Who is the God who will deliver you? Daniel 3:7-18

Introduction:  Sometimes believers are moved by their past and wretched situations that the flesh is always dominating their lives even when the spirit pushes them to worship the true God. At times our poverty, our sickness, our difficulties become too important to us that we lose focus on God. This is just proof of a deprived mind.

In chapter 2 of Daniel, Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and indicated that the King was the head of gold. King Nebuchadnezzar bowed down and worshiped Daniel when his dream was interpreted. I think Nebuchadnezzar conceived the idea of this image from his dream in chap 2 and as he fell down before Daniel, he surely thought the people will do same to his image of gold. He wanted the people to focus on worship but his pagan mind moved him to a wrong direction.

There are many people like this in the church who want to worship God but because of their deadness to tradition and the flesh they tend to always steal God’s glory. They think they are doing the right thing but they are lost, they are not true worshipers. They are like Nebuchadnezzar. The question we are asking is which God will deliver you? Your past maybe a stumbling block to your future prosperity.

   a)     Unresolved past will meet you again

There are certain habits that continue to destroy your Christian life because you did not solve it for ones when you received Jesus Christ. You cannot escape your problems. You have to solve the problems else you’ll meet them again on your way.

There are many who after receiving Christ say yes I abandon fornication, I abandon stealing, I abandon lies telling, witchcraft, corruption, negligence etc but they have done nothing to make their old friends know about their stand. Yes you no longer fornicate but that your lustful partner does not know that you are now a child of God. Those your stealing friends do not know that you have changed. When they will meet you again, you’ll have to encounter them again.

Verse 8 of our text says certain Chaldeans came and accused the Jews. These are the priestly group of religious leaders who were previously spared from death by Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in chap 2. They now seek accusations against Daniel’s friends in order to kill them. They told the king that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have refused to bow down before the golden image the King made.

The Bible says Nebuchadnezzar was in rage and fury that 3 friends of Daniel had challenged his orders.

  b)    True worshipers challenge worldly orders  (vs 13_14)

The three young men were determined to stay in faith. They were ready to bear the consequences. We are called to carry our cross when we follow Christ. The apostles did the same, they were never afraid of death or beatings or what so ever because they knew the God they served. Acts 4:28,29 tells us how the disciples prayed to be bold even to death. Though Peter and John manifested great boldness, they and the disciples asked God to grant them more boldness to proclaim the gospel in hostile conditions.

Nebuchadnezzar asked the three Jews, is it true you do not serve my gods, nor worship the golden image I made? If you are ready, just bow down and worship when you hear the sound of the harp or music and that will be well for you. But if you do not, If you do not, I will through you into the furnace of fire.

  c)     Worshipers carry their cross vs 15

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were threatened to death, just because of their worship to God. Are you threatened by your family, your friends or at work because of your Christian life? Nebuchadnezzar made a fire to consume those who refused to worship his golden image. Can you understand? He made a Hell to consume those who were rebellious. If that were today, I’m sure many people sitting here today will go and bow down to that image because they do not want to die, not even by fire. Many Christians today say “Suffering is not my portion”. That is not a true follower of Jesus. He says you must carry your cross and follow Him. I now see why many Christians are running from one prophecy to another. Others are running from one “ngambee” man to another for charms to make business, for protection etc. Some for their healing and they say that it’s God’s way or plan for their life. Never, that is your way not God’s.

What is the Hell you are going through now? Is it sickness, poverty, marriage, bareness or what? Are you asked to worship another God in order to pass through these difficulties? Are you asked to do things that your spirit is telling you don’t? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego faced Hell in their lives but they were delivered because of their faith.

  d)    Who is that God who will deliver you? Vs 15-17

Maybe Satan, or friends or coworkers are asking you this question in your difficulties?  God always uses the wickedness of the wicked to accomplish his purpose. It happened to our Lord Jesus Act 4:28. God uses Satan’s work to work against Satan. Because of this work of God, all things are working together for the good of the salvation of men (Rom 8:28)

The young men said to Nebuchadnezzar “We do not need to give you an answer about this”. They had already determined their response and answer to any threats. They trusted in God for their deliverance. If God did not deliver them, they will still not submit to false gods.

  e)    The son of God, Jesus is the one who will deliver you.

