PRECEPTS FOR LIFE
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The following is an actual transcript of the PRECEPTS FOR LIFE Broadcast. For the purpose of filling transcript requests quickly, they have received only light editing. If you have questions concerning the material covered in this broadcast, Kay has published a number of books explaining the Scripture in depth. These books may be ordered by contacting the telephone number or address printed above.
OPEN
Have you ever felt like you were in a crap game with the devil and the dice were loaded against you, that he was out to get you and that there was no way, no way at all that you could win? Or have you ever felt like you’re in a chess game and all of a sudden the devil has you checkmated? He has you backed into a corner and you think you’re sure to loose? Oh beloved, no, there’s one more move on the board.
We’ll talk about it today.
PART ONE
The story is told of a young man who played chess, who was renown for being a chess player. And he was in a contest in Europe. But he was not only a player of chess he loved art. And so when he was free he would roam those beautiful, beautiful museums with all their exquisite paintings.
And one day as he was walking through the museum all of a sudden he was arrested by this picture, because here was a chessboard and on each side of the chessboard were the players. One was a young man with anguish all over his face, sweat pouring down. The chess player felt like he could reach up and just wipe the brow of that chess player. He knew the agony.
He knew what it was like and the intensity of the game and wanting to win. And then he looked at the other side and the other player on the other side was the devil. There was glee all over his sinister face, his sly smile. And in his hand he was about to put down a piece, a chessman on that board. And the title of the painting was called Checkmate. The young man stood back. He was taken by this.
Here was a young man about his own age playing chess with the devil and the devil had checkmated him. He studied that chessboard and all he could see was he was checkmated. But then he wasn’t quite sure. He went home; he got his chessboard; he set it down in front of that painting and he arranged the chessboard the way it was arranged. For six hours he sat there, studied the picture, studied the chessboard, and after six hours all a sudden he jumped up and he said there’s one more move on the board. It wasn’t checkmate.
There was one more move on the board. But that young man hadn’t seen it. Beloved, if you’re looking at the chess game and you feel like the devil has you checkmated, know this: no he doesn’t. There’s one more move on the board. Nebuchadnezzar had apparently checkmated Israel. Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon had conquered Jerusalem, the holy city of the one and only true and living God. He had brought home the king. He had brought home the nobles in chains.
They had become part of his court. These holy men in an unholy court. And it seemed like he was the winner. He even had the vessels from the house of the Lord in the house of his god as a sign that his god was stronger. And it looked like he had checkmated Israel. But he hadn’t, there was one more move on the board. And behind Israel, playing that game with Babylon as the head of the nations of this world, God was standing behind Israel. And God is about to give Nebuchadnezzar a revelation of the last move on the board.
We’re going to see it as we look at the text, not at any commentary on the text, but just at the text itself, because God means for you and me, common ordinary men and women and teenagers and children to be able to study and understand His Word, because these are precepts for life and He has not reserved them for the highly intellectual, the highly educated, those that are the brilliant people of the earth.
This is the Book that God has given to the body of Christ and He intends for us to know it and to understand it. And He’s made it understandable. So let’s go look at the book of Daniel. And let’s go to Daniel, chapter 2, Daniel, chapter 2, verse 1. Now in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Now remember dreams is a key word that we’re going to mark. All right, so you’re going to mark it.
And if you have been following along, if you’ve downloaded from precept.org, from our website, then, then you have the study guide. Or if you don’t have the study guide you need to get it. All right, now your instructions when you got that study guide was to read all the way through the book of Daniel. And every time you came to a year you were to write in the margin of the text where that year is mentioned like in chapter 2, verse 1 it’s the second year, in the second year of what, second year here of king Nebuchadnezzar.
All right so you’re putting this down. It’s the second year of king Nebuchadnezzar and he had dreams. You’ve marked dreams. And his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. In other words these dreams were so graphic, so vivid, so disconcerting that he couldn’t even sleep. And it says then the king gave orders to call the magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers, the Chaldeans and to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. All right and the king said to them I had a dream and my spirit is anxious to understand the dream. And you’re marking dream all the time, okay.
Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic: O king, live-forever. Now from this point on until chapter 7 this is all in Aramaic. Okay, so it’s written, it starts in Hebrew, it moves to Aramaic and then it moves back to Hebrew. Okay, so it says then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic. It was the common language that they spoke in that day. O king, live forever. Tell the dream to your servants and we will declare the interpretation. Just tell us what you dreamed and we’ll tell you what it means.
All right, and the king answered and said to the Chaldeans, the command from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn from limb to limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap. In other words, look guys, I can tell you a dream and you can come up with your interpretation of it.
And how do I know that that interpretation is really true? But if you tell me what I dreamed and then what it means I’ll know that you are really wise men. And if you’re not wise, guys, then you’re no use to me. I’m simply going to tear you from limb to limb and make your houses a rubbish heap. Have you got it? Now listen, they got it. And then he went on to say but if you declare the dream and its interpretation, I will reward you. And they answered a second time and said, Let the king tell the dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.
And the king answered I know for certain that you are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen the command from me is firm, and if you do not make the dream known to me, there’s only one decree for you. Have you got it? There’s only one decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed. You’re just going to try to out word me, out maneuver me. He says therefore tell me the dream that I may know that you can declare to me its interpretation.
Now this is very important. He tells why he wants them tell him the dream. You tell me the dream that I may know you can declare to me its interpretation. Just like I said, this way I’m not being maneuvered. I’m not being hoodwinked. You could all get together, you could all come up with the same interpretation and convince me.
But I’m convinced that if you’re really the wise men that you think you are and that you claim to be and that I have thought you are, that you can tell me the dream. And the Chaldeans answered the king and said, there is not; now listen, catch this, this is very important; there is not a man on earth who could declare to the king the matter for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer or Chaldean. King Nebuchadnezzar, let’s just stop and reason together is what they’re saying. Well, you’re asking us to do something that no human being can do. You’ve asked the impossible.
There’s no human being, no conjurer, no magician, nobody on the face of this earth could do what you are asking us to do. And he says moreover, the thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else, now watch, who could declare it. It what, it dream. So you mark it like the dream. Who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling is not with mortal flesh.
There’s nobody that could tell you. There’s no mortal human being; it’s only a god that could tell you that. It’s got to be a god, gods with a small “g”. So the decree went forth that the wise men, because of this the king became indignant and very furious, and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. Whoa, wait a minute. Who’s among those wise men? Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego, they’re among the wise men.
The decree has gone out, kill them. Now where is God? Has the devil got Him checkmated? Is he going to get rid of these four Jewish guys because they stood for God? Is it a checkmate? We’ll talk about it when we come back.
PART TWO
What do you do when you’re in a chess game so to speak, and your opponent is the devil and you think he’s about to checkmate you? Well this is what we’re going to see. You do what Daniel did. Let’s look at it, Daniel, chapter 2, verse 13. So the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they looked for Daniel and his friends to kill them. They’re going to round them up so they can take them and slaughter them because the king is up to here with all these wise men who are really not wise, because they can’t tell him the dream.
All right, then Daniel replied with discretion and discernment to Arioch, the captain of the king’s bodyguard, who had gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon. And he answered and he said to Arioch, the king’s commander, for what reason is the decree from the king so urgent, so urgent that you’re standing there with sword in our hand?
Then Arioch informed Daniel about the matter. So Daniel went in and requested of the king that he would give him time in order that he might declare the interpretation to the king. He went in and he said, king, would you give me time and I will give you the interpretation of the dream.
Then Daniel went to his house, informed his friends and they planned a way to escape, a clever, clever way of how they were going to get out of Babylon. I mean they were smart, they could figure it out. No, un, un. He went in to his house, informed his friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, about the matter, in order that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery.
