The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:01 Daniel chapter 4 verse 1 King Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples,
00:07 nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth. Peace be multiplied to you.
00:14 It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders of the most high God has done for me. How great are his signs
00:22 and how mighty his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and his
00:27 dominion endures from generation to generation. I Nebuchadnezzar was at ease in my house
00:35 and prospering in my palace. I saw a dream and made me afraid.
00:42 As I lay in bed, the fancies and the visions of my head alarmed me. So I made
00:48 a decree that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought before me that
00:53 they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream. Then the magicians, the enchanters, the
00:60 codians and the astrologers came in and I told them the dream, but they could
01:05 not make known to me his interpretation. At last Daniel came in before me. He who
01:12 was named Beltishaza after the name of my God and in whom the spirit of the
01:18 holy gods. And I told him the dream saying, "Oh Belishaza, chief of the magicians,
01:25 because I know that the spirit of the holy God is in you, and that no mystery is too difficult for you. Tell me the
01:33 visions of my dream that I saw and their interpretation." The visions of my head as I lay in bed
01:40 were these. I saw and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height
01:46 was great. The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven,
01:51 and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. Its leaves were beautiful, and its fruit abundant, and in it was
01:58 food for all. The beast of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and
02:05 all flesh were fed from it. I saw in the visions of my head, as I
02:11 lay in bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven.
02:17 He proclaimed aloud and said thus, "Chop down the tree, and lob off his branches,
02:22 strip off his leaves, and scatter its fruit. Let the beast flee from under it, and the birds from his branches, but
02:29 leave the stom of his roots in the earth, bound with it a band of iron and bronze amid the tender grass of the
02:35 field. Let him be wet with the dew of heaven. Let his portion be with the beast in the
02:41 grass of the earth. Let his mind be changed from a man's, and let the beast's mind be given to him, and let
02:49 seven periods of time pass over him. The sentence is by the decree of the
02:55 watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones to the end that the living
03:00 may know that the most high rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of
03:08 men. This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw,
03:14 and you, oh Belishaza, tell me the interpretation, because all the wise men
03:20 of my kingdom are not able to make known to me the interpretation, but you are able, for the spirit of the holy gods is
03:27 in you. Verse 19, then Daniel, whose name was Beltishaza,
03:35 was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him. The king answered and said, "Beltichaza,
03:42 let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you." Beltishaza answered and
03:47 said, "My lord, may the dream before those who hate you, and his
03:53 interpretation for your enemies. For the tree you saw, which grew and
03:58 became strong, so that his top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth, whose leaves were
04:06 beautiful, and its fruit abundant, and in which was food for all, under which
04:11 beasts of the field found shed, and in whose branches the birds of the heavens
04:16 lived. It is you, O king, who have grown and become strong. Your greatness has
04:23 grown and reaches to heaven and your dominion to the ends of the earth.
04:29 And because the king saw a watcher, the holy one, coming down from heaven, and saying, "Chop down the tree and destroy
04:36 it, but leaves the stumble of his roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron
04:41 and bronze in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dwel of heaven, and let his portion be with
04:48 the beast of the field, till seven periods of time pass over him."
04:53 This is the interpretation, O king. It is a decree from the most high which has
04:58 come upon my lord the king that you shall be driven from among men and your dwelling shall be with the beast of the
05:05 field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox and you shall be wet with the
05:11 dew of heaven and seven periods of time shall pass over you till you know that
05:17 the most high rules the kingdom of man and gives it to whom he will.
05:22 And as as it was commanded to leave the st of the roots of the king of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you
05:30 from the time that you know that heaven rules. Therefore, O king, let my counsel be
05:36 acceptable to you. Break off your sins by practicing righteousness and your
05:41 iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed that there may perhaps be a
05:46 lengthening of your prosperity. May I invite brother Arnold to bring the
05:53 word of God to us. Thanks.
05:59 Good morning. It's a honor again to be asked to speak here. I have to really do
06:06 an apology. Actually, Masimo was meant to be here to do chapter 3, but next week I have to speak in another church.
06:12 So, be shuffling it a little bit around. against the housekeeping at the end of this service if you need any prayers the
06:19 counselors are here I won't ask them to stand up but do u counselors please
06:25 remember end of service come to the front any one of you need prayers we are here if you need to go to a private room
06:31 some of you have said that your you rather go to a private room we will arrange that okay let's um let's start
06:38 off this morning and let's do something interesting this is an old Chinese saying that to it says if you want to
06:44 know what water is. Don't ask the Okay, let's let's ask our lawyer elder.
06:51 Don't ask what? Come on. You get a microphone, right?
06:56 Somebody. Ah, there we are. Is this working? Okay. Don't ask the scientist.
07:04 No, no, no. Fail, fail. Come on now, somebody here. Okay, my new friend here.
07:09 Don't ask the Don't know. Come on. Let's make it engaging. I very boring. Johnny, what do
07:16 you think? If you want to know what water is, don't ask the no idea.
