Intermediate Lesson Fifteen - Book of Daniel

MESSAGE FOR PEOPLE TODAY FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL

Church: Pergamos                              Lesson 20 out of 39 lessons                              Theme: Repent

Background Information:

We asked in 1 Samuel, “How can the creation know how to repent?"

In Ezra we were awakened to learn how the world will try to confuse the message of Jesus’ sacrifice with lying vanities.

In Ecclesiastes, we learned from a preacher how to remember to be a witness who can understand how to present our body as a living sacrifice by teaching the meaninglessness of the world’s agenda.

Statement of Faith to Say Amen to for the Book of Daniel:

I can be a witness who lines up my testimony with the Chief Cornerstone (the sacrifice Christ made) by remembering to pray with love for the enemy who persecutes the church because the enemy only sees the world's agenda. The enemy is not aware of the meaninglessness of the world.

Essential Question:

Does the world teach us that if we follow Jesus we will be persecuted?

Book of Daniel

Have students read pages 84-89 in The Pattern of Sound Teaching.

After students read the information ask them, "What do you want to talk about?"

Remember the Issue:

Realizing that Jesus made a sacrifice for our sin and how He can make an intercession for us is important. The world is not teaching us how to look to Jesus’ sacrifice and to pray for our enemy with love.

Remember the Truth Jesus Brought:

We cannot fix our enemy's vanity, but we can pray with love that our enemy will look at the sacrifice that Jesus made and realize how meaningless the world is.

Remember the Rock God Established:

The book of Daniel begins with persecution. King Nebuchadnezzar gave the order to capture all the bright young boys and to teach them the Chaldean (Babylonian) culture and language. There was a boy named Daniel who had three friends, they were among the first captives to be brought back to Babylon. The Babylonians tried to reprogram Daniel and his three friends to forget God’s agenda.

Daniel and his three friends associated sacrificing with repenting, and the Babylonians performed their sacrifice as a ritual. Daniel was looking at the agenda of God. The Babylonians were looking at the agenda of man. Daniel had a heart that understood people were supposed to repent before sacrificing. Daniel and his friends choose to only eat vegetables and not the meat that was sacrificed to false gods. Daniel was in prayer. The book of Daniel includes many prayers that Daniel prayed while his enemy was persecuting him.

God revealed the future, the present, and the past through Daniel. He also gave Daniel the ability to interpret dreams and to predict the future events of the Gentile nation. God put the entire Gentile nation in awe by revealing His agenda through Daniel. The king's men were persecuting Daniel and his friends. Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, came to kill Daniel and his friends because they were not worshiping the Babylonian gods. Daniel prayed to God about his enemy.

When Daniel went before the king, the king did not kill Daniel and his friends because God had revealed His agenda to Daniel. The king had a dream the night before and Daniel told him what his dream was (the king did not tell anyone the dream) and then interpreted what the dream was about. When Daniel revealed God’s agenda to the king, the king wanted Daniel’s God to be his God also.

The king fell on his face before Daniel and presented an offering and incense to him. King Nebuchadnezzar was aware of God and was trying to worship God with rituals (incense and offerings). King Nebuchadnezzar did not understand that incense and rituals without repentance are meaningless.

King Nebuchadnezzar tried to focus on God, but he continued with the agenda of man and not God. As time went on, the dream that Daniel interpreted to King Nebuchadnezzar had not happened. King Nebuchadnezzar erected a massive gold statue that people could see from all over the kingdom. He sent word for all of the government to meet for the dedication of the image. Daniel and his friends refused to bow down to the statue. The king gave them another chance to bow down, and they refused. The king said he was going to throw them into a hot fire.

The king threw them into a furnace that was seven times hotter than usual. King Nebuchadnezzar looked and saw not only that the boys were walking around in the furnace, but there was another person in the fire with them. The boys were not burning. The king ordered some of his soldiers to go into the fire, and the soldiers were burned. The king told the boys to get out of the fire. The boys did not even have a scent of smoke on their clothes. It was as if they were never even in the fire.

King Nebuchadnezzar repented before he died, and he wrote a letter to all the nations of every language on Earth where he declared that there was only one true God.

The last king of the Babylonian Empire did not follow or know God or give any consideration to the agenda of God that had been revealed to King Nebuchadnezzar. Years later, Belshazzar was ruling the Babylonian Empire. King Belshazzar saw a hand appear and it began writing on the wall. The king was so scared his knees were knocking. Nobody could interpret the writing. The king’s wife reminded him that Daniel had interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

They called Daniel, and he interpreted the writing on the wall. As it is written in Daniel 5:27, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” The message was that King Belshazzar had been weighed and found wanting and that his kingdom would be given to the Meds and the Persians. This happened just as Daniel said years earlier. The Meds and the Persians overtook Babylon quickly.

Activity:

The activity directions are located in Appendix 4.

Students will play a game called, “Who will I listen to?”

Conclusion:

King Belshazzar’s heart was only weighed; now our heart will be weighed and measured in the spirit.

Next Lesson:

In the next lesson, Micah announces the court case between God and all the world, and he also preaches a message for the world to repent. A sinful behavior that bears lukewarm faith is how the world’s agenda will lie about God’s agenda with lying vanities.