Growing in Competence

Good afternoon, everyone. Good to see all of you here today. It's a beautiful Sabbath. Appreciated that special music. I've come to appreciate Amazing Grace more and more over the years. Interesting story behind that song. If you ever want to delve into the historical development of where that came from and who wrote it, it's an interesting story. I won't take the time to tell you today, but if you like history and history of music, especially, that's an interesting one. Mr. Miller asked me to mention a couple of items here from the announcement bulletin that he had forgotten to mention, and that is the upcoming Bible studies beginning on the 10th, when you see here that you have a series beginning entitled, Tracking the Tribes, which has to do with the United States and British Commonwealth peoples in prophecy, and that subject, which is a very important subject for our understanding of Bible prophecy and much of the Bible and even modern history. And that will begin a several-week series that he will be giving you. And then also the North Canton Game Night for December the 17th, which will be held here after services. So please plan on that, so you look like you have a lot of activities coming up over the next few weeks, and I'm glad to see that. Mr. Miller has left the building, so I can talk about him now. Actually, what I have to say about him, I would say, if he were sitting here, I hope I'm sure you all do appreciate Mr. and Mrs. Miller and their service to you.

They stepped in at a very important time a few months ago in the church, and were willing to come up from their home down in Sugar Creek and to take over the pastoral responsibilities. I have a little bit of knowledge about that since I was the one who made the phone call to him to ask him if he would come up and do it.

Last year, about 11 months ago, last week of December, after having a meeting at my father-in-law's house with some of you at that time, and beginning the efforts to reorganize here in the Akron, North Canton area, and what would become now the North Canton congregation of the United Church of God, and having a meeting in his home with a number, and then making a phone call from my car the next day to Mr. Miller to ask him if he would come up the following Sabbath.

And give the sermon, and help to begin reorganizing the congregation. So we do appreciate very much that he instantly said yes, just like that, and was willing to come and do that, and on top of the very heavy responsibilities he has with his own business. And we appreciate what both he and Susan have done over the last year in this area, for all of you and for the church. So I take my hat off there, and a deep appreciation for that, for them. We're glad to be here this holiday weekend. You know, Thanksgiving has stretched into an all-weekend event in recent years, because a lot of us have the traditional Thursday Thanksgiving with friends or family, and then because we have such many friends and family, sometimes you have to have two dinners, sometimes people have to have three dinners for Thanksgiving to get everybody in.

So two dinners has become the norm for Debbie and I, and we came up yesterday to have a second day of Thanksgiving dinner with Joanne Bess, and Debbie's sister was there, coming in from California to spend the week with her mother and help her. So we've had two turkey dinners in two days, and actually three. We had leftovers today. So we'll probably have a turkey sandwich on the way home tomorrow, too. So that's the way it's become with this holiday, and that's not a bad thing.

To get everyone together, family especially, and multiple families, the way situations are today, to be able to do that on this national day of Thanksgiving, it's always a good time of the year and a good season, and it's my favorite holiday that we have. There's not too many holidays that we observe, and this is one of them. Of the two major ones, I guess, Fourth of July being the other, which I do enjoy as well, I do like Thanksgiving more than anything else. I thought I'd take a minute just to explain a little bit that's taking place with Debbie and I in our move, just a personal comment.

We are in the process of transitioning to Cincinnati and moving to the home office area. Since two weeks ago, I was no longer a church pastor after 38 years. We said goodbye to our congregations in Fort Wayne and Indianapolis over the last few weeks. Two weeks ago, I kind of slipped out of that role and began working more full-time into the media area at the home office.

We're in the process. I'm commuting back and forth every week. I go down usually early on Monday morning, come back on Thursday night, and work at the office with the projects that we're gearing up for and dealing with there, then come back by the weekend. We don't have a congregation to attend right now. When the former pastor leaves the church, you don't go back.

And so we're kind of in transition there. So we're here this week, and I think next week we'll be at home on a cybercast, and then someplace else the week after for a while until we do move over to Cincinnati. We have bought a home in the Cincinnati area, and we'll close on that the first week of January. We have yet to sell our home in Indianapolis. So if any of you are looking for a nice second home to spend the winter in, in southern climates of Indiana, I've got one for you.

Make you a good deal, but let's talk after the Sabbath. So we were yet to sell that home. The real estate market is an interesting market right now.

It is a buyer's market, and real estate prices have really dropped, as many of you know, in recent years, and reports say they're going to drop some more. That's the good news is, if you're a buyer, that's great. You can get a good buy. The bad news is, if you're a seller, then you're in, you know, there's a lot of properties on the market, and prices are low. So we just, this past week, became a buyer, but we're still a seller in one other market, so we haven't sold our home, and there's not much activity going on in the Indianapolis area.

And so I'm sure we're not really worried about it. It'll sell when it's supposed to sell, and that's the way God tends to work a lot of these things out. So we're not really worried about it, in one sense. What's two payments, you know? It's just, that's life sometimes.