07:21 Yo, let's go further back. Maybe the backbers have some idea. Patrick, what
07:26 do you think? You want to know what water is? Don't ask the monk. W this is getting really Nobody's got a right
07:32 answer for me. This going to be very long server. Anybody tell me? Come on. Somebody come. Somebody uh uh give an
07:41 answer. Yeah, that's right. Why see fish? Thank you very much. That's right.
07:48 Why is it you don't ask the fish? Because the fish takes the water for
07:54 granted. The fish assumes the water. It's only
07:59 when you take the fish outside the water, then the fish regrets. And the fish swims. Whether it's good
08:06 water, bad water, whether the water is killing him, he doesn't know. So if you want to know what water is the most
08:13 obvious, don't ask the fish. Here's second question. Now this one I won't ask y'all. If you want to know what a
08:20 Malaysian is, don't ask the ah these are dangerous
08:26 question. Let me let me make it simple for you. We just celebrated Malaysia day. On that
08:34 day, did any of you go out to the stadium and do you wake up in the morning and feel thankful that you're in
08:40 the Federation of Malaysia or you want went to watch TV or you're just thankful as a holiday?
08:47 How many of you on Independence Day put a flag out on your front?
08:54 Oh, you got one. Thank you. Hallelujah, brother. Now, what is interesting about
08:60 the book of Daniel is this. The book of Daniel gives us a Christianity which is
09:07 the beyond ourselves and that's I think one of the biggest
09:13 tragedy of the modern faith because is hijacked from the west apparent and more
09:19 so from America and in the west religion any form is reduced to personal
09:26 need. So if I speak a message about sorrow, pain, happiness, success, you all will
09:33 say, "Hallelujah, Lord." Good message. If I preach to you this morning, it
09:39 says, "What does it mean to be a Malaysian Christian?" You all will switch off because it's completely irrelevant.
09:47 But that's why it's so important because the book of Daniel is really a book
09:53 about the nations. And the theme that runs throughout Daniel is that God is sovereign over
10:02 every country and God is sovereign over Malaysia. And that is the theme from
10:09 chapter 2, chapter 3 and chapter 4. is an important theme and I ask this
10:14 morning as we look at the dream of the great tree that we look at another
10:19 aspect of our faith which we really really very often don't think is important and which is this what does it
10:27 mean to be a Christian and to be a Malaysian let's come before
10:34 God in prayer Lord we uh come before you now in this and we think of Daniel, a
10:42 man in exile, pulled away from his homeland
10:48 to a place which he didn't like. And yet, Lord, we saw how he made an impact
10:54 in the land of his exile and how he made an impact to the most
10:60 powerful ruler of that time. And we ask for ourselves, each one of us, you have
11:06 placed us in your sovereign will in this country.
11:11 But if we are honest with ourselves, most of us here feel very little loyalty
11:17 to Malaysia. And this morning we ask a difficult question. And we ask, oh Lord, that how
11:23 we feel towards our leaders, our countries. And we ask, oh Lord, in humility,
11:30 is this what pleases you? Or do we need to reook at how we treat
11:38 our leaders, treat our country as we see how Nebuchadnezzar
11:45 is challenged by an exalt man and how through that he gives glory to
11:52 the king of kings and the lord of lords and he then knows that our god reigns
11:58 forever. We say this in Jesus name. Amen.
12:04 Let me um finish the story. We didn't have time to
12:09 really go through the whole story. It's a long chapter. What happens after what
12:14 brother Yulam read is the prophecy comes through. The Nebuchadnezzar
12:20 looks at his kingdom. He looks at his twin towers, his KL tower. He looks at
12:26 his monoral stations. He looks at all the wonderful thing he has done.
12:32 He looks at the fact that his shares have doubled. He looks at his wonderful bungalow with gated community and his
12:40 latest Mercedes car and he said, "Look at my kingdom. Look
12:45 at me." And then everything crashes down. Now the the first obvious uh
12:52 lesson is that we like to think the story is about a man's pride. And in
12:58 fact, if you Google, a lot of sermons post it that way. But understand that that is really a micro story within a
13:06 larger story. And the way to read prophetic literature, one way is to look at repetitive words. I'm going to give
13:12 it to you. And here is two repetitive words. And we finding in verse three,
13:19 I'm just going to give it up for you to see. And verse 34, which is a repetition
13:24 of it. And what do we have here? We have statements on God's kingdom.
13:31 Now, here's another repetition again. And repetition gives you emphasis. And what do we have here? The repetition of
13:39 the kingdom of earth. Now, when you see this repeated again and again, you begin
13:44 to see the emphasis of the the the author here. And here's a letter from
13:50 the king, which is really odd. in the between here. He obviously got Daniel to transcript a letter to send out to his
13:57 entire empire. So we we're looking about kingdoms this morning. In particular,
14:04 we're looking at two kingdoms. And we read the rest of it. We find in verse 35, this is what God says. He does as
14:10 pleases with the powers of heaven. That's the kingdom of God. and on the
14:16 people of the earth, the kingdom of man, we see two kingdoms in conflict with one
14:23 another. And I think that's quite important as we really look at the context to the story. So here the
14:30 overarching story we continue from u Eden last week. God is sovereign over
14:36 the nations. He's sovereign over Malaysia. Empires rise, empires falls. And this
14:44 morning he will ask a specific question. What is our role in God's sovereign
14:50 plan? Let me give it to you in simplicity. There are two kingdoms here.