When the three Jews refused to worship the image of the King, he ordered that the furnace be heated seven times more and commanded mighty men in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and to cast them in to the burning furnace.

In his mind he was sending them to Hell, the Bible says the heat was too much so that it consumed the soldiers who went to throw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I tell you, your enemies will not find you if you remain in Christ.

Looking in the furnace, the King saw four men unbound instead of the three who were bound. He says “behold, I see four men loose and walking in the midst of the fire. And they are not harmed. And the form of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” Verse 25 King Nebuchadnezzar confessed that he saw the son of God. Jesus came to the fire and protected the three men in their Hell and the Bible says when they came out, they were not smelling smoke, they had no wound, they were fresh as from an air conditioned room because Jesus was with them.

You can also receive your own miracle today because Jesus is still alive. He came, was crucified on the cross for your sins. The Bible says in Isaiah 53:5 that by His stripes, by His wounds we are healed. Your healing was initiated more than 2000 years ago. Your deliverance has not started today, but Christ paid for it since. You just have to accept this gift from Him and it will be yours. Jesus was raised from the death for you to live a free and Christ-centered life.

Why are you still facing Hell in your life when you have been freed? If you want to experience what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego experienced today in your life, just surrender your life to Jesus. I’m not making a campaign for Jesus, He does not need a campaign. I’m not begging people to Jesus either. I’m not manipulating people to Him. If you are not sure you truly received Jesus Christ and you want to receive Him today as your personal Lord and savior, raise your hand up and we’ll pray together. The same Jesus who was raised to life and ascended to heaven is coming but to judge this time. I do not care what people think but I care about what God thinks. Raise your right hand if you want to surrender your life to Christ. You want to be delivered from the power of sin, from your sickness, from your difficulties? You first need Jesus. No amount of prayer will help you if you do not have Jesus in your life.

If you are not sure Jesus can save you, put down your hand. We are neither playing with God nor begging people to Christ. But if you are sure Jesus will save you, keep your right hand high up and we’ll pray together. You’ll repeat after me as we pray

“Lord Jesus. I recognize that I’m a sinner. I acknowledge that I’m worthless and dead in sin. I believe that you came and died on the cross for my sins. Jesus, come into my life and take control over my life. Be my master. Lord Jesus, heal my soul and my body and give me peace and freedom. Thank you Jesus”

Magnifying God with Thanksgiving (Psalm 69:30–32)

Introduction

"I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving." It is a mark of all the true children of God that they long to magnify the God of their salvation.

O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. (Psalm 34:3)

These were the heart cry of Old Testament saints. Today it is the same for the true Christians. If you are a true Christian you will always seek to magnify the Lord. The NT says in everything whether you eat or drink; magnify the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Illus: As I was writing the message last Thursday night, it came to my mind that it is exactly 1 year that I lost my brother Wilson (The father to Franck; one of our children in Boko). As we were arranging with other brothers on how we were going to make the thanks giving for the life lived on Sunday God went further with us. I got a phone call that The ENSET final results is out and Franck was successful. When I called the mother (widow) she was rejoicing and thanking everybody. My answer was this “We only thank God. He decided that the results should come just the same day Franck’s father died. The mighty comforter just wiped your tears” Your husband died on 12/11/2014 and today 12/11/2015 your son is successful for the entrance exams to ENSET.

God is all knowing and some times before we start to express our thankfulness to God He makes us know that He knows the intentions of our hearts. And then he pours out his blessings more again.

1)   Magnify God the way He is.

David said, "I will magnify God with thanksgiving." The word "magnify" can be used in two different senses. 

a)     The first meaning of magnifying is that you can make something look greater than it really is. So, something that is very small can be made to look big. That is what the microscope does. It makes what is micro or small to look as if it is macro (big).

b)    The second meaning is that you can make something which is big to look as it really is. So you look for something that is very big which people do not see it big; then you make people see it as big as it is. This is what the telescope does. The telescope makes the stars and the sun which seems to be small because we are looking from far to appear as big as it is.

So we have microscopic magnification and telescopic magnification. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is.

When David says, "I will magnify God with thanksgiving," he does not mean: "I will make a small God look bigger than he is. He means: "I will make a big God begin to look as big as he really is." We are not called to be microscopes, but telescopes. Christians are not supposed to be con-men who lie about their product so that i twill sell in the market. There is no one as great as God in this universe. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is. You need to feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is.

