Connect with Skip - Skip Heitzig

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Connect with Skip Heidzig. Thanks for joining us
for today's program. At Connect with Skip, our mission is
to help you connect with God's Word in a deeper
way and see how it applies to everyday life. That's
why we make Bible teaching like today's available to you
and people all around the world on radio, online, and
through resources that equip you to grow in your faith.

(00:23):
One great way to do that is by taking the
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thousand foot overview of a book of the Bible, along
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(00:46):
and it's free. Sign up today at connectwiskip dot com.
That's connect with Skip dot com. Now let's dive into
today's teaching from pastor Skiff Heidzig.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
When Christopher Columbus announced his desire to explore new worlds
and to discover a quicker route to the West Indies,
all the experts of Spain said it was impossible, but
because of Columbus's steadfast persistence. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabelle

(01:19):
sided with Columbus, not the experts, and that's a good
thing for us. Henry Ford believed in the automobile. He
pursued that dream, but he had a good friend named
Thomas Edison, who said it wasn't a very good idea.

(01:40):
In fact, offered henry Ford a job to come work
for him to get a real life. The Ford was steadfast,
persistent in his dream. It's a good thing he was.
The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, believed that man could
actually fly in the sky. But they had friends, they

(02:02):
knew journalists, and they had a father. Their own dad
said it was a costly and insane waste of money.
They pursued their vision and their dream because they were steadfast.
Steadfastness is a level above faithfulness. Daniel was a faithful man.

(02:24):
We saw that last week, even in chapter six. But
steadfastness is when you are faithful in extreme times. The
idea of being steadfast evokes thoughts of strength intensity. To

(02:45):
be steadfast is to grab a hold of, in fact,
to even clutch the promises of God. One author that
I've read a lot William Barkley writes these words so
often we have a kind of vague, wistful longing that
the promises of Jesus should be true. The only way

(03:06):
to enter into them is to believe in them with
the clutching intensity of a drowning man. Keep those words
in mind as we reach chapter six, because we see
Daniel facing his possible death believing, trusting, grabbing a hold
of God's promises like this, the clutching intensity of a

(03:27):
drowning man. Now, if you are a steadfast believer, you
can count on four things that we see in the
rest of this chapter. Before we get into those four things,
can I just say that life is not fair, that
bothers some of us bother some people, especially kids. Kids
grow up and they say that's not fair, and you

(03:48):
say life isn't fair. But some people never grow out
of this idea that life should be fair, that if
you do good things, the good things will happen. That
if you do bad things, that you always have consequences,
sort of this cosmic karma that should happen. But that's
not real life. Life isn't fair. Now, God will eventually

(04:10):
bring fairness and equity, not immediately But eventually I heard
about two men. They were in a waiting room. Both
of them were expectant fathers, and their wives were in
there having babies. And the nurse came out and said
to one of them, congratulations, you have a brand new
baby daughter. The other guy stood up and he said,
that ain't fair. I was here first, Yeah, but she

(04:34):
delivered first. What happens to Daniel isn't fair. In fact,
he doesn't get delivered from the experience of the lions Den.
He has to go through the experience of the lions Den,
and he's helped while he's in it. Remember what David wrote, yea,
though I walked through the valley of the Shadow of Death,

(04:54):
we don't like that. We don't want the valley of
the Shadow of Death. We want to be airlifted from
mountain peak to mountain peak to get the valleys. But
the Christian life as you go through it, even when
you're steadfast, and I would say, especially if you're steadfast. Now,
if you are a steadfast believer, I mentioned there are
four things that you can count on. Persecution is inevitable,

(05:19):
trust is essential, deliverance is possible, and influence is unmistakable.
Those are the four divisions of the rest of the
chapter that we will look at in our text this morning.
So what I like you to do, even though we
left off at verse fifteen and sixteen really picks up
the rest of the story. I want to draw your

(05:40):
attention back a few verses and get the whole thing
framed nicely as we move into it. Number One, persecution
is inevitable. Look at verse five of Daniel six. Then
these men, those would be his envious colleagues, if you remember, said,
we shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless

(06:05):
we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
And so they went with that thought to the King
to get a decree signed that nobody could worship any
god or anything for thirty days except the king verse ten.
So when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he
went home, and in his upper room, with his windows

(06:28):
opened toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three
times that day, and he prayed, and he gave thanks
before his God, as was his custom since early days.
Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making
supplication before his God. Now it would seem that this

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story took place in one day that in the morning
they brought the decree for the king to sign it.
At noon they were already at Daniel's house watching him pray,
because that was the time that he did it. And
then by afternoon they had his death sentence signed again
and that he was put in the lions den by evening.
It was a Persian custom that a death or an

(07:09):
execution should be carried out before nightfall, so this probably
all happened in the course of a single day. They
knew that Daniel was devoted to God, and they knew
that his love for God would always be paramount, and
so they exploited that situation in order to get Daniel killed.

