In Difficult Times

I had the privilege of teaching our students at church this past Sunday. Our church has been using The Gospel Project curriculum and we are loving it. The point of this series is to show how the whole Bible points us to Christ.

The lesson I was to teach was on how God desires us to respond in difficult times. We took a look at Daniel and Ezekiel and through their stories we learn how God desires us to:

*Trust that He will Deliver
*Remember He will Restore

God taught me so much through my study of these stories. Its amazing how you can read a story, but its merely a story until we really start studying it. Then it becomes more than just a story but an event with life changing truths.

Here's the lesson as brief as I could make it for you...

At 9:02 a.m. on April 10, 1995,  a Ryder truck with almost 5,000 pounds of explosives detonated beside the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast injured 680 people, killed 168, including 19 children. This is the most destructive act of terror in the United States- surpassed only September 11.

If you were to go to Oklahoma City today, you will find a  National Memorial. At that memorial there is a tree standing tall at the center of this ground zero. Its called the survivor tree. Though the blast damaged 324 buildings in the surrounding area, this American elm tree survived....

 because its roots branched deeply into the ground.

Same is true for us as believers. When we are firmly rooted in Jesus Christ, no matter what heartache, tragedy, destruction comes our way- we won’t be moved.

Last few weeks, we’ve been talking about…northern and southern kingdoms of Israel

- they too experienced catastrophic disaster when the Assyrians and the Babylonians conquered them.

-God preserved a remnant—a group of survivors who went into exile

-These people were caught between two worlds: the world that they knew back in Israel and the world where they had been taken.

-A few would live to see God deliver His people but most had to remain faithful to the Lord in the midst of a pagan and foreign land
-Discovered the consequences that came from rebelling against God’s commands.

This week, we are going to look at Daniel and Ezekiel and how they remained faithful to God while living in captivity.

-see how the Jewish people trusted God to fulfill His promises

-we must TRUST He will deliver

-we must REMEMBER He will restore

So in difficult times, God desires us to...

1.Trust He Will Deliver (Daniel 1:1-17) 

Daniel and his friends were chosen to be trained for the royal service, had their names changed,  given pagan food, but instead of partaking they requested vegetables and water.

Name changing is significant because it was apart of the Babylonian brainwashing process. 

-Went from having names that honored God to names that honored the Babylonian god.

Daniel and his friends had to trust that God would deliver them through this trial.  Easily could have eaten the food from the king's table, but they knew it was part of the idol worship and was not honoring to the one true God. So they requested vegetables and water instead.

Now if I simply ate vegetables and water I would get down to my desired weight in no time! These guys though are training to be apart of the royal service. They need big muscles and more importantly protein! By them, requesting vegetables and water, this allowed them to say watch what my only my God can do. They trusted that God would see them though. And he did.

 God blessed...

¹⁵ At the end of the ten days, Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the food assigned by the king. ¹⁶ So after that, the attendant fed them only vegetables instead of the food and wine provided for the others.

The point of Daniel’s story-

-not about Daniel courage or willpower

-but how Daniel trusted that God’s Word was good/commands true

-like the other heroes of the Old Testament, Daniel points us forward to Jesus- Great Deliverer

First, we have to trust God will deliver…

Secondly, we have to remember God restores… Ezekiel shows us how… crazy story

2. Remembrance (Ezekiel 37:1-14) Ezekiel recalls… 

I love this story and I think its worth another read!

The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. ² He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. ³ Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”

“O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.”
⁴ Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! ⁶ I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
⁷ So I spoke this message, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. ⁸ Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them.
⁹ Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”
¹⁰ So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army.
¹¹ Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’ ¹² Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!’”

Ezekiel’s vision proves God restores. His vision shows that God reverses the process of death.

-Instead of decomposition, God composes.

-Instead of decay, God restores.

In a vision, Ezekiel looks out upon a valley of dry bones.

These bones represented the nation of Israel, a nation that had been slaughtered by Babylonians.

And in Ezekiel’s vision, God tells him, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again!” (Ezekiel 37:4-5). 

After God’s Word went forth from the lips of Ezekiel, a rattling sound could be heard.

-Bones joined together.

-Ribs and collarbones, kneecaps and shoulder blades—they began to re-socket themselves.

- skeletons had been fully repaired, muscles began to grow upon them-Biceps and triceps, Calf muscles and deltoids found their proper places. Then blood vessels and arteries branched out throughout the lifeless bodies. Skin, hair, and fingernails began to form. 

But after everything had come back together, something was still missing.

-bodies were fully reconstructed but life missing. 

That’s when God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man. Say to it: This is what the Lord God says: Breath, come from the four winds and breathe into these slain so that they may live” (Ezekiel 37:9).

At that moment, another noise could be heard- A gasp must have come from the lungs of a thousand warriors. Now I have never almost drowned but I know the burning, panic sensation of neededing a breath... I can only imagine what this sounded like!

-Just like (Genesis 2:7) God had “breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being”)- the valley of dry bones became a living, breathing, active army of men. 

As unbelievable as this story is…We as followers of Christ can claim the same hope

- we too may experience the life-giving restoration that comes from Jesus Christ

- exiled- dead in our sin- through Jesus God promises to resurrect

-at salvation, God raises us from spiritual death

Through daily time talking to God and reading His word, we become more alive each day.

-old self is dying, new self is growing.

-minds are being re-wired.

 -hearts are being revived

-God is putting His words in our mouths so that we can offer a message of hope and life in a world of death and decay.

* time with Him is essential

Be careful... we too are caught between two worlds: where we were and where we are now. We can have hope because he is FAITHFUL to fulfill his promises

God is the ultimate example of faithfulness.

-when Daniel and his three friends were faithful to the Mosaic Law, God enlivened their bodies-blessed them

           -Ezekiel’s’ vision foreshadows- dry bones were resurrected

 Ezekiel and Daniel show us that even in the midst of difficult times…

We can trust that God will deliver.

We can remember that God restores.

Their stories point us to Jesus. The ultimate Deliverer and Restorer if life.

Unfortunately we forget these truths and wander from God. There is good news though. Even when we rebel (our choice) against God and suffer the consequence God is still faithful and he desires to restore us and give us life.

Some might say for us to live like Daniel and Ezekiel is radical. The word “radical” and “root” share the same Latin stem. To be radical is to lay down deep roots. Just like the American elm tree that withstood the blast of the Oklahoma City bombing in1995, Christians whose faith goes to the very core of who they are can withstand any assaults from the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Stay rooted in Jesus, so that no matter what heartache, tragedy, and destruction comes our way we can stand firm because we know God is faithful to deliver and restore his people.