Destined for Victory

Guest (Male): Hello and thanks for stopping by for today's Destined for Victory, where we feature the teaching ministry of pastor Paul Shepard. Coming up next, pastor Paul takes us to the book of Daniel for a beautiful story of unwavering faith. Before we get started though, we'd like to share an important message with you. As you may know, summer is always a tough time for ministries like Destined for Victory. Donations tend to plunge during these months, which is why your support is appreciated now more than ever. Over the years, pastor Paul and I talked about this and here's what he had to say.

Paul Sheppard: It would be great if your mortgage company or whoever you pay your housing bill to would say, hey, it's summer and I know you got things you want to do. So, yeah, that's not going to happen for you and your family life and it doesn't happen for those of us who are broadcasters of the word of God. The stations we broadcast, the platforms that we use, they require that we support them financially every month. And for that reason, we need our listeners to be supportive of us. We don't have the ability to broadcast without thinking about paying the bills.

That's where our listeners, that's where our donors come in. As you consider the fact that 12 months, every month without fail, we need your support. We appreciate the fact that you'll think of us during the summer and realize that the bills are still coming and the word of God still needs to go out. And thankfully, we're able to reach some people on vacation or wherever they happen to be, even some of those who aren't normally listeners, and we're able to reach them with the word of God. So, thank you to those who help us and I want to challenge more and more listeners.

Would you become partners with us and would you remember us even if you're not a monthly partner in the summer, think about us and drop us a line and put a check in there or contact us with the online platform of giving and say we want to make sure that you continue throughout the year, including in these summer months. Thanks for thinking of us this year.

Guest (Male): As you give generously today, we have an outstanding resource to share with you as our way of saying thanks, introducing our brand new booklet, Overcoming Bitterness. Based on some of pastor Paul Shepard's best sermons, this message will show you some key strategies for removing bitterness from your heart once and for all. As you follow along, you'll gain strategic insight into ways to cultivate hope and reclaim the joy of the Lord's salvation. Again, that's Overcoming Bitterness, a helpful booklet for anyone who still struggles to let go of past wounds and press on toward his or her victory in Christ.

Request your copy today for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538.

Paul Sheppard: All peoples, nations, and men of every language, as soon as you hear the sound of the horn, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that king Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.

Guest (Male): You may remember the story. Daniel and the rest of the Israelites were living in Babylonian captivity. A golden image had been fashioned by king Nebuchadnezzar and everyone, without exception, was ordered to worship the image. The penalty for disobedience, death by fire. That's where pastor Paul Shepard picks up the story today in his continuing series, Standing for Right in a Wrong World. Let's join him now for today's Destined for Victory message, Uncompromising Faith.

Paul Sheppard: Daniel chapter three, beginning with verse one. King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold 90 ft high and 9 ft wide, set it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up. So, they all came and assembled for the dedication of the image and they stood before it, verse four. Then the herald loudly proclaimed, this is what you are commanded to do, all peoples, nations, and men of every language.

As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that king Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace. We'll pause there. Currently, we're looking at the lives of four young Hebrew men who learned how to continue honoring God, even though at this time in their lives and in redemptive history, Israel had been taken captive by the people of Babylon, the king of Babylon. They've been taken away from their homeland.

So, they are living among pagans. They are working among pagans. But these four men are a great case study because they're helping us understand what it looks like to honor God, no matter where you are, no matter what the circumstances of your life in this season happen to be. Now, just very briefly in the previous message, we were looking in Daniel chapter two and we saw that king Nebuchadnezzar had had a dream that troubled him and so he called all his wise men and such together and he said, I desperately need the interpretation of my dream and I need all you astrologers and magicians and such.

I need you all to give me some wisdom. This dream was striking, so I need a definite interpretation. Tell you what, I don't just want you to interpret the dream to prove to me that you're in touch with something supernatural. I want you to tell me what I dreamed and then give me the interpretation. And of course, we saw that they all protested, saying we can't do that. But it would take one of the gods to reveal that and they don't live among us. And they protested because he said, and if you don't do it, I'm going to have you cut into pieces.

And so they protested, saying we can't do that. But when Daniel heard about it because they had begun to send people out to destroy all of the wise men who were in the province, when Daniel heard about it, he went to the king and said, just give me a little time and I will tell you your dream and its interpretation. And we saw as we closed the last message that Daniel and the three others prayed and asked God, Lord, give us insight, give us divine insight so that we can know what the king dreamed and know what it means.

We can save our lives and save the lives of others as well. And we saw that God marvelously answered prayer. Let me just kind of pick it up from there real quick before I focus on the text I just read. So, what happened after that is Daniel heard from God and Daniel went into the king's presence and he told him what he dreamed. In fact, let me pick it up at Daniel chapter two. You can look with me beginning at verse 31 as Daniel is explaining to the king what he was shown. You looked, oh king, and there before you stood a large statue, an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.