I've been there before, and we'll be there again. We've lived in this home 21 years, which is the longest either of us have ever lived in any home. And our kids grew up in Indiana. We had a good run there. Actually, 30, we had about 28, 29 years total in Indiana, 21 being in Indianapolis, and the other seven being up in Fort Wayne, and parts of that time as well. So we've been there a long time, made a lot of good friends, but the opportunity came to make this move, and we took it, and we're looking forward to it.

We're working, I'll be working in the office with the media staff on Beyond Today, some other projects. Just this past week, we began working on a new feature for the website called BT Daily, which is a daily commentary that Steve Myers and Gary Petty and I will be rotating and working on together, and Sengley and Dubb and two of us, or one of us, or whatever, but it will be a daily, short, two- to three-minute commentary that we put up on the web.

And you can begin to see that already. That will provide some daily relevance from the Bible and current events and things that are going on. It's a work in progress, but we are beginning to do that. We've been doing it two weeks now. And I anticipate that it will develop into some other matters that will enable us to use the Internet for some significant efforts to preach the gospel. Beyond Today will be a more concentrated focus for me as well, being at the office and being able to work with that and some of the post-production aspects of Beyond Today.

So other writing matters that will be involved as well. So I'm looking forward to just being able to concentrate fully upon the media message of the Church at this time and help to develop that both from the Council perspective, being a member of the Council of Elders, and now being a part of the Administration and working full-time in that media area. When Mr. Luecker offered me the opportunity to come and do this, it was one of those things that I just really couldn't say no to and was glad to be able to have that opportunity after 38 years of working in the field ministry.

So sometimes you work for a long, long period of time on a particular project and you find that that opens up other opportunities in the Church and in the work, and this is one that's been there for us. So we're looking forward to it. The sermon that I wanted to give to you today has been about 11 months in the making. You get certain ideas and it takes a while to bring them to a point where you feel either you're ready to give them or a certain time is there.

And I actually wrote down some of the notes in this sermon back in January that on a trip that I'd made to Europe with another member of the Church who was academic. He's a professor in the University of California system.

And he and I had a chance to go to Europe back in January. And along the way we had kind of an ongoing conversation about competency. Competency. And being able to perform your work, whatever it might be, at a level of competence that allows you to grow and to develop and actually show maturity and experience gained over a period of time. And in the course of our conversations we kind of came back around to one particular figure and individual in the Bible that we felt, that he and I, felt exemplified competence and a level of competence over a long period of time.

And I had intended to give this sermon in January when I got back, wrote down the notes on the flight back from Europe that day, that trip. And then other events in the church at that time caused this one to be shelved. But it's still in my computer. And in looking at it a few days ago, I thought this is the time perhaps to pull this subject out and to begin to talk about it here.

And I will do so with you. And I'm giving my sermon today off of my iPad. I've started to do that here in recent days. But I did bring up a Bible just in case. If technology goes down, you still want to have a hard copy of things down there.

So I may go back and forth to that, depending on how it all works. I'd like for you to turn over to the first chapter of Daniel. Daniel is one of those figures that has always been a favorite of mine. And as Mr.

Carlech and I were talking about the subject of competency, we kept going back to this figure in the Bible. And I'm going to just draw a few scenes from his life today in the few minutes that I have with you. Because I think it does offer a experience or an example of an individual who grew in competence over a period of time. When you look at Daniel's life, and you remember that he was part of the captivity, the Jewish captivity out of the land of Judah that went into Babylon. Daniel, here in the first chapter, has his introduction along with three of his friends, who are young men who are finding themselves in a completely new environment and a new opportunity and a new land there in Babylon.

And it begins the story that, at least for Daniel, because he's the one we follow through this book, allows us to follow a man's growth in his job for a period of about 40-plus years. You realize from Daniel 1 through Daniel 12, you're talking about a four-plus decade span of time that takes place. Babylon is the initial power, the reason Daniel is in the city of Babylon.

But that nation will fall, taken over by the Persians. Daniel will succeed even in his role in working very closely with the Persian leaders. And so he survives hostile takeovers, changes of administration, office politics at a level that requires a great deal of acumen in order to navigate and to work through and survive. And in doing so, he continues to grow in a level of competence about his job that, for you and I, measures out into spiritual maturity as well. But it's also an individual who's able to go through the waters, the very stormy and choppy waters of palace and cork intrigues, and still survive to the point where he is able to finish his career with a level and a depth of competency that I think stands as a good example for us.

Because Daniel continued to learn as he met each challenge and experience. And along the way, he just continued to learn. He never felt that he knew it all. He never felt he'd reached any point of being able to retire mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or even, it seems, from what we find, even in his prime role and responsibility. He never got to a point where he felt that his life was over and his best years were behind him. It seems as you read the story of Daniel, he was always seeking more understanding. And from his point of view, there were other fields of knowledge to conquer.

His life was before him rather than behind him. And that is a remarkable quality in and of itself for any of us to learn from. When you look at what Daniel did, it seems that he built on each experience and never forgetting what he learned along the way. I raised this question after, actually, this year at the Feast of Tabernacles. Some of you were at the feast sites where we were in Jekyll or Virginia Beach. And I raised the question in one of my sermons about, for us all to consider, about how many feasts of Tabernacles we've all kept.