Due to the sinful insensitivity and forgetfulness of our hearts, many of God's greatest attributes and most awesome and loving deeds pass in one ear and out the other without causing the slightest ripple of emotion within our hearts. Seeing we do not see, and hearing we do not hear. When our hearts are in such a condition, we need to beg God (like Paul did) to open the eyes of our hearts that we might know (that is, really know and feel) the hope to which he has called us, and what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe (Ephesians 1:18, 19).

Have you ever felt like me? That when God has done a good thing you may leap up with joy and hawk your child or wife or husband and say “Oh how can I forget what God is doing in my life. He is always present at all times” Then the next minute to get on doing just the opposite which God will never be glorified or pleased? This is because man is prune to forgetfulness. We quickly forget the good God is doing in our life and so we fail to thank God for the goodness. Let is be like the psalmist when he says in Psalm 77:11.

I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; yea I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate on all thy work, and muse on thy mighty deeds. Thy way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God?

We are called to be telescopes: people who make the greatness of God seem as great as it really is. This is what it means for a Christian to magnify God. But you can't magnify what you haven't seen or what you quickly forget. Therefore, our first task is to see and to remember the greatness and goodness of God. So we pray to God, "Open the eyes of my heart," and we preach to our souls, "Soul, forget not all his benefits!"

2)    The Response That Magnifies God: Thanksgiving

What must the human telescope do in order to cause God to appear as great as he really is? Our text in Psalm 69:30 answers: "I will magnify God with thanksgiving." When we give thanks to him from our hearts, God is magnified. Gratitude glorifies God.  

Why? Because givers are more glorious than receivers. Benefactors are more glorious than beneficiaries. When we thank God, we acknowledge and display that he is the giver; he is the benefactor. We pay him a high compliment. When children are angry with each other they do not say thank you easily. When you are angry with somebody to can not give them compliment but when you are find you can say “thank you”, I am indebted to you for the thing you have done.

Therefore, when gratitude springs up in the human heart toward God, he is magnified as the wealthy source of our blessing. He is acknowledged as giver and benefactor and therefore as glorious. And there is a very good reason that human beings by nature do not want to magnify God with thanksgiving or glorify him as their benefactor. The reason is that it detracts from their own glory, and all people by nature love their own glory more than the glory of God.

In Psalm 35:27 David says, "Let those who desire my vindication shout for joy and be glad and say forevermore, 'The Lord be magnified!"' And he contrasts this group of people who love to magnify the Lord with another group in verse 26, "Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves against me." There are only two groups of people in the world whose differences from each other are of any eternal significance: those who love to magnify God and those who love to magnify themselves.

Conclusion:

How do you intend to magnify God with your thanks giving this morning? Do you really know that you were sin-sick and God the great physician healed your soul? Do you know that you were rebellious and God still loved you? Do you know that it cost God a lot to save you from your sin? Do you know that it cost Jesus His life for you to live? Do you know that even today He is still working for your good?

What then can you do to show that you are magnifying God who is your great provider (Jehovah jireh), your security, your healer (Jehovah Rapha), your Jehovah shalom (of peace) your Jehovah shamah (is always there), your Jehovah Nissi (your banner), Jehovah Raah (your shepherd), Jehovah Tsidkenu (our righteousness); Jehovah M’kaddesh (who sanctifies). He is El Shaddai (Lord God Almighty).

Will you magnify His name this morning with thanksgiving? He is my everything. My only reward!   AMEN!

Spiritual Adultery in the Church (Jeremiah 23 :9-16,28-32)

 MZBC, Douala

Introduction

In Bamenda earlier this week on Tuesday 17/11/2015, I was told by my brother that there is a Muslim man in Nigeria are performing miracles in the name of Allah. That this man has tankers of water he calls Holy water which he distributes to his followers. I have also heard that some so called Christian churches pray to God without passing through Christ.

Before we enter into our text I want you to understand that “No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ”. He is the only way! If you do not believe this; then you are not in the right place this morning. You had better carry your Bible and go home. I’m sorry, there’s no better way I can sound serious to you about Christ and the way to God. Prophet Jeremiah sounded the same when he had to correct spiritual adultery amongst the Israelites. But what is spiritual adultery or prostitution?

a)      Spiritual adultery

Adultery is defined as unfaithfulness between a married person and a person who is not their spouse. We always sing this song here in church “I am married to Jesus Satan leave me alone… My husband is coming to take me away to ever lasting life” Do you really mean it when you sing this song?