The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, the gold were broken to pieces at the same time, became like chaff on the threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace.

But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. This was the dream and now we will interpret it to the king. Skip down to verse 38. The end of verse 38 says, you, king, are that head of gold. After you, another kingdom will rise inferior to yours. Next, the third kingdom made of bronze in the dream and it will rule the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, for iron breaks and smashes everything and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others.

Skip down to the end of verse 42. And the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united anymore than iron mixes with clay. In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms, bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

So, that's Daniel interpreting the dream to the king. He says, what you saw was imagery which tells you that your kingdom is in charge now. You are the world ruler right now, but after you are coming three other kingdoms. And when we look at history, we find that God gave him very accurate information, so accurate that we, now looking in hindsight, can easily trace the three world-dominating kingdoms of the BC era, if you will. Before the coming of Christ, he says, after you is coming one inferior, but it will still be a world-dominating kingdom. We know that, in fact, I'm going to have them put up these names.

We know that to be first the Medo-Persian kingdom. The Medo-Persians succeeded the Babylonians as a world-ruling kingdom. After the Medo-Persians came the Greeks. If you know the warfare history of ancient Greece, you know that Alexander the Great was one who was so successful in warfare, dominating the world as he knew it in his day. We all have heard that there came a day when Alexander sat down and wept because there were no other kingdoms for him to conquer. And after the Greeks came the Roman Empire. And we know about the Roman Empire. All of us have seen movies and we have studied the history of the Romans.

We've seen them build the great Colosseum and what have you. And so God gave them foresight that these four kingdoms, the first of which was existing at the time, the Babylonians, would be world-dominating kingdoms. But look closely at what was said. But in those days of that fourth divided kingdom, Rome became divided. And in those days, God was going to send a stone not made with hands that would crush the image at that time. Guess what? The Romans were in charge when Jesus showed up. And when Jesus showed up, business changed forever. And he is that stone.

His kingdom is represented by that stone. The kingdom was established first through his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension back to heaven. And that stone will continue to fill the whole earth. The message of the gospel will continue to fill the whole earth. And ultimately, the Bible says, ultimately the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. In other words, you all used to be in charge, but the day is coming when you'll be a forgotten issue because Jesus will be dominant over all. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

That's why when I tell folk now, I say listen, you need to bow to Jesus now, give him your life now, because the question's not if you're going to bow. The only question is when you're going to bow. Oh, you bowing. You going to bow, but better to bow now when you can have the joy of having him be Lord of your life rather than to bow in judgment. But the Bible is clear, every knee will bow, every atheist knee, every agnostic knee. All of them going bow. Why y'all getting scared? I'm the one preaching.

Everybody's going bow. That he's not the days you want to make people mad. Why not? It's just telling the truth, speaking the truth in love. Love you enough to preach the gospel, tell you to bow now where you can reap the benefits of his lordship. But everybody's going to bow. Everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord. And so that's what the dream was all about. And after that, we didn't study it in the last message, but let me just mention it. When you look at the end of Daniel chapter two, when the king got this news, the Bible goes on to tell you that he hit his own knees and he worshipped Daniel.

And he said, your God is the true God. Here's the problem. See, Nebuchadnezzar could have got saved that day, but his attention was messed up. He's looking at the vessel rather than looking at the God who revealed truth to the vessel. So, he worshipped Daniel and mentioned his God, but he worshipped Daniel. He should have worshipped the God and mentioned Daniel. But because he got it messed up, he didn't get saved that day. We know that because in the next chapter, chapter three, where our text is, he's building a golden image. And he wants all his leaders to bow down to the image.

So, you know he didn't get the revelation right. Now, look at what he had built, a 90 ft tall by 9 ft wide golden image.

Guest (Male): We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message, so don't go away. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net and while you're there, be on the lookout for some of the best Christian resources on the market, including books and DVDs that feature the teaching and preaching ministry of pastor Paul Shepard. It's found at pastorpaul.net. More than 2,000 years ago, the king of Babylon had a golden image built and he demanded that everyone bow down and worship it. What does that have to do with us today? Find out next in the rest of the message, Uncompromising Faith.

Once again, here is pastor Paul.

Paul Sheppard: Now, let's be clear. The image wasn't solid gold because they didn't have that much gold in the kingdom of Babylonia. I mean, this thing is 90 ft tall. You know what that is? That's like between eight and nine stories tall. Imagine a statue that stands that tall. And this thing was 9 ft wide. So, it wasn't pure gold. What happened in those days, many times when they would build a statue is it would be built of wood and then overlaid with gold. So, when you read that, that's the way you need to interpret it because they didn't have that much gold.