You know, how we all go through that exercise every year at the feast, first year, tenth year, thirtieth year, how many feasts, you know, who's been there the longest and whatever.

And I made the point that, you know, it doesn't matter in one sense how many feasts we've kept. It's the quality of the feasts that we've kept along the way. Because a person can keep one feast forty times and never really grow an experience and understanding of the Feast of Tabernacles, what it is about, and how it impacts one's spiritual life. Or you could keep forty feasts and have forty years of experience, experienced festivals, as a result, by learning each year, not repeating certain mistakes or certain situations, certain habits that may have caused one particular festival experience to have not been the best, in terms of spiritual education or quality of learning.

And it's all up to us. Same thing with your job. A person can have one year of experience on a job repeated twenty-five times. And they may have twenty-five years ticked off in the HR report, but they really only have one year of experience because they've never progressed in their job. And they've never drilled down in terms of a level of competence. So that's what we're talking about here in regard to how we approach life, how we approach our calling and our relationship with God, the depth of experience that brings us into a much deeper relationship with God, the Father and Jesus Christ.

Let's look here in Daniel chapter one. I'm not going to be reading through a lot of verses, necessarily. We'll go to certain chapters and certain stories here and kind of relate the story. In Daniel chapter one is where we find Daniel and his three friends at a point where they are being interviewed for a role at the king's palace, as we're told here, in verses four and five.

And there's an interview process. There is a kind of a training matter that is going on. Verse five tells us that it even involves the provisions of daily food that was a part of this and three years of training for them so that they might be qualified to serve before the king. And we're introduced to Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Michelle and Azariah. Verse eight really sets the whole mood here because we find that Daniel says, purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's delicacies nor with the wine which he drank.

And therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. And they were told that he had favor with God, that God had brought him into the favor and the good will of the chief of the eunuchs. What is important to note, I think, in this, because as you know, you go through the story, Daniel talks the chief eunuch into letting he and his three buddies go on a special diet, essentially a vegetarian diet, for three weeks.

And then afterwards, you know, you evaluate where we stand in all of this and whether or not we're better off than the portion, the food that everybody else would be given. Now, how you understand that can be at different levels. I mean, there were certain delicacies. We're not given the exact details here. It could very well have been that there were unclean foods involved. Daniel wasn't going to defile himself with that.

It could have been a very, very rich diet that he wasn't used to. It could be as well meat offered to idols that he felt would defile him as well. Wine is also mentioned, which we all know was not a prohibited item, but they even went so far as to, for that period of time, to exclude wine from their diet. They went on a water and vegetarian diet. And verse 15 tells us at the end of that period of time, their features appeared better and fatter than all the others. And they got the job. They were then given the opportunity to do what they were best at.

They were individuals who were highly skilled. They were skilled in the learning that they had been given from their own childhood and that of the Israelite culture. They were in the Babylonian culture now. They had the basic tools, no doubt, to absorb all the knowledge of the Babylonians, which was a very rich, advanced culture for that day and age as well. They interviewed and they got the job. If you look in verses 19 and 20, they were examined by the king and he found them ten times better than all the others. And so they were hired.

They looked at their scores, their ACT, their LSAT, their SAT scores and everything. They probably were off the charts in terms of what their abilities were. And so they were hired and they were put into their responsibilities. Now, when you look at this story in the first chapter, I think there's one spiritual lesson for us all to draw from. Daniel, it seems, and his friends had a respect for their heritage. They had a respect for their heritage. That's the first point I think we could understand here in terms of growing incompetency. They were raised, if you will, we would say in the church for our own language today.

They were raised as Jews with the heritage of what we call the Old Testament, the laws, the customs, the traditions, the values, the sacrificial system, and all that had been a part of the Israelite society and had been preserved to whatever form by the Jews until the downfall of Jerusalem and the sacking of that city and everyone being taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar. But Daniel came through all of that with his faith intact and his respect for the heritage that he had as an Israelite. We might say today that we don't look at ourselves as Jews.

We don't look at ourselves as Israelite other than in a spiritual sense. But we are certainly Christians, members of the Church of God, with a very unique heritage and legacy that stretches back for some of us quite a number of decades. Forty or more years, 48 years in my life. Some of you longer than that. Five and more decades in terms of a legacy and a heritage of a way of life. The respect that we have for that is very, very important. We hold it very dear. Daniel respected what he was and what he had been taught.

He looked up rather than around. He looked to God and he didn't look to men. He looked to God and not to money. He looked to God and not to status. He wasn't going to and did not bow down to any lifeless idol and worship it as a God, as a deity. And he didn't worship the idols of his modern world. And you know, his world was a modern world for them. Sometimes we don't always appreciate the fact that we have the Internet, we have all of our modern technology in a highly sophisticated modern world.

But you know, for the Babylonians and for Daniel, they had a very modern world too. Because it was all they knew and it was highly sophisticated. The Babylonian culture was far more sophisticated than what the Jerusalem, Judaic culture of Daniel's youth was. Babylon was the center of the world. It was a highly cultivated metropolis, a very, very large city with culture, religion, technology for what it was.

