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[ Silence ] (gentle music) [Music] [Music]

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[ Music ] Because of who you are, I give you glory. Because of who you are, I give you praise. ♪ Because of who you are ♪

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♪ I will lift my voice and say ♪ ♪ Lord I worship you ♪ ♪ Because of who you are ♪ ♪ Lord I worship you ♪

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♪ Because of who you are ♪ [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]

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♪ Lift my voice and say ♪ ♪ Lord I worship you ♪ ♪ Because of who you are ♪ ♪ Lord I worship you ♪

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♪ Because of who you are ♪ ♪ Jehovah, Jehovah ♪ ♪ I'm provided ♪ ♪ Jehovah needs me ♪

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♪ Lord, you reign in victory ♪ ♪ Jehovah, shout out ♪ ♪ My Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ Lord, I worship you ♪

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♪ Because of who you are ♪ ♪ Lord I worship you ♪ ♪ Because of who you are ♪ ♪ Jehovah, Jireh ♪

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♪ My provider ♪ ♪ Jehovah needs me ♪ ♪ Lord, you reign in victory ♪ ♪ Jehovah's shadow ♪

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♪ My Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ Lord, I worship you ♪ ♪ Because of who you are ♪ ♪ Lord, I worship you because of who you are ♪

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♪ Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah ♪ ♪ My provider, oh, my provider ♪ ♪ Jehovah, Jesus, Jehovah, Jesus ♪ ♪ Lord, you reign in victory ♪

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♪ Jehovah, shine on me ♪ ♪ My Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ Lord, I worship you ♪ ♪ Because of whom you are ♪

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♪ Lord, I worship you ♪ because of who you are. (Amen) Our message is based on a dream and its interpretation

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recorded in the book of the Prophet Daniel, the fourth chapter, beginning with the tenth verse. Upon my bed, this is what I saw. There was a tree at the center of the earth, and its height was great.

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The tree grew great and strong, its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth. Its foliage was beautiful, its fruit abundant, and it provided food for all. The animals of the field found shade under it, the birds of the air nested in its branches,

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And from it all living beings were fed. The subject of the message, learning to bend and bow. to bend and bow. Would you shake hands with the person next to you and say, "Learn to bend and bow."

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[Audience says "Learn to bend and bow"] Among the scenes that we will long remember about the hurricanes that we have recently witnessed will be a theme that appeared on our screens and words that were circulated by radio concerning trees, portrait of trees that were part of the devastation and the

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catastrophe to which we have referred. Trees that destroyed considerable property, homes, possessions, and because of the work of the storm, People have been scattered through the length and breadth of this country.

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Never before have we as a nation witnessed such damage, such loss. And this has interrupted the dreams of many, many people. Now I want us to meditate on a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had during the time of captivity of the people of God in the land of Babylon, a dream that occurred some 2,500 years ago.

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It was a dream of a king, a powerful ruler. In the hurricane, we see trees bending, bowing, and breaking. Trees bending, bowing, and breaking. In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie tells of the difference

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between some trees on his Missouri farm and the trees of the North woods in Canada. His farm trees grew rapidly, but were destroyed by an ice storm

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that broke the limbs. The spruce and pine of Canadian woods bend before the storm and bow their branches.

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They're able to bend and bow with the inevitable as subjects of the king of kings, we need to excel in this particular grace in order to develop

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according to his divine design. We need to know how to bend and bow. King Nebuchadnezzar is considering himself on top of the world he's a mighty conqueror nations

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around him bow to his will his subjects bend to comply with his wishes. Nebuchadnezzar

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does not bend and bow to anybody because he is the sovereign. But one night Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. Dreams have a way of revealing in our sleep that which troubles us in our waking moments. Sigmund Freud points out that dreams may be helpful in analyzing our character as well

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our aspirations and our hopes. Nebuchadnezzar sees in his dream a tree which reaches from earth to heaven. His is a dream of world conquest. The king King dreams of the exercise of power and the manifestation of worldly glory. His subjects dream of freedom, the opportunity to be themselves, unhampered by prison chains

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of Babylon. When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, the Jews had to learn how to bend and bow before the King of Babylon. became a vassal of Babylon, the ruler of the conquered had to appear before the conqueror

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as one who appears on a bended knee. So we need to know how to bend, how to be flexible. One of the things that as we get older and older, as we become more righteous and more We don't want to bend and bow.

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But the trees that survived that Dale Carnegie mentions in his book were trees that could Bend in the storm and know how to bow in the face of the inevitable. We need to learn how to bend and bow. Don't be so rigid.

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Provide some flexibility. You know, one of my instructors said that always leave a little room in your system, whatever your system may be, but leave a little room in there for some flexibility. Don't just say, "This is it."

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Learn to bend and bow. So, as we learn this, we find that we are exposed to different life situations. People went to bed in New Orleans and other places expecting to do certain things the next day And behold a hurricane comes

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Many of them used to sleeping at home on their own beds Found that they had no home and no beds

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And it became necessary to make new adjustments for them to learn to bend and to bow. Not only in finding a new home, but encountering a set of new experiences. Some people find it difficult. One of the problems

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Jesus encountered in his early ministry, they said, "Why is it you don't wash your hands like the others? Why is it you don't do as John the Baptist does?" And there was people raising those questions who found it extremely difficult

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to bend and bow. They didn't know that the Savior had come, that Jesus Christ, the anointed of God, was on the scene. They did not know how to bend and bow.