What did they do when their life was at stake? What did they do when they had been checkmated, so to speak, by the devil? They prayed. That’s all you can do. That’s the first and foremost thing that you and I are to do.
Why would you try to figure it out on your own? You go to God and this is what he did. And this is the lesson that God has for you. See, there’s another move on the board, but you’re not going to know how to make it. That chess player sat there for six hours and for six hours he studied it.
And then he had an answer and he saw there one more move on the board. What you and I do is we get on our knees and we seek God’s wisdom. We seek God’s compassion. And then God lets us know, hey, there’s another move on the board and I’m the One that’s going to make the move. Now watch what it says. He informed his friends in order that, (that’s important); they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery.
Now what’s the mystery?
The mystery is the dream.
So you mark the mystery the same way you mark the dream. And it’s a mystery to these guys because they don’t even know what the dream was. That they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that Daniel and his friends might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Then when? Then is a time phrase. It implies sequence and you always want to mark time phrases. You draw a tiny little clock because it tells you one of the essentials in observation, when.
You want to ask yourself who are the main characters, who is talking, who is speaking, who is being spoken to. You want to find out the who. You want to find out the what. What is this all about? What is the subject? What is the event? What is being said? What is happening? Okay, who, what, when.
When you come to a when, you put a clock over it. Now a when either gives you specific time or it gives you sequence of time. All right, and whether it gives you specific time or sequence of time you want to note those sequences of time because they’re important. So you find out, here he is, in a sense, checkmated. He’s about to be killed, so what does he do? He goes to the Lord then the Lord gives him the dream in a vision. I wonder how different life would be if we spent more time, so to speak, on our knees?
More time, just praying, not sweating over the situations of life, not in anguish or torment, but finding compassion, finding release, finding peace, finding that burden removed off your back because you get on your knees. You’re crying out to God. And you’re seeking God’s wisdom and God’s way and God’s direction. And so it says then, it says the mystery was revealed to Daniel. So you would mark mystery again. It was the dream that was revealed to Daniel in a night vision.
Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. You see Nebuchadnezzar’s gods were earth bound because they were carved and made by man. But Daniel’s God was the one and only true God. He was the God of heaven. That’s why when we pray we say our Father who art in heaven, hollowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He’s the God of heaven. It says, and Daniel answered and said, let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him.
Now this is where you wan tot go through and mark every reference to God because you’re going to learn, I’ve listed 11 things that I learned about God, just from this second chapter. And it’s awesome, just to put them in the margin of my Bible and I have an Inductive Study Bible so I have a wide margin, but to put them there so that you can see them and remember them and rehearse them. And he says it is He.
It is this God of heaven, it is the God to whom wisdom and power belong. It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings.
Well what had He done? He had removed Jehoiakim. He had established Nebuchadnezzar. He gives wisdom to wise men. That’s a very important statement. If you want wisdom you need to be wise. And to be wise is to fear the Lord. To be wise is to depart from evil.
To fear the Lord doesn’t mean you sit in the corner and you huddle up and you get behind your, your pillow or whatever and you shake and you tremble.
It doesn’t mean that. But to fear the Lord means to respect Him, to trust Him to be who He says He is and who He is. And so it says this: It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what’s in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.
To Thee, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for Thou has given me wisdom and power; even now Thou has made known to me what we requested of Thee, Thou has made known to us the king’s matter. Now he knows. There’s one more move on the board, beloved. The devil will never checkmate you. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. I mean we are the winners. We just need to understand that.
Now listen, what we’re going to see in our next program is we’re going to see beloved, the other move on the board. That move on the board hasn’t come to pass yet, but you can know this: it’s getting ready to come to pass.
And the things that you see happening around the world and the way the nations are coming together all show us that there’s one more move on the board and God’s getting ready. And if you’re a man of wisdom and prayer, if you’re a wise person you’ll pray and God will show you.
Michael James Stone
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