(07:30):
Persecution is inevitable. You and I are not going to
get through this life without some battle scars. There's going
to be some wounds. There's going to be some persecution.
And here's why you're a part of the Kingdom of Light.
Out there is the Kingdom of Darkness, of which you
used to be a part of. When the Kingdom of

(07:51):
Light and the Kingdom of Darkness come into contact, there
is a kingdom clash. There are fireworks. Paul put it
this way. One who desires to live godly in Christ,
Jesus will suffer persecution because if you're steadfast, then others
are going to know that you're a Christian. And if

(08:12):
others know that you're a Christian, not everybody's going to
like the fact that you're a Christian. In fact, they'll
talk behind your back, they'll marginalize you. You might not
make it up the scale in the corporation or worse.
Over the many years while I've been a pastor of

(08:33):
this church, I have gotten numerous death threats. Got some
recently by email and even by phone. We're gonna come,
We're going to kill you several years ago, and I
want to underline that so you just don't get worried.
But a man came in here, pulled out a gun.
He's in the foyer, said I'm going to kill that pastor.
I don't know what I said that bothered him, but

(08:54):
he was a little bit drunk, and our usher of
the presence of mine, who's a big quarterback guy, just
jumped on the guy and lovingly escorted him outside to
the police. Made for a great sermon illustration back then.
But there is a misconception that following Jesus Christ is
going to make life easier. Really ever read the New Testament.

(09:21):
The early Church had it anything except easy. We love
the promises of Jesus. In fact, some people make whole
cottage industries of little promises that Jesus said, and they
hold on to that promise for the day. But there
are some promises that they just sort of leave out.
Let me give you a few of those promises that
Jesus made to his disciples. I'm reading you don't have

(09:43):
to turn their Matthew Chapter ten, verse sixteen. Jesus said
to his followers, behold, I send you out like sheep
in the midst of wolves. Whoa, whoa. Stop right there.
That's not an easy gig, little sheep getting sent to
a pack of wolf. Therefore, Jesus said, be wise as

(10:04):
serpents and harmless, as does every now and then somebody
will say, wouldn't it be great to live in the
time of the Apostles. I say, the sort of parts
of it would be cool. A whole lot of other
parts would not be so cool, this being one of them. Behold,
I send you out like sheep in the midst of wolves.
So Jesus in this section announces this to them, and

(10:26):
then he tells them they can expect persecution from three sources.
Number one, the religious establishment. The religious establishment, Jesus said,
beware of men, for they will deliver you up to
councils and scourge you in their synagogues. Did you know
that organized religion has been one of the chief antagonists

(10:50):
against the Gospel, always has been, still is today. We
send our missionaries out to different parts of the world,
they will tell us it's not the common people. It's
not the towns folks, the country folks that give us
the opposition. It's religious organizations that are opposed to our
evangelistic work. Who were jesus enemies. Let's say, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees,

(11:13):
religious people. Even Daniel's antagonists in this chapter had a
religious bent forbidding the worship of any God, so that
you'll be persecuted by the religious establishment. Let me take
this a step further. You're even going to be persecuted
by carnal Christians in your own Bible study groups and churches.

(11:34):
Carnal Christians who see your newfound devotion for Jesus. They're
seeing that you have a desire to take the dare
to step up to be steadfast, to pray more, to
carry your Bible, and they might say something to you like, ooh,
look who got so spiritual all of a sudden. You
know why they say that, because they're convicted by your commitment.

(11:56):
And they might say, well, I'm a Christian too, I'm
just not a fanatic. Somebody once said, a fanatic is
just somebody who loves Jesus more than you do.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
You're listening to connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return
to today's teaching, let me ask, are we living in
the last days? With uncertainty, conflict, and moral confusion dominating
the headlines. It's a question many believers are asking. Pastor
Skip wants to help you understand what God's word says
about the end times so you can face the future

(12:26):
with confidence. That's why this month we're offering two timely resources,
his two CD teaching from Daniel Bible from thirty Thousand
Feet and his booklet Are We Living in the Last Days?
These will give you a clear biblical perspective on what's
happening in the world and how to be ready for
what's ahead. Request your copies when you give a gift

(12:47):
of twenty five dollars or more at connectiskip dot com,
slash offer or call eight hundred and ninety two to
two eighteen eighty eight. Now let's get back to today's
teaching number two.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Jesus continue, you'll be persecuted by the secular world, he continues,
you will be brought before governors and kings and the gentiles.
You see, a steadfast believer is sort of like a
five hundred watt light bulb in a pitch black room,
And though it dispels the darkness, it also irritates people.

