Are you experiencing decisions or trials in your life? Surrender your personal desires and rely fully on the will of God. He has a plan for your life.

<p>Are you experiencing decisions or trials in your life? Surrender your personal desires and rely fully on the will of God. He has a plan for your life.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

Is Your Window Open?

Daniel chapter 6 and we're going to start at verse 6.

The Bible says, then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king and said thus unto him, King Darius live forever.

All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors and the princes, the counselors and the captains have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for 30 days save of thee O King shall be cast into the den of lions.

Now O King establish the decree and sign the writing that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.

Wherefore, King Darius signed the writing and the decree.

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees 3 times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime.

And his windows being opened, in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled down 3 times a day and prayed, gave thanks to God just as he did before.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, Is Your Window Open?

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to hear your word.

Lord, I ask that you make me just a vessel, a filthy vessel, Lord, unclean, polluted.

But I ask in a special way that you hold pour your cleansing Holy Spirit into that vessel The Lord only what comes out of that vessel would be what you would have to come out Fill us with your Holy Spirit today as as we go through your word This is our prayer in Jesus is precious and holy name Amen So we'll go back to Daniel chapter 6.

We'll start at verse 1, and we'll build the case around Daniel.

This is a similar message to the message I preached at the Southern California Conference office about a week and a half ago, a couple Mondays ago, because I think this is the message, this is a message not only relevant to my experience but is relevant to what our church is going to experience.

Daniel 6 and verse 1 says, it pleased Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and 20 princes which should be over the whole kingdom And over these 3 presidents of whom Daniel was first That the princes might give account unto them and the king should have no damage So a different system comes in as you know, I built the shares ours feast meaning meaning Tekalu Farson Daniel says listen You've been waiting the balances and found wanting the meads and the person they're gonna walk in and take your kingdom.

He sets it up and he establishes a different form of government.

1 of the things that's amazing about Daniel is, he straddles empires.

Empires shift and the man of God stands firm.

In fact he is still viewed as the top person under the king even in the 2 different empires.

And the Bible will give us more on Daniel in a second.

And his idea is, look, I don't want to have to deal with all the petty things that happen in the kingdom.

But over these princes, let's put 3 presidents.

The whole different system is set up then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes Being why was he preferred because he had an excellent spirit in him Because of how he behaved and what did this when you read last week I preached on Joseph and Joseph Ellen White says that Joseph his religion made his temper sweet Daniel had that same religion a religion that said no matter what you do to me, no matter how bad things get, I am going to treat you kindly.

And I am not going to resort to being angry and muddled down in depression and being unforgiving.

He had the kind of spirit that says although the Empires changed he was going to do his best for whoever was in power as long as he could serve his God.

But the presidents the princes sought to find an occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find none occasion nor fault.

For as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.

And so what they did is they saw they sought to to destroy Daniel So they went on the internet and they started to look to see if they could find something to destroy Daniel But then they went on the internet they couldn't find where there was a scandal around Daniel, that he had done nothing wrong.

So what they figured is that this guy really walks the way of God.

So if we're going to destroy him, verse 5, then said these men, we will not find an occasion against this Daniel, except We find it against him concerning the law of his God.

Somebody wanted me out of a speaking engagement and in order to do so, they went online to look to find an occasion against me and they found sermons.

And in finding those sermons, many of them preach right here in this spot at Advent Hope, the whole firestorm that started started.

And as this thing was unfolding, and I was talking to my daughter, and I said, listen, there's a lot of reasons men get pushed out of positions Their sexual scandals their money scandals.

There are other kinds of scandals I said, you know to be pushed out of position because you've preached the Word of God is not something to hang your head about If that's why you get pushed out of position then at least the angels can help escort you out of your office.

Verse 18, so in 1 of the verses, now I appreciate everyone who sent me verses and I got verses and And spread of prophecy quotes and prayers and and I appreciate it and believe me I want you to know if you've been praying for me.

I Want you to know that literally and I'm not talking in an intangible sense, I have literally felt that the Saints were praying for me and for my family.

The first 2 days when this whole thing popped off, I could not move off of my bed.

I was like Job laying on my bed and reading the Psalms.

And I remember from Oakwood College and other places where Ellen White says that in the time of persecution in the time of trouble the Psalms will have a special place for those being persecuted and I never, never understood what that meant until I was in this position.

And when I opened the Psalms and read Psalms 35 and 88 and 59 and all of these great Psalms and I began to read them, it became crystal clear that what David experienced as he ran from Saul and as he dealt with his enemies and as they lied about him and tried to destroy him those experiences as he puts them into such an eloquent language in the Psalms are the experiences of God's people in the end time and what he prays for because many of those Psalms are prayers So it was nice because I didn't have a template to pray in this kind of crazy situation because I didn't know such a situation Could even exist in my life But the Psalms gave me the template For 2 days.