To them, it was modern. It was modern. It's what they had. It's what they knew. Daniel didn't succumb to it then. And it was no different than what you and I have as a challenge today and in the lessons for us to learn. In his day, the idols were a little bit more visible in terms of these stone statues and idols that were a part of the religious worship. Money and power and status and celebrity and self were still behind all of that and still very much a part of Babylon, as we will see. Daniel didn't bow down to any of that and he had a respect for his legacy.

Over the years, as we have gone through, cycled in and out of various crises within the church in the last couple of decades or so, for many of us, we've all been challenged on our heritage, on our legacy, as a way of life in the Church of God. Will we remain faithful to it or will we jettison this part of it because it's not important, non-essential, or not as spiritual as we sometimes might think?

And it may not be a cardinal hardpoint, if you will, of the law of God or whatever, and yet it may be in a realm of a tradition. And I'm not, you know, specifying anything, but you know how time and issues can kind of wear us down to cause us to cast off certain things that we have held sacred?

In Daniel's case, Daniel looked at even this matter of wine and drink and food, and it was not a theological argument for Daniel. It was a matter of holiness, I think. This is my personal feeling because when Daniel made a decision that he wouldn't take what is called here the king's delicacies, he was making a decision that his body was a temple of the Holy Spirit. And whatever that food was, if it was pork or if it was just high-fat, high-caloric food that he shouldn't be eating, or too much wine, even though it was okay, but for that period of time, and he wasn't going to indulge in it in excess, he was going to devote himself to a period of a different diet for a holy purpose.

I think Daniel had a high regard for who he was, what he had been taught, and he recognized that he, as a part of the people of God, the covenant people, were called to a holy purpose. And there was nothing going to come between him and that vision. I think that's what Daniel and those three other friends of his were concerned with when they made that specific decision at that moment in their interviewing process for this new opportunity at the court of Babylon. They still looked at themselves as holy people. Now, their temple was gone.

Their whole culture and civilization had been burned. They had been deported. They were aliens in a strange land, and yet they held on to an idea, an idea of a holy people called by a holy God to be holy for a holy purpose.

And that's what they dedicated and devoted themselves to. In the midst of this splendor and what Babylon was at that time in a very highly polished cultural metropolitan society, they didn't get overwhelmed by it. They didn't jettison their belief. They had a respect for who they were and what they had been taught. And that, I think, laid the foundation for their competency. In chapter 2 of Daniel, there's another lesson that we learned from his life, and that is resourcefulness.

Because in chapter 2, as you know, you get right into the story of Nebuchadnezzar having this big dream of this huge image, and it troubled him. None of his magicians or sorcerers could tell him what it meant. And because Nebuchadnezzar being the type of manager and boss that he was, he ordered essentially all the wise people to be killed. And things were beginning to spin out of control in the office situation of the palace of Babylon. And Daniel came up with a different plan. He said, wait a minute. He said, give us an opportunity.

And he went to his friends and he told them what was going on, and they prayed very deeply about it. They set themselves, again, to a period of devotion to learn the secret. Verse 19 tells us the secret was ultimately revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. And then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.

And he answered and he said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever for wisdom and might or his. And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that no understanding. He reveals the deep and the secret things. He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him. Verse 28, as he was explaining to Nebuchadnezzar, he said, there is a God in heaven. And that God reveals secrets and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head upon your bed are these. And he began to explain to Nebuchadnezzar what it was that he had seen in this dream. God gave him the vision after Daniel set himself by prayer to know what God meant and what this was all about. There was a practical aspect of this and that was their lives were at stake. Because Nebuchadnezzar had ordered that everyone be killed and his fury and his wrath. Events were spinning out of control. Sometimes that happens with us as well. Events happen that we have no control over. I know sometimes you as members in the church, you feel like it because of certain events that have taken place through the years in the church, that you're not in control and it's in a sense beyond you to stop and to deal with. Let me tell you, just being in the ministry and even being on the Council of Elders, there's no guarantee that events that happen at times are within our control as well. God has ways of working his will to accomplish his purpose that's far beyond any of us.

Daniel was in a point here where the wrath of the king was being disturbed and things were out of his control. And yet he knew what to do. He sought out the help of his friends and they took it to God. And God gave them the answer. That's resourcefulness.