14:55 And what's interesting is Nebuchadnezzar who would say and you find in verses 34,
15:02 you can read it later. This is a pagan king who says about God's kingdom, his
15:07 dominion is an eternal dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. What does a pagan king
15:15 understand about God's kingdom? Now, here's two things. One, God's kingdom is invisible.
15:22 Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom is visible. God's kingdom glorifies God.
15:27 Nebuchadnezzar's glorifies himself. God's kingdom redeems people. In the
15:34 dream of the tree, you find what's happened is that God says he will leave
15:39 the stump. You find it in verse 15. Leave the stump and its roots, bound it
15:45 with iron and bronze. In Babylonian culture, the bronze which is an
15:50 expensive material means preserve the roots in the tree. So even though God is
15:57 going to teach Nebuchadnezzar a lesson, he's going to keep the roots and the
16:02 kingdom will be restored to him. We find in Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, it exploits
16:08 people. We sign see this when Daniel tells him to renounce. History shows you how he was actually a very wicked king.
16:16 God's kingdom, God is king. Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar is king. And here's the key thing. God's
16:23 kingdom lasts forever. Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom does not. Now, we could swap
16:30 that to this. And we can swap this to refer to
16:36 ourselves. Now what's interesting is this is that what does Nebuchadnezzar
16:43 understand of the kingdom of God? It is pagan king. There are two very
16:48 important things I want us to to pick at. This invisible kingdom on one hand the kingdom of God is up there in heaven
16:56 but it it what it does it breaks into earth. That's very important to us today. It
17:02 breaks and it it intervenes in your daily lives in the kingdom of Malaysia.
17:11 That's something we really got to wrap our head around. And what he is seeing is only a sense of
17:18 the kingdom. So in one sense there is a future kingdom, there's a present kingdom.
17:25 And the kingdom of God basically would clash with the kingdom of man. How do
17:33 you define the kingdom of God? Then I would give a simple definition of it.
17:38 It would be the rule of God over the people of God.
17:45 Because Nebuchadnezzar sees it in how Daniel behaves and through Daniel what
17:52 God has done. So he doesn't see the kingdom like us today might say where's
17:57 the kingdom of God? It's invisible. But on the other hand you see it in how God
18:02 rules over his people. So, we're going to take three points today. And it may be a little bit heavy,
18:09 but I'd like to suggest to you, it gives you a really good view of how to look at
18:15 all our issues. One, living for God's kingdom. Secondly, engage the earthly
18:20 kingdom. And we look at the gospel and God's kingdom or what Matthew 24 calls
18:27 the gospel of the kingdom. And that's again another aspect of gospel we we we
18:32 need to relook at. Rome, I'm going to give you a small history lesson, was called the eternal
18:40 city, powerful Rome, conquering Rome, whose empire stretched
18:48 all the way to Germany and Britain and right all the way to Turkey. His tentacles went to the Balkans. This was
18:56 the superpower. And in 410
19:02 the superpower was sacked by German tribes under a man called Amarik of the
19:08 Visigots. 3 days they entered the eternal city. That's what Rome calls
19:14 itself. And you know when was the last time Rome was ever attacked? 800 years
19:19 ago by a small band of Gows who tried to get in through the side door. So if you
19:24 lived in Rome, you have a sense of security. We are Roman you know
19:30 our country very stable no problem and to your own horror
19:37 they come in and unspe unspeakable horrors occur on three days. Now why is
19:43 this relevant to us? I want to tell you because the timing is interesting because at 410 this is after
19:52 Constantine the great unites Rome meaning Rome is considered what a
19:57 Christian empire and at the backdrop of this
20:04 Christians ask themselves 800 years and now this is what happened to us. Why do
20:10 I believe in our God? In fact, the pagans come and tell them,
20:15 you know what? Go back to the old gods. At least we were strong
20:22 under Dosatin 300 AD. The empire was at its height.
20:28 Now we are Christian and this is what your Christian God has done. Now that's important
20:35 because a lot of us Christians, we we have this closed view of Malaysia that nothing's going to happen. people talk,
20:42 you know, all this, but everything is going to be the same. And here's the first question God's going to ask us.
20:48 What happens if it doesn't? What happens if Bers goes on the streets and they ra
20:56 make through their thread and they say they're going to kill Mari Chin and there will be bloodshed? What happens if
21:03 uh the political turmoil between our ex PM and the current PM doesn't go well?
21:09 What if the share market drops? Would you turn around and says, "Where
21:15 are you, oh God?" In the light of all of this, a bishop from Africa called
21:22 Austinine from a place called Hippo writes a book called the city of God.