(13:20):
And it irritated the Roman government when the apostles were
those bright lights, and just like Jesus predicted, you know
what happened to them. They were flung to the lions.
They were burned at the steak. They were sown into
the skins of animals so that beasts could tear them apart.
Molten lead was poured over the tenderest parts of their bodies.

(13:42):
Caesar Nero even wrapped them up in pitch and put
them on poles so that they could be torches in
his gardens at night. But then Jesus takes it a
step further in his catalog of promises to them, he said,
you'll be persecuted by your own family has said these words,
for brother will deliver up brother to death, and a

(14:04):
father his own child, and children will rise against their
parents to kill them. Did you know that there are
still some cultures today where if a person converts to Christianity,
a funeral is held for that family member and they
say he's dead. To us, he's dead, he's following Jesus. Now,

(14:27):
don't even mention his name. Other cultures are more radical,
and they believe in honor killings. This person converted to Jesus,
we need to honor our God by killing him. Now,
you haven't had those kind of things, probably, but you
have had the persecution many of you by your own
family members. Have you discovered that to witness to your

(14:48):
own family members is like, that's harder than witnessing anybody else.
They look at you, go, who are you trying to kid? Dude?
We grew up with you, We know you. You're on
the side. I'm a little kick now. But whatever these
are the promises of Jesus, persecution is inevitable. Back to Daniel,
chapter six, persecution is inevitable. Therefore trust is essential. And

(15:16):
I watch this Daniel six verse sixteen. So the king
gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him
into the den of lions. Just sort of a straightforward statement.
So they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions den.
It was actually a pit. I've been to Babylon and
the archaeologist showed me a square hole on the pavement

(15:36):
where I was standing, and underneath was a large cavern.
In those days it would have been divided into two
where the lions were on one side, a lot of them,
and then the ordure Daniel in this case would be
on the other side. The Daniel. The lions would then
be let loose. So the king gave the command, and

(15:57):
they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions.
But the king spoke saying to Daniel, now listen to
the pagan king. Speak your God, whom you serve continually,
he will deliver you. What why did this king say that, Well,

(16:17):
this king has been on the throne of Babylon out
for a year at least, perhaps even two years. By now.
Daniel is old, as we know, he's not afraid of anybody,
and he's in the king's council he's on the cabinet
of the king. So this king has heard message after
message after message about what happened to Daniel by Daniel.
He heard what happened with nippugn Asra, what happened with

(16:38):
Belle Shazar. It was well recorded in their own history
books by that time. And Daniel has been steadfast before
this king, your God, whom you serve continually, he will
deliver you. Then a stone was brought and laid on
the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it
with his own signet ring and with the signets of

(16:59):
his lords, that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed.
Now the king went to his palace and spent the
night fasting, and no musicians were brought before him, and
also his sleep went from him. In this whole episode,

(17:19):
do you once read of Daniel saying, this isn't fair God,
I've served you seventy years. No, in fact, we don't
have recorded that Daniel said anything at all at all.
Daniel opens the windows, he prays, that was his custom.

(17:42):
He definitely knew that the thing had been signed. He
definitely knew that death could happen. He definitely knew what
a den of lions was but he opened up the
windows and he prayed, because he always prayed. And then
the death sentence has passed. Daniel's taken and placed in
the lions, and he says nothing. Now he may have
said something, but the text is silent. It's like Jesus.

(18:04):
He opened, not his mouth, but he was silent before
his antagonist, and he is lowered into the den of lions.
Daniel's story reminds me of another story that some of
you may have heard about a guy by the name
of Polycarp who in one fifty six AD he was
a Christian leader in Smyrna, a Christian bishop. Polycarp was

(18:27):
brought to be burnt at the stake. They brought him
to the stake, they tied him up, they lit the fire,
and then the executioner said, listen, Polycarp, you can get
out of this reallyase you just deny Jesus very quickly,
we'll let you go. You'll have your freedom, not yelling,
not screaming, I ete flames. Polycarp said, I have served

(18:49):
Jesus Christ for eighty six years. He was eighty six
years old, like Daniel, I've served Jesus Christ for eighty
six years. Never once has he denied me, done me
any wrong? How can I deny him now? And Polycarp
looked down to those flames as the will of God
for his life. And I believe Daniel saw the lions

(19:11):
den and he didn't squawk and didn't say I hate
teeth and lions and no, though he wouldn't have loved it,
but he knew his God well enough, and he was
steadfast enough to know and believed. Okay, this is it.
I've lived eighty six years. Now it's the lion's den.
I had to go one way or the other, and
they lowered him into the pit. Now it's easy to

(19:33):
talk about this, but this is where steadfastness has got
to kick in. This is where the clutching intensity of
a drowning man has to kick in. This is where
your faith needs to move from faithfulness to steadfastness. Here's
a good prayer to remember, Psalm fifty one. David prayed,
created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a