Daniel thought it through and he came up with a plan and understanding came. And we come down to the end of chapter 2. You find out that as a result of all this revelation of knowledge that God had given through Daniel to the king, in verse 48, the king made Daniel a great man and gave him many gifts, made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief of the governors over the wise men of Babylon. And Daniel requested of the king that he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as three friends over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel sat in the gate of the king. And so at this point in their career track in Babylon, Daniel finds himself right up next to the king. In fact, he's not just a title on a board or on a chart. He says he sat in the gate of the king. That is a biblical phrase for the coroner's suite, okay, in an office. He was right there next to the king. That's pretty high stuff for a...well, he wasn't illegal. He was an alien deported against his will to this strange land with nothing, no pedigree, no resume to speak of, no letters of recommendation. And now he's right up on a daily basis right next to the king. How do you think he felt? What were the thoughts that went through his mind? You know, how would you feel if you had an office right next to the chief executive, to the president? Would you feel like you'd arrived? Would you feel like that you had job security? I have to imagine Daniel toyed with some of those ideas, and I think in the long run he kind of...he was sobered by it. But he had a day in and day out, close up and personal view of Nebuchadnezzar, this powerful ruling despot over the entire realm of Babylon. And he had a place to observe him. And you know, when you go down to chapter 4 of there, you find how this observation kind of worked over a period of time. Because in chapter 4 is where Nebuchadnezzar begins to feel his oats, and he goes out and he has another dream about things, and yet he doesn't learn humility in what is taking place. And Daniel tells him, wait just a minute, be very, very careful as to how you conduct yourself. Down in verse 27, Daniel says to the king on this one occasion, he says, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your sins by righteousness and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of your tranquility. Show mercy. Break off your sin. Stop this prideful, vain display that you're caught up in by righteousness, by humility, by showing mercy to those that are less fortunate and putting the needs of the people first. Do that. But Nebuchadnezzar didn't, because it goes on to say that all this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of 12 months, he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon, and he said, It's not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty.

He didn't learn. He didn't accept Daniel's counsel, even though he'd had ample opportunity to see how this was a unique man, and that his words were indeed words that he should listen to. He got caught up, which is what happens with a lot of people who have a position of power, a great influence over other people, unlimited money at their disposal.

In this case, Nebuchadnezzar had embarked on an extensive building program that had created, out of a desert, a magnificent city of rivers, waters, fountains, pools, and gardens. That was an amazing sight. And when he looked out over this, he was looking out over something that just would have stunned the eye of anyone visiting and seeing what was in Babylon at that time.

It's hard to picture that. You can go to some of the history books and Google Babylon and bring up images of what they feel Babylon at its height like this looked like. And with what they've even uncovered over there, archaeologically, it was a fabulous city with broad avenues, high culture for their time and for their way of life. And Nebuchadnezzar felt that he had created it all, and he became filled with a great deal of pride and self-will. Daniel urged him to take his advice and gain some humility, and he said, please, let my advice be acceptable. But it wasn't.

And the rest of the story here in chapter 4 tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar's seven years of insanity and interregnum in the period where he basically ate grass like a beast of the field.

And then was brought back from it and did learn his lesson. But he suffered a setback as a result of that.

Pride and physical things can work together to create quite a potent concoction in people. And it did here with Nebuchadnezzar. But again, you see that with Daniel, that didn't happen. He took it all in stride.

And he, you know, I've often wondered when Daniel went home from his opulent office in the palace, I've often wondered what did his home look like? What kind of an apartment did he have? What kind of a house did he live in? How decorated was it? Or was it something quite simple?

I've often wondered that. Because all through the story of Daniel, you don't see a man who's caught up with the trappings of the power that he's living in the midst of. And must have been at his... he could have began his own little side operations with people for that position and started up secret accounts, if you will, offshore accounts in the deserts of that area. Siphoned money off and then been like the unjust steward that we read about in the gospels who finally is called to account. He could have been like that, but I don't think he was, and there's no record here that shows that he was. Sometimes I do come to the conclusion that Daniel probably went home to a pretty simple apartment that was probably sparsely furnished, a few clothes, instead of a 50-inch high-definition television, he may have just had a 19-inch old-time television, if he had that at all.

And lived a probably much simpler life than what he worked within at his job.

I wonder that that may be closer to the truth because of the situations that he was dealing with. To be able to stand up to a man like Nebuchadnezzar and say, please listen to what I'm saying to you. Don't look out over this and think that this is all because of you. Don't let it go to your head. Use it, turn it around, and endow certain projects that will help your people, that will extend a legacy beyond your generation and even further build the cultural-spiritual quality of your people. It's really what he was saying, but Nebuchadnezzar missed that. And when you go into Chapter 5, you really then come into and you see that those who succeeded, Nebuchadnezzar, repeated the same mistakes because Chapter 5 is the story of Belshazzar. And it's the end of the Babylonian period. The Persian Empire has come on strong and they are at the gates. And the times, they were a-changing when you come to Chapter 5 because the successor, Belshazzar, he makes this great feast for thousands of his people to drink wine at this particular point in time. And he gave a command to bring out all the vessels from the temple in Jerusalem, the gold vessels, and out of those they drank wine, worshipped their gods and their gods of bronze and silver and iron and wood. And then in Verse 5 is the famous story of the hand, or the fingers of a man's hand appearing and beginning to write on the wall. The handwriting on the wall experience comes into play here at this point. And Verse 9 tells us that King Belshazzar was greatly troubled and his countenance was changed and his lords were astonished. And the queen, because of the words of the king and the lords, came to the banquet hall and the queen spoke, saying, everybody came to see this phenomenon. O king, live forever! Don't let your thoughts trouble you, nor let your countenance change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. Now she's describing Daniel, who you have to understand has been kind of shelved at this point in the story. Nebuchadnezzar's successors didn't use him in the same way. And yet he is remembered by some. And he says, there is a man in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. And in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. And king Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father the king, made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans and soothsayers. And as much as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel. Right here in these few verses, from verses 11 through 12, is the resume of Daniel. Very short, half a page, it goes on the font size. Very short resume, a resume that you and I would just love to have for us and to be said of us. A person in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. Remember, this is why I think that from the very first chapter and that first experience with not defiling themselves with the king's table, that Daniel had this attitude that they were a holy people called for a holy purpose. A covenant people, I should say, they weren't of them by themselves holy, the Jews or the Israelites. They were holy only because God dwelt with them and gave them his righteous laws. You and I are only holy to the degree that we have God's Spirit in us, and that's what's holy, is God's Holy Spirit.