21:27 This is very foundational. And I know some of you think a little very boring, but bear with me because this has great
21:33 implications. And in the city of God, he breaks two cities. the city of man and
21:38 he's telling it to Christians Rome and the city of God and I've listed down the differences of it you can find this in
21:46 book 19 those of you who like to read it is a momental work and essentially he's
21:52 telling Rome you know what you think you're Christian you're not because you put your hope in Rome and
21:60 not in God even though you call yourself Christian very daring words when this pope
22:06 innocent was there and he says, you know, put your hope in
22:11 the city of God or the kingdom of God. Don't put your hope in the city of man,
22:17 in Rome, Babylon, in earth. Now, why is
22:23 this important for us? Because I want to give you three points which he said and you find what Augustine is saying is
22:29 really very much what we see in chapter 4. In fact, Augustine traces this all
22:34 the way back to Genesis to Cain and Abel. I want to give you three points. Number one, both cities overlap. Now,
22:41 that's important. You know what Austinine is saying? He's saying you're a citizen of Rome. At the
22:48 same time, you're a citizen of God. And God's citizenship precedes over the
22:55 citizenship of Rome. But you are citizenship of both. And hear this for
22:60 us. You're a citizen of Malaysia. You know, some of you really don't
23:07 better to you, but you're a citizen of Malaysia. But you're a citizen of God.
23:13 They both overlap. Here's the next point. Now, very obviously, they conflict. The kingdom of God and the
23:20 kingdom of men conflict with one another. They have no values. They're at war. But here's the interesting thing.
23:28 both seek peace and prosperity and there's a role of you and I in this
23:36 and here's the most important thing which is really important a Christian lives in both at the same time and city
23:44 God was so influential and after that I think it was very prophetic Rome declines and within 100
23:52 years Rome the Roman Empire is no more But his words were so prophetic that
24:01 future Christians know Luther, Kelvin, even Tim Keller in the city church
24:07 movement picked on this. And I want us to really look on this. What is the first point? The first point is this.
24:14 How you live for God's kingdom will reflect how you live in the earthly
24:20 kingdom. If if you are a good citizen of God,
24:29 you should be a good citizen of
24:35 of what? Of Boly land. Yes, Malaysia. But Boly land,
24:44 I tell you what's a bad citizen of Bleand. A bad season of ble land is aritimun ble
24:53 you know uh the code words in this country you get caught in ble let's be
25:00 very abstract here you get caught for speeding the fellow open the window
25:11 in English you spat when you shouldn't spat the code word is
25:18 or what can we do about it? That's code code for you to
25:25 you know there's a code
25:32 whatever that's ble land I'm an architect in council they have a
25:38 term no they call it we can do magic for you know the conver magicians they can do magic now here's our problem in in in
25:46 this kind of culture because if we go to church or believe in the kingdom of God
25:51 and the kingdom of God is the rule of God over God's people and in the kingdom of God you believe in honesty and truth
25:60 that kingdom breaks into boly land but what a lot of us do is that we want
26:06 to keep the two separate and that is why Austinon is saying you
26:12 will not be prepared when problem comes and we can apply this to anything
26:18 because it gives us a world view of how we look at everything. Whether it's corruption, uh for example, in the
26:26 kingdom of God, you treat everyone equal. In this church, whether you're from Africa or Nepal or Mayama or
26:34 Philippines or whatever, the kingdom of God brings all nations together. So if
26:40 you go back and you are rude to your Nepali guard or you go and look down at
26:46 your Filipino mate, the kingdom of God hasn't broken down into the kingdom,
26:52 your personal kingdom. So there's a very important reflection on that. And this
26:58 morning, we have to really ask ourselves, do you and I live two separate lives? So because no matter how
27:04 holy you are in church, how much Bible study you do, how much all these things
27:10 you do, if outside there you don't behave like that, then the kingdom of
27:15 God is not in you. Your life does not reflect that.
27:22 And that's why Jesus says, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. All these things will be given to you. Seek
27:29 first his kingdom." The context of it was the anxiety people have and nowadays
27:34 we get very anxious. We get very anxious because you know nowadays developers can become bankers already. You know we live
27:42 in such a strange world nowadays you you you want to you you have to your dog will be sentenced to death if you live
27:47 in a terrace house in Malaka. Okay and and maybe tomorrow they will say hoot
27:53 applies to all of you. And you see what we then want to do is
27:59 we want to build a personal little kingdom, insulate ourselves from everything outside.