And so just just trying to help you along the way. And so he builds this image. Then look at what he does. He calls together all the leaders and officials in his kingdom and the herald announces to them, now when the music is played, everyone of you is to bow down and worship this image. Now, pastor, I like coming to your church because I usually get a lot out of your messages. But help me understand why are you telling me about a statue that was built more than 2,500 years ago. What does that have to do with my life?

Glad you asked. It has a lot to do with your life because as you live your life, there are going to be constant opportunities, constant commands, constant pressure for you to bow to something that dishonors God. So, this really is less about Nebuchadnezzar and much more about you. I want to suggest to you, it's important to you for two reasons. The first is that idols exist today, not just in ancient times. I want you to make note of that. Idols exist today, not just in ancient times. I got to preach this to you because there is the strong possibility that you are either worshipping idols or at least tempted to worship idols.

They don't look like what Nebuchadnezzar built, but they are as real in your life as this statue was in Daniel's day. Idols exist today and I'm going to prove it as I move on. Just as in ancient days. The second thing I want you to be aware of is that idols exist everywhere, not just in certain societies or religions. They exist everywhere. They are not just well, you know, I know there are some cultures that have idol worship. No, no, idols are everywhere. You don't have to get on a plane to find an idol. They exist everywhere, not just in certain societies or religions.

Pastor, what's your proof of that? I never preach without proof. That's what I study. That's why I study hours and hours. The average message I preach takes 10 to 12 hours to prepare because I can just get up here and tell you what I think. You didn't get in your car and drive out here to hear what I think. You should have came out here because you want to hear a word from the Lord. And you want it rightly divided. You want it clearly understood. You want to be able to be somebody who's never been to church before, but you leave here knowing what I said.

That's my job. So, let me prove to you that idols are everywhere and that idols are among us in modern days because here is the true definition of an idol. Any practice, passion, priority, or partnership that we submit to even though it's contrary to God's word and will. Going to keep that up for a moment because I want you to jot it down. I've given that definition in several different messages over the years, so you may already have it, but I want to remind you of it and some folk never heard it, so jot that down.

An idol is any practice, passion, priority, or partnership that you submit to even though it's contrary to God's word and will. Anything you're doing, I want you to think about those four categories of things in your life. Now, you can already see this is not a shouting message. This is not a Lord, didn't he preach the day message. This is not one of those to get you excited messages. They are some of those. I'll keep bringing you some of those cuz sometimes the truth is just exciting. And so I prepared nice exciting messages now, sometime where you can just shout shout your way on out.

Can't hardly get to your car for calling for you should have heard my pastor today. Today is not that day. Today we going to sell four and a half CDs. I don't know how you sell a half of one, but y'all figure it out. Short line, you can go get anything you want. And folk not going to be running for this. But I got to be faithful to the word of God. I got to be faithful to my calling. My calling is not to excite you every Sunday. My calling is not to leave you have you running out of here, jumping and shouting every week.

Some some weeks I'm going to let you shout. But this is one of those weeks where I brought my own amens with me. I got them tucked away in various places cuz you probably won't be saying a lot, so I had to say them to myself. You don't hear it, but inside I'm saying preach, doc, go ahead on. Come on up, doc. All that stuff is going on inside of me. I'm pushing myself through this message cuz y'all going to be sitting there saying he tripping today. Or why don't he get off of that point?

Cuz sometime the word has to hit you right where you are in order for you to have something later on to shout about. Some of us have practices, passions, priorities, and partnerships that we submit to, but the fact is they are contrary to God's plan for our lives. And I've got to use this opportunity here in Daniel to bring you to a place of awareness that just as Daniel and the three young men who were with him in Babylon, just as they could not They were forbidden to serve any foreign gods, you and I have the same prohibition on our lives.

We are told to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. You know when you love God with all of that, you don't have any love left for anybody else. See what I mean? You can't have another God cuz my God, Jehovah, my God, Jesus Christ got all my love. So, no other God with a small G can get any love from me cuz 100% of it goes to him. That's where you got to be. That's where you got to be. I can't love any other God. I can love people cuz God told me to love people.

I can love my family cuz God told me to do that. I can do various things, but all the things that I am authorized to do it's because the lover of my soul commissioned me to do it. I came to tell you, you can't love some false God and be pleasing to the Lord.

Guest (Male): Thanks so much for being here today for pastor Paul Shepard's message, Uncompromising Faith. To find out more about Destined for Victory and the special gift reserved for you when you give generously today, visit pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net.

Paul Sheppard: But let me tell you something. The level of faith I'm calling you to in this word is not coming with a guarantee that you always going to be walking around your fire. There might come a time when you have to lay down your life or your influence or your job.

Guest (Male): At tomorrow in our continuing Destined for Victory message, Uncompromising Faith. But until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.