource, a Bible study titled Shining in Babylon. It comes with our thanks for your gift to the ministry right now.

So give us a call at 866-335-5220 or check it out at jdgreer.com.

Now let's return to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. The problem, of course, Is that Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshat, and Abednego?

Well, they're all counted among the wise men, which means that they're going to be murdered in this purge also.

So verse 17, Daniel went back to his house and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, that's Shadrach, Misha, and Abednego by their Hebrew names. They told them about the matter, urging them to ask the God of the heavens for mercy concerning this mystery.

So Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of Babylon's wise men. The mystery was then revealed to Daniel in a vision at night. And Daniel praised the God of the heavens, and he declared, May the name of God be praised forever and ever, even in Babylon. For wisdom and power belong to him. He changes the times and the seasons.

He removes kings and establishes kings. He gives wisdom to the wise. He gives knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals the deep and the hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.

And so Daniel says, let me see the king. Verse 26, and so the king said to Daniel, whose Babylonian name was Beltashazzar, Are you able to tell me the dream I had and its interpretation? And Daniel answered the king, Well, let's review. No wise man, no medium, no magician, no divoner is able to make known to the king the mystery he asked about, but.

Now, this is a great phrase, but there is a God in heaven. Who reveals mysteries? Y'all, can we park there for just a minute on that phrase, but? There Is a God. In heaven?

Because that's really the question behind all these other questions, right? Is there a God in heaven and has he said something to us on earth? Is there a God in heaven and is his power available to us? You see, sometimes, like Nebuchadnezzar. You're going to get to a point where all the human strategies fail.

Where all the wise men and the divoners and the scientists of our age. No longer can answer that deep question, that problem you got in your heart. And I feel like my first role is just to stand up here and proclaim to you, not kind of rich, complex things of theology, but stand up here and just proclaim to you, but there is a God in heaven. There is a God. in heaven.

Would that not change how you solve your problem? You've tried to make that relationship work. You're trying to fix what's broken. and it's all failed, and you feel like there is no hope. Friend, I've got good news for you, but...

There is a God in heaven. And his power starts where yours ends. You've tried to make that kid turn out right. You've told him everything you know how to tell him. You've tried everything you know how to try to make him choose what is right.

There is nothing left for you to do, and you are in despair, yes, but. But there's a God in heaven. You tried to overcome that addiction. You tried to find that missing piece, and you have failed so many times that you've started to think there's just no point to any of it. But there is a God in heaven, death and disease.

Seems so total.

So final to you in this year. This year, death and disease have taken things from you that you feel like you could never get back. What's the point? You're asking. Right?

Aren't death and disease just going to take away all of us in the end, anyway? Yes. But But there's a God in heaven. You're disappointed in politics. Me too, dismayed by our leaders.

Democrats disappoint, Republicans disappoint. Newsflash, if you were put in power, you'd disappoint us too. But there's a God in heaven. And speaking of disappointments, let's just talk about you for a minute. Hey, let's be real here, right?

For some of you, nobody has disappointed you. More than you. Every morning I get up and I look in the mirror, I look at the guy. Who has let down J.D. Greer more than anybody else in his life?

There is nobody that has lied to. Let me down broken promises to JD more than JD. And some of you got no confidence to go forward and create a better future than today because that same person who's messed everything up now is still looking at you in the mirror. Yes, but. But friend, there's a God in heaven.

You believe that? Wouldn't that change everything? Wouldn't that change everything if there actually was a God in heaven who makes power and wisdom available on earth? And so Daniel continues. That God told me what your magicians couldn't come up with.

Then Daniel tells old Nebbi what his dream was. He's like, King Neb, you saw this giant statue. His head was made out of gold. And the chest and the arms were made out of silver, and the belly was bronze, and the legs were made out of iron, and the tin toes of the feet were a mixture of iron and clay. And while you were admiring this awesome statue, a rock came out of heaven, out of nowhere, and shattered that statue in a billion pieces.

And Nebuchadnezzar said, That was it, that was my dream. And then Daniel gives him the interpretation, which we're going to get to in a second, I promise. But first, let me highlight the significance of how this went down. Because it's going to give us another important principle for shining in Babylon. I know you're like, just tell us what the things mean in the process.