28:05 And why is that so? Because our heart is not in the kingdom of God. And that's
28:11 the context of the text is this. Do not store up treasures on earth. That's your
28:16 earthly kingdom. Where moth and roth destroy, tears break in and steal. Store for yourselves treasures in heaven where
28:22 moth and rust do not destroy. Do not break in and steal. And what's interesting is this. Where your treasure
28:29 is, there your heart is also. You notice the way the way is lined up is not where
28:35 your heart is, there your treasure is. That means where your treasure is, it reflects your heart. So here's the
28:42 problem with us in our approach as Malaysians. You see, if we're honest
28:48 about ourselves, a lot of us don't care very much about this country. If you want to be very honest, what do
28:56 Chinese like to do everywhere they go? They put up Chinatown. We insulate ourselves with our Christian
29:02 friends or our whatever buddies. We pass WhatsApp messages about other
29:07 communities. People's favorite pastime here is passing degrading jokes about leaders.
29:14 We have nothing to do with almost twothirds of the culture out there. And we've essentially built a little kingdom
29:21 around us. And that reflects your heart. Here's the point, isn't it? It's not
29:27 enough that you say, "I'm I'm clean. I I
29:32 don't I don't do all these corruption things." Because if the kingdom of God breaks into the kingdom of man, what
29:38 does it mean? It means it's not just enough you're clean. The question is, how are you affecting the kingdom of
29:45 Malaysia to be more clean? That is where it goes. So here's the next point. First is how
29:53 you live for kingdom. God's kingdom will reflect how you live in the earthly kingdom. The second is this. Beware the
29:60 subtle temptation of building your personal kingdom. This is no joke. This is actually called
30:06 kingdom tower. This was designed to be 1.6 kilometer in
30:13 height. And because the winds were so strong, they went down to 1 1 kilometer.
30:18 This is in a place called Jeda, Saudi Arabia. Not exactly a tourist destination. The tower is so high and
30:26 they they've been in under construction since 2013. It will be the first structure to break into the clouds and
30:34 you can almost hear the echo of Daniel 4. The tree grew large and strong and it
30:39 top touched the sky. It was visible to the ends of the earth. We hear echoes
30:46 also of the tower of babel. And here is the problem. When Nebuchadnezzar after
30:52 hearing the warning, he goes out and the next verse says 12 months later as the king was walking on the roof of the
30:59 royal palace of Babylon, he said, "Is not this the great Babylon I have built
31:06 in the royal residence for my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?"
31:14 And basically what he's doing, he's saying, "Look at me." Now, a lot of us may not build big
31:21 buildings, but here's the reality. A lot of us, we like to build little kingdoms.
31:28 My small little life where I have my friends, I come to church on Sunday, I
31:33 do certain things, I and you don't disturb me, I'm fine. That's the
31:38 Chinatown mentality. And within this little kingdom of yours, you know, you can transplant it whether
31:44 it's Malaysia or whether you go to Australia, go to anywhere is it's this nice little line where I have wife and
31:51 kids and I do stuff and I really don't give a stuff what happens to Malaysia.
31:56 If we're honest with ourel, most of us feel that way because we are filled with so much anger. You know, we say look
32:03 this country I'm really going to be honest about it's so unfair to us. Look at the education system. after they read
32:09 the paper it says stupid government tea sinner every day we will hear there
32:15 we pass WhatsApp messages we you know we make fun of leaders let's be very honest about it today let's be really honest
32:22 and it's almost like when it comes to these things every rule of god doesn't apply we can love our enemies we can be
32:30 kind but when it comes to talking about the government and all of that all the
32:35 rules don't apply you can insult say things about ros say thing about najibs you know all the
32:41 things are we not right let's open all your headphones and look at your WhatsApp messages let's do a correlation
32:47 of it but out there there's another community who does the opposite
32:55 and if you open a handphone of a Malay you find the messages are the other
33:01 completely the opposite of us and God is asking us what is your role in all of
33:06 that and what do we do we build a little kingdom and we say we don't care we
33:12 don't bother and why because in that kingdom you are
33:18 king that is the essence here and Nebuchadnezzar in the end says that and
33:24 what is it and those who walk in pride he's able to humble and you may not see yourself as a proud
33:31 person but if you are king of your own little life that means God's kingdom
33:37 hasn't broken broken into your kingdom. You only come into church because you
33:42 know it's is part of your culture. But if God is king, he's king over your
33:49 life, your kingdom, and then he asks you to do certain things.
33:56 Here's the next point we're going to pick up. And we see it just now. We look at these three verses. If the first
34:02 point is living for the kingdom of God reflects how you live for the earthly
34:07 kingdom. The danger is we build a personal kingdom. Here's the next point. We are to engage the earthly kingdom,
34:16 not build a wall around it. How do we see that? Because of what Daniel did.
34:22 For Daniel to go before a king and says, "Be pleased to accept my advice.