Christians these days move from one true God to a false worship in search of miracles and signs. It is not strange to find Christians today in “marabout’s” house for sorcery. Anyway, they do not need to move; because sorcery has entered the church today and that is because the itchy ears of Christians love that rather than the oracles of God. You are married to Jesus but you have concubines all over. People find you in places that are very doubtful though you claim to a child of God.

You are abandoning the legal place to the illegal. So prophet Jeremiah received a word from God concerning this adultery. The word of God was bitter, full of anger and Jeremiah was confused. His heart was broken, his bones shaking and he was behaving like a drunkard. God spoke about His holiness and how His people have forsaken Him and gone for other Gods (Baal).

Many of us today even in this church are adulterers. We came ti church every Sunday but we worship other God’s. It may be our job, our money, our family. Worst, some of us are moving from men of God to men of God. We want miracles; but we do not want the word or oracle of God. Yes, because when we listen it passes on through the other ear else we will not be prostituting men of God. Are we searching for God or for men o God?

Some of us get worried when services get long because we want the pastor to finish fast. We do not want to miss the services of prophet A or B in the evening. You are here in church but your mind is elsewhere. Why are you even here? You had better follow your prophet. Why do these prophets hold their services only in the evening? They are waiting for spiritual prostitutes to finish with their normal services before coming.

Any one can perform to you miracles if that is what you are interested in. When Moses performed in Egypt the magicians also changed their staffs into snakes. Does it mean their powers were from God? Answer for yourself. Some leaders in our churches are even those who are enticing other Christians to follow them to those so-called prophets. Ask those leaders or Deacons why they attain church where they are. Let them go to the prophets and receive the reward of those prophets.

b)     Christendom is full of adulterers vs 10

Why is it that as many prophets and bishops and apostles are increasing, trouble and curses are increasing? Just as to the Israelites, our churches are full of adulterers.

That is why many have hardship in every aspect; family, financial, spiritual or health wise. The Bible says “The pleasant places of the wilderness have dried up…”(Jer 23:10c). Those places that were pleasant to you even in your difficulties, in your wilderness, your desert are no longer pleasant to you. Ask yourself, why is it that in your difficulties you no longer go down on your knees but you run from one prophet to another.

Before then, God was your refuge but now Mr Prophet is your refuge in your widerness. You are cursed with evil for spiritual adultery. Some are sitting here with leader bags tied to their waist. Some hang them in their houses or door poste. Spiritual adultery!! God says you are cursed!  How I wish those things catch fire here in your pockets. Some of you will be shock seeing some kind of people jumping here and there because God has thundered. They can be leaders, Deacons or even pastors. It will soon happen, because God will visit them.

c)      Prophets and priest in spiritual adultery vs 11

The prophets and priests brought their idols into the temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah. It is not different today. Some of them have done just the same; and they call the name of the Lord in their selfishness. God says He has seen their wickedness; and will make their way slippery. God will surely visit them

d)     Why do these false prophets preach this? Vs 13,14

These false prophets are doing these for their selfishness and their own gain and nothing less. Never for God’s glory. They cause God’s people to commit error.  

In order to maintain their position, they preached what the adulterous people wanted to hear. They did not tell the people their wrong deeds and so they lied, strengthening evildoers. That is the same thing we find today. And God consider them like Sodom and Gomorrah. Meaning that they deserve to be judged by the mighty hand of God.

Conclusion

Verse 16 of Jeremiah 23 tells us not to listen to those prophets. They are making you worthless. That means you are just like the prophet you follow. If he is to be judged than God will also judge you the follower.

To the true men of God, continue to speak the word of God even I the people desert you. You will receive your faithful reward, if you remain true to the word of Jesus.

Jer 23:28 “The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream. And he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? Says the LORD.”

God says He did not send those false prophets or command them. They speak of their own imagination and people who follow them follow dreams but God wants you to follow Hos word not dreams or He says in verse 29 “Is not my word like a fire?, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”  Be watchful and remain steadfast.