But again, Daniel wanted to live a holy life, and as a result, this is what was said of him, that the Spirit of the Holy God is in him. You and I should want the same thing to be said about us, that in us there is found wisdom, sound-mindedness, an excellent spirit, positive, full of hope, able to give joy with ourselves, the way we conduct ourselves with each other. I guess it would be helpful for us to be able to interpret some of our own dreams, much as somebody else's. Sometimes you may have a dream that you wonder, what does that mean? Or you try to even remember it. I don't go to any more lengths on dreams than that myself, but Daniel's ability to explain difficult situations and help people see through them was because of his vision of God. The vision we have of the kingdom of God, the hope that our lives are built upon in the kingdom of God, should help us all to cut through the enigmas of life and the challenges that come to us, and even for other people who we may come in contact with, God's people should be hope-filled and be able to explain that hope and be individuals that others would want to come to, to be able to recognize, hey, you're not tied up with all the knots of life that I am. What's the key? What's the secret? And because of an example, we can help people unravel the knots that life sometimes causes us to get tied up with. But this was a description of Daniel at a point in his life where he was largely forgotten because the players at the top had changed. And when you look on through the story here, you see that Belshazzar, because of how corrupt he was, he didn't even know how to treat Daniel. In verse 13, he said, the king spoke and said, Are you that Daniel who was one of the captives from Judah, whom my father, the king, brought from Judah? I've heard of you. The Spirit of God is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom were found.

And now the wise men and the astrologers have been brought before me that they should read this writing and make known that they could not. And I've heard of you that you can give interpretations and explain enigmas. And if you can read the writing and make known to me, you will be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck and shall be a third ruler in the kingdom.

So he basically offered him, again, a high position and a lot of money to be able to do this and flattery and a position. And Daniel's answer was this, verse 17, Let your gifts be for yourself and give your rewards to another. Wow! Daniel couldn't be bought.

Money didn't interest him. He basically said, Keep your money, keep it to yourself.

It's an amazing thing to really stop and think about, isn't it? How? Here was another opportunity for a man to ingratiate himself, line his account, create a security for himself. Daniel had an ethic about money that couldn't be altered and couldn't be changed. You know, whenever you see that and find that, it's interesting to observe it. Again, you and I, we have worked our lives. We get our paychecks. We get our pensions, social security.

We make our draws each week, each month. However, it works in our lives over the years. We build up our accounts. We invest here. We buy bonds and IRAs and 401s and do what we can and should and make all of our payments. And we may even wish that we would strike it rich with a goldmine or win the lottery at some point, and all of it would be open, all of our worries would be over. And all of that defines an ethic about money and wealth that defines who we are. I just had to go through a mortgage loan process, and I hadn't done that in 21 years with a mortgage lender. And I was again just, I had to give them everything. Everything! They wanted to see every bit of my financial dealings. Right down to the bank account statements, where the money came from, W2 forms, tax returns, because they're going to loan me a lot of money, by my standards, to buy a house. And in doing so, I had to realize this mortgage broker was going to find out a great deal about me as she looked through my records. She's going to see where I spent my money, or how I saved it or didn't save it. And if she were a student enough and would spend that time, I don't think she will. But if I were looking to yours, you were looking to mine, we'd learn a great deal about each other's values. Where we spend our money will determine a great deal of our values and our life. I just read a story, the biography of Steve Jobs, who died a couple of months ago, just before the feast. His biography came out right after the feast, and I bought it and read it. And Steve Jobs was, of course, the founder of Apple Computer and technology genius, but also multi-multi-billionaire. And what I found interesting, as much as anything else, was just reading about his approach toward money.

He didn't live in a big mansion, lived in a nice house, but not a mansion. Didn't have servants, didn't have drivers, didn't have housekeepers, didn't have nannies, didn't have bodyguards. In fact, for a long time, didn't even decorate his house because what was available to him did not meet his design aesthetic. And so he lived on the floor, with the barest number of utensils and things, until he found what was exactly right for him.

And some of his comments just about money were rather interesting. He had been very, very poor in his early days, and he basically had developed an ethic because of his religion. He practiced Buddhism, but he wasn't overwhelmed by money. When he was poor and when he was a billionaire, he wasn't overwhelmed by it either. He didn't want his children to be overwhelmed by it.

So I had to at least marvel and take note of that as I was reading through the story of his life. And I asked myself, how do I measure up and what are my values toward money? If you look at Daniel here, he couldn't be bought. He couldn't be bought by Belshazzar at this moment. And he basically said to him, keep your money.