34:28 Renounce your sins by doing what is right and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. To do that will
34:35 normally mean you will die. You know that's actually you actually telling the king that you know king you're actually
34:41 a very bad person. But why does he get away with it? Because if you read the
34:46 language he is actually very much a person who loved the king. Now
34:51 understand this is a very evil person. You find in verse 19, Daniel was greatly
34:57 perplexed for a time. His thoughts terrified him. The king had to pacify him. Says, "Belida, do not let the dream
35:04 of his meaning alarm you." And what the text is telling us is that
35:09 we have a mandate to engage our earthly kingdom. Like I said, it's not enough
35:15 that you say you don't practice corruption. The issue is how are you in
35:21 your position as captains of industry influencing your company to not do that. And here I
35:30 given you a list of it. You find this is all over the Bible. How are you at home influencing your
35:38 neighbors that you know they should treat their mates better because they all God's creation? That is the gospel
35:43 of the kingdom. That's God's kingdom breaking out. But a lot of us we we keep ourselves
35:50 very insulated and isolated from all of this. The Malays have a saying
36:06 see this quite often. You find a very nice well-dressed Chinese upper middle
36:13 class girl there and she says, "Excuse me, I would like to have a filio filish
36:19 set." And the counter girl says fish. Uh, do you have any eyes?
36:30 Sorry, what you say? Sorry, I don't understand. cent or 50
36:37 cents. Now, now what are we getting here? The point is if you you you take one step
36:43 back, there is one culture that doesn't care about the local language, doesn't
36:48 care about the local culture. Yes. The other person across the counter, you may not realize it, looks at you with
36:54 complete contem. And to the majority culture when they look at us they see a race that doesn't
37:03 bother to understand the language doesn't respect the king that's important especially in this text
37:09 doesn't respect the government does doesn't make any attempt to to
37:14 learn the culture and everything. In fact they see us as people who have just put our own culture and forgotten the
37:22 country. And they say Jeremiah's words are so important. Jeremiah's word is
37:27 prosper the country so you can prosper. A lot of us is we don't care if the
37:34 country's prosper so long I prosper. We need to engage. And the first thing
37:39 what the church has often done is basically build a wall around and say we
37:44 don't care about this country. And Daniel tells us that's not biblical.
37:51 Paul tells us that's not biblical in Romans 13. Peter tells us that he says
37:56 honor God, honor the king. But how do we do it? This becomes difficult.
38:03 Number one, sometimes you go extreme. On one hand, you separate yourself so much
38:08 that you don't get involved. Another point, you go in so heavily that you actually cause a lot of people to be
38:15 stumbled. Now, everybody loves John Kelvin. I am now speaking to all those who are reformed here. And when John
38:22 Kelvin, what people don't realize, besides being a theologian, he very heavily reformed Geneva.
38:29 And under him in the 16th century, Geneva became a thriving city. Economy
38:34 grew. He brought in a lot of people from France and they prospered and the crime rate was very low. Now, I'm going to be
38:42 very careful saying this, but everyone has a dark side. But historical records of Kelvin under Geneva would say this. I
38:50 listed down some of the things there. You know what Kelvin loved to do? He loved to chop people's heads off.
38:56 And under him, more people were sentenced for execution than in in in Zurich. And if you're Catholic, you're
39:03 Anabaptist, you're Muslim, you're Jew, you're not welcome in Geneva. And Christianity has a has a very bad
39:10 record. You know, whenever Christians go to power, they become just as bad as a
39:16 lot of other people. Now, why is that important? Because we complain or we say hey you know if hudot comes we will be
39:23 oppressed but you don't understand on the opposite side they will say whenever you
39:28 Christians were in power you never treated us well church history shows you
39:34 that Oliver Cromwell in in in Ireland or whether it were the Puritans in New
39:39 England or whether here we don't have a good track record. So why this why this
39:45 tax important? Because this tax tries to find us a balance. Here's a simple example. If you go to Bers, should you
39:51 be involved in this? I took a photo of this when I was in Bers last time. It's one thing to go to a rally in your civil
39:59 rights to say I protest against 1 MDB, but to dress up like that and you know
40:04 what this is, right? And they say it's a statement that saying and when I was there, there was even a coffin, you
40:10 know. So when you put a coffin there, put on a mask of the first lady and you do tong
40:17 and everybody around go haha take picture, take picture. My question you as a Christian, should you do this?
40:25 Because if you do this and you're involved in this, why should you get do
40:31 you have a right to be angry when they do that? And a lot of us I've been doing bit soul
40:36 searching on this because I get a lot of WhatsApp messages and they say hey look Najis is like that oh then you reply oh
40:42 put him in a tong oh then suddenly all the language comes out. So when it comes to these things my Christian faith
40:49 completely goes out the window. the stupid cheese in a tong sailor get cancer like you die you die tomorrow
40:56 have a party correct or not and and and you got to
41:02 stop and pause at this because as bad as you think this country is it was never
41:08 as bad as what it was during Daniel's time
41:15 and I listed down what Daniel you think you have it bad here he had it bad so
41:20 who is Daniel. I'll give you a term all of you can understand. Daniel is this.
41:30 That's Daniel. But unlike us who take to WhatsApp to
41:35 criticize, complain, and we say things, if a certain leader dies, we'll throw a
41:41 celebration. We where the hate and anger is so much. And then we forget that God
41:47 tells us to love our enemies to to forgive to to prosper the country.