I'm going to get to that. But the point here is the principle for you and me that is transferable to how we live. Here's the principle, all right? Principle, you almost call it principle number two. Principle number one is you got to be different to make a difference.

Principle number two is God validates his message supernaturally in Babylon. Supernatural confirmation is how God distinguishes his real kingdom. From his fake order. Here here here in this story that happened to the supernatural revelation of a dream But think about all the other ways this happens in Scripture. Let me take you on a little journey.

Do you remember Mark chapter 2? where Jesus said to a crippled man, your sins are forgiven. And all the religious leaders were like, You're a fake. Nobody can forgive sins but God.

Now what did Jesus point to as the proof that he had the power to forgive sins. Or, after all, anybody can just walk around saying they forgive sins, your sins are forgiven, and your sins are forgiven, and sin forgiveness for you, and look under your chair, and I got sin and forgiveness for you. Anyone can do that. We'd never know if you were telling the truth. Just like any old wise man in Babylon could fake a dream interpretation.

So Jesus said, no, no, the proof that I got the power to forgive sins is that I can make this lame man walk. If I got the power to make that lame man walk, then that proves that I got the power of God to forgive sins also. That's exactly what's happening in Nebuchadnezzar's situation here. Of course, y'all, the ultimate miracle that proved Jesus' power was the resurrection. That was something that no other religious guru or no other wise man or philosopher or doctor or scientist has ever been able to do.

One of the things that you can say that Muhammad, Buddha, Stalin, Friedrich Nietzsche, anybody you want to put in that category, one of the things they all have in common is they're all still in their grave. The only one that came out of the grave Didn't show his power and his wisdom by putting on display his intellect. It was because he could do something that only God could do. That supernatural kind of verification continued on into the ministry of the apostles. The writer of the book of Hebrews explains that God validated the writings of the apostles, what came to be known as our New Testament.

He validated it through signs and wonders. Here's the way he says it, Hebrews 2, verse 3. The gospel was declared to us first by the Lord Jesus. And then it was, watch this, attested to us. in writings By those who heard him, the apostles.

God bearing witness with them. through signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit. How did God distinguish the apostles whose writings we have from all the false prophets of that day who weren't telling the truth? It was through miracles and signs and wonders.

Now, today, our experience of this is a little bit different because we have a completed Bible, but the Apostle Paul still points to supernatural power at work in our preaching that validates that this message is from God and that it's not a counterfeit. We are called to participate in what God is doing in culture. not shrink back or isolate. Be sure to stick with us for the next few weeks as God teaches us some valuable lessons from the book of Daniel here on Summit Life. Our newest resource we're giving away this month is a Bible study through the book of Daniel.

And the beauty is that it can be done alone or in a small group. Pastor JD, tell us, what are the benefits of each approach? And how did you design this particular content to work for both individuals and groups? Yeah, personal study, let's start there. Personal study allows for deep, honest reflection to actually connect, like we've talked about, connect with God through the text, not just learn the information of the text.

And so, yeah, the HEAR method is a great option for quiet times, for individual growth. And I really think you'll enjoy doing it through the book of Daniel. Group settings, though, I think the HERE method. actually works well there too because that gives you not just what you're learning but what other people are learning shared insight accountability with each other as we often say the best discipleship doesn't happen when you're alone in your room listening to headphones it happens when you're in a group when you're sitting in a circle and other people in the body of christ are speaking wisdom into you it's got a lot of really great questions that that cause you to do some self-reflection and then self-reflection that's that's best done in a in a group setting where you can share and learn from others as they go through the same process this is great for uh For family quiet times, always a big thing for the Greer family.

So, I want this to help with those of you and your families too. It's great for discipleship payers, it's a digital resource, and that means you can share it with as many people as you'd like. We don't even ask you to keep it to yourself. We make this available for you digitally so you can share it with everybody that's in your family or small group or just people you want to see impacted by the word. We will send it to you immediately when you give at jdgreer.com.

Ask for your copy when you donate today. The title is The Book of Daniel Shining in Babylon. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220, or you can give online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich.

Be sure to listen Tuesday as we continue this message from Daniel chapter 2 here on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.