WHEN GOD SPEAKS, WILL YOU LISTEN? (3)

Title: When God Speaks, Will You Listen? (3)
Series: Daniel-Kingdoms, Chaos and the Sovereignty of God
Author: Tim Badal
Text: Daniel 4

We're going to be in Daniel 4 this morning. For those who haven't been with us, a few weeks ago we started a series out of the book of Daniel, which was written about 600 years before the coming of Jesus Christ. It's written by a man who lived in the midst of great chaos. As a young boy or teenager, Daniel was taken captive, removed from his land, his family, and his religion to a very different place. Babylon was about 700 miles from his home. There he learned what it means to follow God when you're in the minority. He learned what it means to trust God when the world is in chaos. He found ways to honor the unbelievers around him even when things were most difficult. As we continue through this book, we will see how God still has a plan for His people and a plan for the future.

Last week we came to a moment in history when three men stood strong for God and for their convictions, even though they were surrounded by temptations to give up and give in. The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3 is amazing, as we see how God met His people in the fiery furnace, not only saving them from death, but also turning the entire kingdom to Himself.

But now as we turn the page, we have a white space between the end of chapter three and chapter four. In that space there's a lot we need to understand before we move forward to the next written words. Even though that space is millimeters in width, there's volumes contained in it.

First, Daniel wrote chapters one through three in Hebrew, to the Hebrew people who were captives in that land. He was telling them the stories of God's faithfulness to the captives during those years. But in chapter four, and for several chapters following it, he switches to Aramaic, which was the language of the Babylonians and most of the known world. In essence he's saying the messa ...

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