41:55 You know I read an article from Raja Petra not exactly a person who loves Christians you know in the last posting
42:02 you read Raja Petra Kamarudin he had a long ranting about Chinese and he said
42:08 he's prepared to burn the city down if the Chinese go ahead. It was very disturbing article. He's doing like what
42:14 another guy recently said. No. And if you go to the streets, they will be prepared to create racial trouble.
42:21 Go. I can send you the link. But then Ra Petra says something very interesting. He says, you know, but the Bible says
42:29 love your enemies. And it's very difficult to hate someone who says love your enemies.
42:38 Then he says something even more troubling. But Christians are so full of sh H did did
42:45 meaning what? Meaning you Christians don't practice what you preach. You are no different from everyone out there.
42:52 You spit at us malays. You you hate us. You talk about forgiveness. You talk
42:58 about all of this. You don't practice it. So this is a painful lesson. But here's the kingdom of God. It has to
43:04 break into the kingdom of God. And the Daniel model is really this. The Daniel
43:09 model is a model of love. That's what Tim Kellis says. Your citizenship in the city of God makes you the very best
43:16 citizen in the city of man. And I challenge you this morning. Are you and
43:22 I citizens of Malaysia the way God wants us to be? No matter how much you may
43:28 feel slighted, you may feel that your that this country deprived you of
43:33 education, this country did a lot of things to you and you you well up in anger. Think of Daniel the Pandatang
43:40 and how much love he had for a dictator that pulled him out of Judah, made him a
43:46 unun. I mean actually if if I was Daniel and I I and I was there and I had this dream I say ta
43:53 I hope you die correct or not? But yet Daniel had love for this dictator and
43:59 and he went in love and said look repent. Why? Because Christianity is a
44:06 faith of restoration and redemption and applies to all races, all nations
44:14 and that is really what engaging uh the city is. Let me give you one example and
44:20 I want to really just really go into all the hard topics today. This is not
44:26 engaging in love. Is homosexuality an abomination? Yes. Hebrews say it you
44:33 will they will not enter the kingdom of God. But let me ask you a simple thing. Is corruption an abomin abomination?
44:39 Yes. Is dishonoring your parents abomination? Yes.
44:44 But you'll be very happy to talk to a corrupted guy out there in garden cafe. But if you find out the guy is gay, you
44:51 will walk away. Why? You see here here's our our problem with
44:56 this. when we don't engage in love and by the way you know by the way
45:03 are we this morning you may get quite offended at me I say in love are you and I so
45:10 naive are you and I so naive to actually think
45:15 in a church of our size gay people have not walked in our midst
45:22 are you and I that naive they come they sit at the back and if they
45:31 feel you and I don't understand them don't talk to them
45:36 they are not going to stay let me tell you how real this is this a man called I'm not going to give his
45:42 name you can get him on internet he is Malaysia's foremost activist on the LGBT
45:49 uh matter foremost number one he organized the sexuality Malaysia uh
45:54 things he's been to prison not probably been arrested. He writes very heavily about it. I want to give you a bit about
46:01 his history. He's from Singapore. You read it. Number two, in Singapore, he decided to embrace the Christian faith
46:08 when he was 14. Father did not react when he finally came out of the Christian.
46:13 Here's Malaysia's foremost LGBT uh champion became a Christian
46:20 Singapore. Then the this is from a Malaysia Kiny article. He joined a church in Slango.
46:29 Joined the theater and wrote scripts for the church.
46:34 Guess which church was that?
46:42 This church. I have sat with him and prayed with him
46:47 and so has Peter. This was many years ago when when we
46:53 were still together with Pantai. I still have that script.
46:60 You you see how sometime and I think back you know you know when this article was posted only few months ago when I
47:06 read it you know and I told myself you know I sat with you and I prayed with you and why didn't I take a chance to
47:15 walk with you and say brother uh you know is this what you're struggling with
47:20 and of course the article goes on you know that uh after discussion he gave up
47:26 the Christian faith and of course he became
47:31 gay. Now here here's a very painful thing to us and and the tragedy was later on I
47:37 met him because I was doing some work at Central Market and he was the arts
47:42 festival guy at the back. I had a chance to talk to him and I begin realiz when I
47:49 prayed with him I had an opportunity to reach out and talk and engage. You see,
47:54 it's one thing. You hate the sin, but you love the sinner. You know what I
47:59 begin to realize? If we held our way, we rather this church had no gays, no prostitutes, no
48:06 malaise, no wan means, no gamblers, no drivers. We prefer this church to be
48:11 upper middle class, preferably Chinese. Thank you very much. This is our kingdom. The rest of you can get lost.
48:17 We don't say it in so many words, but our hearts betray that.
48:23 And that's why this morning's lesson is so important because if the kingdom of God breaks into the world, we reach out
48:30 to all people because that's what Christ did. You can hate the sin, but you must
48:37 love the people. The LGBT people is such a huge thing. There are more gays in
48:42 Thailand than they are Christians. Each one of them is a soul to be worn for
48:48 God. And I want to say one more thing.