And that's another spiritual lesson, which is this. Integrity cannot be bought, but it can be sold in a heartbeat. It can be sold in a New York Minute. Any one of us can lose whatever integrity we've built up over a lifetime of character and right decisions. It can go just like that. Don't let that happen.

Don't let that happen in any way with our integrity, not just toward money, but the spiritual integrity, which is the most important thing. The value that we put upon the spiritual matters and our relationship with God, the law of God, the way of God, the way we treat one another, the way we look at one another.

Don't ever let your heart get hard toward anyone, toward any situation, toward God, toward man, because, brethren, a hard heart is very, very difficult to soften. Did you ever get to the point where you have hardened yourself toward someone?

It doesn't matter who it is. Another member, your boss, your mate, a minister, the church, God. A hard heart is very, very difficult to soften. It's not impossible. It can be done, but we don't ever want to get to that point where our heart is hardened. It's not worth it. Maintain integrity in the quiet silence of our own life before God. Don't ever let yourself get to the point where you can be bought by something that's ephemeral, fleeting, and devastating.

Daniel couldn't be bought. And you see how his competence spiritually kept bringing him back into the critical moments to play a key role in the plan of God where he was in Babylon at that particular moment. As you and I maintain our integrity and our sense of respect for our heritage, for our legacy, what God has called us to, that will pay dividends.

That will always pay dividends. You see a story being painted here of a man like Daniel who had a very clean record. No sin could ever be found there to be painted against him. When you come to chapter 6 of Daniel, you find out now during the time of the Persians that the only way they could entrap Daniel and try to get rid of this man once and for all, some of those who were holdovers in the palaces there, they had to fabricate charges against him. And because he had not compromised, he wasn't had.

The Persians had done a hostile takeover. There was new management. But Daniel was still in his office. In verse 1, we find that Daniel was the first among all the other princes and individuals here at this particular time. He was preferred by the presidents and princes in verse 3, because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Well, this didn't set too well politically within the water coolers of the palace at this point. And so they sought, in verse 4, to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom.

But they could find none. They could find no occasion nor fault. For as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Now, you can bet that they went through all the records. They went through all the HR files. And they checked with everyone. And they shadowed him. They watched him closely for days, weeks at a time. Went through all of his records, asked everyone that he'd ever come in contact with over the years that were still alive.

Did he ever do this? Did he ever fudge here? Was there a compromise there? Did he mishandle money over here? And they couldn't find it. They couldn't find it. He had a clean record. No sin could be found. You could bet that they tried to find it. And so what they did, they manufactured a decree that would trap Daniel on the only thing that they could trap him in.

You know what it was? His integrity. They were devious. Machiavelli and whatever term you want to use, they were good. They knew that the only thing they could get him on was his integrity. And so they issued a ban on prayer.

And what did Daniel do in this story? You know what he did. He went in and he prayed. As his custom was. Verse 10. When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, and maybe it was just kind of a sparsely decorated room without a lot of fancy furniture, he opened his windows toward Jerusalem, knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before God, as was his custom since early days. That's the only thing they knew they could get him on.

And so they trapped him in that. He could have compromised. Daniel probably well up into his midlife years at this particular point, could have wondered what the rest of his life would be like if he kind of got trapped in this. And he could have thought, well, you know, I can skip prayer today because he knew that they would have had the surveillance cameras on.

He would have been on the grid that day. They were looking at him. He said, well, maybe I won't do it today. I mean, after all, I got a lot invested here. I'm getting up in years and who's going to hire me? Where am I going to find work? And I can't afford this disgrace. Compromise. Always that little sin. Always hovering in the mind. Play it smart. Play both ends against the middle. Take care of yourself. You've worked hard. All of those thoughts may have gone through his mind. But he just went ahead and did what he had always done. And that's where they found him, verse 11, praying and making supplication before God. And they had him.

They had the evidence. They took it in, put the notebook computer in front of the king and said, we got him on tape. Our cameras caught him. Now, what are you going to do? He's defied your decree. Displease the king. The king set his heart to deliver Daniel, but nothing could be done because of the tight ironclad way in which the laws of the Medes and Persians were written.

It was one of those just like the Yulebrenner saying, so let it be written, so let it be done. It had to be accomplished. And so they took him, threw him into the lion's den, and they laid a stone across the king's seal with his own ring so that nothing could be changed. And so Daniel is in the lion's den. And so here's this famous story, this famous scene that we tell our children and we see pictures of.

Daniel's spending a night with a group of lions. Now, I don't know what you think about lions, but I'm scared to death of lions outside of a cage. And have you ever seen a lion outside of a cage? Outside of a cage. Yeah. I have, too. I've seen them in a cage, and they can be frightening enough in a zoo. We were in Africa 11 years ago, and we were taking on a safari, and I saw them in the wild.

And I got about as close to a group of about five of them as I am to this gentleman right here in the front row. And I rolled the window down in the van. They were feasting on a giraffe that they had killed alongside the road.

And it was like a parking lot of cars around these lions. But here are these huge male lions satiating themselves and the African sun on a baby giraffe. And I had my camera, and I got pictures of it to prove it. But I will tell you, there was a car door between me and those lions, but my window was down. And just one leap, and one of them could have come right in the car, just like that. And I'm thinking all these things in my head, but I'm trying to get to it on film.