I laid on my bed literally couldn't move couldn't think couldn't do anything because the weight of the what was trying to Be done to me was sitting on me but as the Saints as the word got out and I got calls from Bermuda and England and Jamaica and Africa and Australia and and all over the United States and Canada and and all over the Latino churches in LA and all of these pastors and and members started saying they were praying for me.

I could feel the weight lift And Where depression And anxiety was supposed to settle in instead.

I began to realize that God was in control And that God needed to try me There are a lot of ramifications to what I've just been through there's a huge First Amendment end around, as 1 writer put it.

I mean, we have a First Amendment right to a freedom of speech, a freedom of religion, and of course you can't officially do that.

But in this scenario of what happened to me, and if you don't know the details, I can't go into all of them today.

That was the way around the First Amendment.

The First Amendment was established by the founding father of this country for very good reason.

Without the First Amendment, we couldn't have churches and religious freedom in this country the way we've understood it.

But something is happening to begin to erode the concept that you should live in a country where you can believe the way you want to believe and share what you believe if you want to believe, or at least speak about it.

It was an end around the first amendment.

This was so that's a big issue that there was there were many employment issues There were many economic issues.

There were many even racial issues There are a lot of issues that came up, but God said be still old man Because the first and Most important issue is your salvation And although there are a lot of reasons this could be happening it is your character that first needs to be refined So when trial comes on you the first thing you've got to do is step back be quiet sit still and say God What are you trying to teach?

Me What are you trying to teach my children, What are you trying to do God because I am in a situation I cannot handle and and and I'm in a situation and in a life where I've planned all of the details and always worked out That's a good reason to go to medical school because you never really have to think about where you're gonna work Work this kind of comes automatically people call you all the time to work God had to snatch like Job Like Joseph he had to snatch everything from you everything from me Everything from me everything so that I could stop and let me let me make a confession to you now 1 of the things God showed me is that your career itself had become an idol The success you were having on the job the the idea that people wanted you to be the Surgeon General of the United States or the health officer for the County of LA all of these Successes that you were having All of the accolades you were given by people who did not know God All of what you were getting and all of the all of the praise and all of the promises They were you were being given all of it had begun to sidetrack your connection to me.

And so in this Situation 1 of the things God wanted to do was to bring me back to him and remind me that he is the source of all things good So the Bible says to count it all Joy There's only 1 thing you get to take to heaven with you That's your character All the degrees I have those certificates will burn Whatever money is not in the bank Will burn Whatever possessions I have will burn Even this flesh as it is will not make it into the kingdom.

So God leads us into these lion's den and fiery trials because he wants to perfect our character.

And if we're stubborn and we resist the purifying of our character, what we lose isn't a job or a position.

This is 1 of those I was talking about how the prayers helped, the verses helped.

Somebody sent me this verse and it hit me between the eyes.

Someone at, Margaret Howell is her name, she grew, like she was 1 of the women in our church in Hartford, Connecticut, a faith church, a good friend of my mother, and we've stayed in contact since my mother's death, and she sent me this verse, just this verse, and when I read it, it made sense.

She's John She's John 15 verse 18 John 15 verse 18 says if the world hates you you know that it hated me before it hated you and Verse 19 says if you were of the world the world would love his own But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world does what?

It hates you You can't play it in both worlds.

In a position where I was trying to navigate the 2 worlds and God said you can't you can't do that because that's not what I called you to do.

Verse 6, then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king and said thus unto him, King Darius, live how long?

Daniel is, I mean, these guys are gracious to Darius.

And so they come to butter him up all the presidents of the kingdom the governors and the princes the counselors and the captains have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm Decree that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for 30 days save 0V0 King He shall be cast into the den of lions and they say look we'll get Daniel get everybody together watch this It is amazing how they were all willing to conspire against Daniel because the righteous are repulsive to the world.

Daniel didn't discriminate against anybody.

Like I wasn't any of those things, they call me in the paper.

In fact, if you read it carefully, the opposite is actually true.

But the power of the media to label you whatever they want to label you, and if they just keep calling you that, people start believing it.

Which spoke to me about persecution and the time of the end that the power that the media will have to be able to label a group of people They can do that to an individual.

Imagine what they can do to a group of people.

And when that persecution comes, Ellen White says that prosperity multiplies a mass of professors, but persecution purges them out of the church.

When the time comes that this conspiring reaches its climax and the world is really against us for what we believe I am here to submit to you that our church people are going to run for cover.

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Is Your Window Open?

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