48:54 If you're gay and you're in our church, talk to us. We will not judge you. As
49:01 much we say homosexuality is a sin, so is corruption a sin. And I can tell you if I'm nasty today, I think 60% people
49:08 here suffer from corruption. Let's be honest about it. We all on a journey to righteousness.
49:16 And and sometimes people struggle for a very long time. But the worst thing to do is to come to church and hide it
49:22 because you think no one understands. And we do that we are not portraying the
49:27 kingdom of God. Send me a private message. I will pray for you
49:33 because I am telling you I with every conviction of my spirit believe in our
49:39 midst there are people who are gay. And I know it displeases God when we
49:47 cannot reach out to them or they feel they can't even talk to us.
49:53 So let me just end. They say cockroaches can survive a nuclear war.
49:59 Can I suggest to you Christians are like cockroaches. Yes, we should survive everything. Why?
50:07 Because in the end you can engage the earthly kingdom but things may not go your way and
50:14 tomorrow in the same way uh the visods entered the eternal city. Maybe tomorrow
50:22 hud will be passed over this country. Maybe we'll never know who one MDB is.
50:30 Maybe Mahhat tomorrow would kick the bucket. I mean he's quite old is he?
50:37 Maybe tomorrow developers will become bankers and maybe tomorrow Mala state government
50:44 will really kill dogs in terrace houses. I don't know. But what we what we learn
50:51 really about chapter 2 34 is God is sovereign.
50:56 And that's why I really want to pick up this last thing about the gospel and God's kingdom.
51:02 You see when Jesus came we are told this in Mark chapter 1 verse14 he says the
51:09 kingdom of God is at hand where where where there was no physical kingdom
51:16 but Jesus showed us that in him you see
51:22 how the kingdom operates. And let me end with this. And we see as
51:28 he goes to the cross, Pilate tells him, do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you
51:33 realize I have the power to crucify you? That's the kingdom of man talking. And
51:40 Jesus says, you would have no power over me. It will not given to you from above.
51:48 So a word of encouragement on tomorrow in this country. You and I as citizens
51:55 of God are to be good citizens of this land. Not build personal China towns and
52:01 put our head in the sand. Not go out there aggressively like what John Kelvin did. Go to bersie rallies and mock
52:09 people. You can exercise a civil right. But you must learn to love your enemies.
52:17 And if all else fails, remember that even if it looks like defeat, Jesus
52:23 says, "You will have no power me if you have not given to you from above." In
52:28 the same way, the exiled people read the book of Daniel and realized God is in
52:35 control. Even though everything looked like it was falling apart, one day,
52:41 mighty Babylon would vanish from the face of the earth. Babylon is seen as
52:47 many things. And in the book of Revelations, it says a second angel followed and said, "Fallen,
52:54 fallen is Babylon the great." And in Revelations, Babylon refers to all
52:59 earthly kingdoms that oppose God. and Christ who was crucified.
53:07 We then begin to understand that the gospel is the kingdom of God because
53:13 gospel is good news and Christ when he rose reminds us the gospel is victorious
53:22 and against everything all your personal trouble all the troubles in this land as
53:28 we head towards very uncertain times for our country if not I would suggest the
53:33 most uncertain times we take courage that Christ is in control.
53:41 Maybe he will lead us through hudoot. Maybe he won't. But whatever happens
53:48 tomorrow, our God reigns. And one day, Revelation says the seven angels sounded
53:54 the trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven which said, "The kingdom of
54:00 the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and Messiah, and he will reign
54:07 forever and ever." And may the church take courage in all of this. Shall we
54:15 close in prayer as I ask the the worship team to come up? Lord, we we this
54:21 morning I'd like to I'd like to apologize if some my words were harsh, but uh it's very much a soularching, oh
54:27 Lord, for all of us. And we ask that we as we leave this hall today, we we remind oursel that our Christian faith
54:34 is bigger than our personal problems and and many here have problems and and sufferings, but that's not our little
54:41 kingdom. And this morning remind us that as citizens of God, we are to be good
54:48 citizens of Malaysia. And Lord, you have placed all of us in your sovereign will in many places. Some
54:54 here are captains of industry in businesses and teach those who are in such places
55:02 of influence to break out the kingdom of heaven into the kingdom of this world.
55:10 The rest of us, oh Lord, who may not be such influential people we meet, people we talk to in the condo, on the streets,
55:19 opportunities we meet, we can demonstrate the kingdom of God. And last
55:25 we realized we as a church as FBC
55:30 if people step into this church and they don't see the values of the kingdom of
55:35 God who are we to reform the outside world if we ourselves are not reformed.
55:43 Teach us to welcome people of all shades and color every race every sexual
55:49 persuation. Teach us to learn the difference of hating sin and hating a
55:54 person. Teach us that, oh Lord, in this morning of this very heavy message.
56:02 Pierce our hearts, oh Lord, and comfort us in the end throughout everything.
56:08 You, oh Lord, will reign and your dominion will last forever.
56:15 And we say this in Jesus name. Amen.