But it was a frightening thing. I could not imagine what Daniel was thinking as he was in this den all through the night looking at these lions. And dealing with them. What did he do? Ask yourself, what did he do? You know, he had time to think about that a lot that night in the lion's den. I don't think he slept. He probably wondered when they would attack, what they were going to do next. He was probably confident one moment that they weren't going to, and scared to death the next. And he had to go through the whole night like that. Did they growl? Did they purr? Did they crouch? Their muscles quiver and tighten?

Or did they just lie there? What did they do? We wonder and we think about that. Lions hunt in packs. Mostly they lay around all day. The females are the ones that usually do the hunting. The females that had pulled this giraffe down that day. And then the men come in. That's way worse, guys.

Among the lions. It is. They lay around and the women do all the work in a pride of lions.

But you know the story of Daniel came out the next morning. And all the others were thrown in and devoured. But Daniel came out of this experience with the lions and he grew to new heights.

Because when you look through the rest of the story of Daniel's visions from this point on, Chapter 7 and 8, 9 and 10, Daniel had some fantastic visions. He saw down through the ages to the time of the end. He saw empires rise and fall, the coming of Alexander and the decline. He saw all the way to the Roman Empire. He had a vision of the very throne of God in the ancient of days. Something got in a vision that no one else had ever really had like that. Far-reaching visions that covered millennia of time and events and peoples of multiple languages and cultures.

And that's what he saw. That's what God then gave him and used him for in the next, the last half of his life, if you will.

After all these years of competence, of training and dedication, you look at the visions of Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, Chapter 9 and Chapter 10, and the angels that came to him and Chapter 11, that very long prophecy there that is unique, and the messages that God sent to him through the angels. It's far more than we can go into today. But I want you to think about that because ask yourself what kind of visions you and I have. I ask myself this as well. What kind of visions do I have? I don't. I don't have the visions that Daniel had. I don't claim to. I couldn't even begin to. I'm not even thinking that I should necessarily.

But what I'm getting to and what I sometimes find myself thinking about when I look at the story of Daniel is, Daniel had visions of a world of an age to come. He saw beyond the routine of everyday life and the big power politics of his time, he glimpsed the activity of the spirit realm. He saw the action surrounding the person of God and the kingdom of God. When you look at what he saw, I think to myself, what do I see in my life? What do I see? You know what I see? Smallville. I see Smallville. I see my life. I see the things that only interest me. I see, I don't see that far. I don't see those great grand visions like Daniel did.

I see, because I tend to live in Smallville. Where do you live? Where do you live? And that brings us back to the life that we live. Because what's really in front of us isn't anything wrong, but it's what is our life and our calling. It's only when we see our present reality through the eyes of the kingdom of God, and let God lift us beyond ourselves to that vision of that kingdom and the age to come, that we can live the life that God has called us to. That we can grow in grace and knowledge. We can grow in competency spiritually. We can stop repeating one year's of mistakes two, three, four, five, ten, twenty times. We can lift ourselves with God's help out of that and live competent, large, spiritual lives. We can live the life that God has called us to. It's when we can do that, we come to the point of living a life that is just a little bit closer to what we see here in Daniel. Daniel had these visions and he wrote them down and he came to the point where if you turn over to chapter 10 and verse 11, you find that Daniel is called a man greatly beloved. Verse 11, Old Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words I speak to you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you. Old Daniel, a man greatly beloved, twice in this chapter he is called a greatly beloved man by a messenger of God. That's quite a legacy, quite a legacy for a man to have here, a man greatly loved by God. The last year has been one of spiritual challenges for the people of God. And God has given us a bit of a rest, as we might define it at this particular point, to regroup, to rethink, to dedicate ourselves to the work that he's given to us. There will be other challenges. There always have been, there always will be. And it's important that we keep our eyes focused upon what we learn through each one of the challenges and the trials that we go through, whether personally or collectively, so that we don't repeat past behavior, that we grow in understanding and in the grace of God through each experience that we go through, that we react with competence, like Daniel did, with humility, dropping on our knees in prayer and asking God to be with us and to protect us, to guide us, to give us understanding and to give us wisdom, devoting ourselves to a holy life, respecting the legacy that we have, the calling that we have been given, and dedicating and devoting ourselves to a life that is to be holy. That's a hard thing to say. It's a hard thing for us all to wrap our minds around. But it is what we see here with Daniel, and it is a key, part of the keys to a successful spiritual life that's growing in understanding and growing in competency like this. That's what God has called us to. That's how we develop character.

So I started by saying that this was a sermon that has been several months in the making, and there are some, perhaps, random thoughts there for us all to consider. But I think we look at this story and this life of Daniel on a weekend of thanksgiving like we're in, there's enough food for thought there for all of us to consider, to think about, to examine ourselves on, to see how we measure up to the calling God has given to us, and to forge ahead in the coming months. It's good to be with all of you here in North Canton today. I wish all of you a very good week, and we will look forward to talking with you afterwards and seeing you down the road.