(19:56):
stead fast spirit within me. The Hebrew work means to
be fixed or fastened, immovable, steadfast spirit within me. So
I'm one hundred and twelve. Speaks of a good man.
A godly man, and in describing him, it says he
will not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is
steadfast trusting in the Lord. I have a question for you,

(20:18):
what will it take to move you? What will it
take to move you? What will what would it take?
What could possibly happen in your life to have you
stop trusting Jesus Christ? Death of a child, lingering disease,
loss of employment? Is there something that you have said? Aye,

(20:40):
trust the Lord. But as long as does this and
that happen, if something else happens, I can't. I can't
follow with God like that. I can't trust to God
like that. Really, I remember having a conversation with a
young lady some years ago. Actually took me by surprise
because she said, well, you know, I believed in Jesus.
Past tense, I follow Jesus, try trusted Jesus. Then she said,

(21:02):
but then my grandmother died and that was it. I said, well,
with all due respect, I'm very sorry for your loss,
is very painful, But did you really think she was
never going to die? Because that's never happened before in history,
So that was it. It was your grandmother's death that

(21:22):
just sort of you lost it at that point, I'm
not following Jesus anymore. Really, Job lost his estate, all
ten of his children, and his health. And he said,
the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be
the name of the Lord. And then as the book
goes on and the situation gets worse, he says, though

(21:44):
he slay me, I will trust him. He can kill me.
I'm not going to be moved. That's steadfastness. I want
you to listen to a slogan of an African American
church in Kansas City. I love it so much. It's
their slogan. It's on their letterhead and they have to

(22:04):
probably print small to fit it all in because it's
a long one. But listen to this. Here's their slogan.
Wake up, sing up, pray up, and pay up, but
never give up or let up, or back up or
shut up until the Kingdom of Christ is built up
in this world. That's their slogan. That's a pretty good one,

(22:24):
isn't it. The five of you like it, I want
to know you five after church. Wake up, sing up,
pray up, pay up, but never give up, let up,
back up or shut up till the Kingdom of Christ
is built up in this world. So there's Daniel. They
just sort of take him and they lure them in
the pit, and then something frustrating happens in the story.

(22:48):
That's verse seventeen. Look at verse eighteen. Now the king
went to his palace and spent the night fasting, and
no musicians were brought before him, and asleep went from him.
Now I'm reading that, going, so what, I don't care
about the king and his palace? What's going on and
the lions? Daniel? If this were a movie and the
camera shows a guy getting lit down the lion ah

(23:08):
and all of a sudden, the camera pans to the
king's palace and goes, they can't sleep, I'm going, I
don't care about you can't sleeping. Take me back to
the lions then, But this is the Holy Spirit showing
you and I what the king is going through mentally
in this entire episode. Persecution is inevitable, trust is essential.

(23:30):
Here's Daniel just seeing this as the will of God.
I'm going to trust in God, you know what, Daniel.
It sort of reminds me of his three friends a
few chapters back, who said, our God is able to
deliver us but if not, we're not going to bow.
Daniel knew that God can deliver him. But if not,
here goes oh, well, high lion. Now let's go on

(23:56):
in the story, and you see that deliverance is possible.
It happens for him. Then the king arose very early
in the morning, the text suggests, at the dawn of
the day, and went in haste to the den of lions.
When he came to the dan, he cried out with
a lamenting voice to Daniel. Interesting voice of anguish. The
king spoke, saying to Daniel, Daniel servant of the Living God.

(24:20):
Why did he call him that? Where did he get
that from? He got that from Daniel. Daniel has been
steadfast before the king, so that even this king knows
that Daniel believes that all the gods of Babel and
all the gods of Meto persh are faith. They're just
a bunch of statues without life. But he served the
living God. So the king calls him that.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Thanks for listening. To connect with Skip Heitzig before you go,
don't miss your chance to request this month's featured resources
from pastor Skip the Bible from thirty thousand feet to
CD Teaching from Daniel and his booklet Are We Living
in the Last Days Together? They'll help you understand what
the Bible says about the future and how to be
ready for it. These resources are our thanks for your

(25:04):
gift of twenty five dollars or more. To help share
God's word with more people, call eight hundred ninety two
to two eighteen eighty eight or visit connectwiskift dot com
slash offer and while you're there, sign up for the
free thirty K thirty day challenge to grow in your
knowledge of God's Word. Thanks for spending time with us
today and we'll see you next time. On Connect with

(25:26):
Skift Heidsick, Make.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
It Connect, Make a Connect. The cross Chas fan song
makes Next.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Connect with Skift Heidsick is a presentation of connection communications
connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.