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So learning to bend and bow is essential for abundant living. It's a good thing to be able to walk, but when you get where you can't walk, to be able to use the crutch or the walker to learn to bend and bow. So, the Jewish captives in Babylon had to learn to bend and bow, and Jeremiah had a

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letter that he wrote to them during their captivity. He said to them, "You know, learn how to get along with your captives. Pray for them, plant gardens, you may not get to Jerusalem for some time. So learn to bend and bow.

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So while the Jews are learning to survive in the midst of oppression, Nebuchadnezzar is puffed up with pride. He's strutting about in his royal robes. He's overwhelmed with the arrogance of power. Listen to his boast as he says, "Am I not Nebuchadnezzar, King of mighty Babylon. During this time he's boasting of his prestige and power.

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Nebuchadnezzar has a dream in which he sees a tree that reaches from earth to heaven. This tree depicts the story of our lives. The world is like a tree that and reaches from earth to heaven, and we are all under this tree. All of the kingdoms of the world are under this tree.

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All of the families of the earth are under this tree. Nebuchadnezzar's rule is under this tree, but his rule is temporary. He just has a certain period, and he has to learn, as his subjects have to learn, he too has to learn to bow and to bend. So, he's brought to eating grass like an ox.

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He's reduced to being a slave to the earth. And many people find themselves following a way of life that makes them slaves to the earthy. And we fail to focus as we ought on heavenly things. And so Daniel is the one who enters the story as an interpreter of Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

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His interpretation is that the dream is of a kingdom of this world. and the things of this world will be taken away. It matters not how much we may acquire and how high we may go in power and prestige

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these things will one day be taken away. So Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar "King, your kingdom has an end." But I'm talking about a king

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whose kingdom is everlasting. This God does whatever he wants to do. He's not like your God at Nebuchadnezzar, Marduk, because Marduk is really just a figment of your imagination. He wants us to pray and to be rightly related to Him to be able to bend and bow. And he goes on to say, "Here the conclusion of the

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matter, praise and power are within your reach, but to be rightly related to God God is the task that every one of us has. It's a challenge that we face in the midst of the crises that we experience. Choose the way you will walk, whether you will walk in the way of the earth or the way

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of heaven. Choose whether you will bend and bow. Beware of pride. Beware of pride. Pride is that besetting sin that we have to be very careful about.

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I remember a classmate in seminary who'd come down the hall. He would say, he said, "Every day I bathe myself in pride and I dry myself with pride." He put it this way, I didn't have it exactly right. Every day I bathe myself in humility and dry myself with the towel of pride.

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And that is so true of many of us. Scripture says pride grows before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Pride. Pride.

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one of the cardinal sins, one of the deadly sins I should say, pride. And it's pride that keeps one from bending. We get it at a young age, in other words, who's going to take the last lick? As little children we, we, I'm not going to take the last day.

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Pride is a besetting sin. And the problem here with Nebuchadnezzar is that he became lifted up with selfish pride. Pride. Pride.

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Bend with grace, humility. That's what this story illustrates that we are to do. Bend, learning how to bend. Humility is the way.

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As we used to sing, "I'm living humble, living humble." And one who learns how to demonstrate in character humility learns how to follow in the steps of the master. Pride.

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Some of us will have to work on ourselves with God's help to be able to know how to bend. In the midst of crises, we need to learn how to bend. Someone comes along and says the least little thing and we're going to give them back what

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they gave us. Learning to bend and that does not come from the king of Babylon. That comes from another king, and one who follows in the steps of one who is meek and humble. The meek shall inherit the earth, not those who are puffed up with pride, but the meek shall inherit the earth.

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That was a great old oak, tall and majestic, and people passed by this oak. It was in this village in which they lived. Great oak. The oak sort of took pride that this was one of the greatest of the trees in this area.

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Many people passed the oak, but they didn't pay too much attention to it. They just passed. But one day a great storm swept over that area and the great old oak fell. The men of the village took the oak and used it to span the stream that flowed that way

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so that school children could have their distance accomplished in a shorter period by crossing over the stream on this great old oak that had fallen. Husbands who were going to work used it, wives used it for their shopping tours. Children played around it.

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It was only when the great old oak came down, as long as it was up there with its leaves and its limbs, boasting of its power and its beauty, it was of no service. But when it fell down, it was used as a means of providing services to the people of that community, the great old oak. So this tree that God wants us to be, every one of us

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like a tree, like a tree planted by rivers of water, roots dig deep into the soil fed by the dews of heaven and the rivers of the earth to be like a tree. And as you read this story Nebuchadnezzar changes and becomes subject to the God of Israel Yahweh the greater I am that I am he changes and it focuses on the tree

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this tree great limbs this tree with the leaves that can provide for all of the nations of the world there is such a tree we call it Calvary to whom all of us can go there there there there with leaves for the healing of the nations Calvary Calvary where we learn how

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to bend and bow. For the one we see at Calvary was born in a humble town called Bethlehem. Didn't have a fine hospital to which to be carried. He was born and placed in a cattle being, stalled, humble, King of kings, Lord of lords, and yet he has such a humble birth. And the scripture tells us that it's the name of

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Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He's the Lord. He's the master who teaches us how to bend and bow. That's the lesson. How to bend and bow. And as you read that story, while all this is taking place, the dreams and its contents, that there are watches, watches, there are

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watches, watches. God has watches among us, watches, all day, all night. Angels, angels God's angels God's messages watching over me all day all night angels so no matter what happens no matter how fierce the wind blows how angry may be the waves and how trees may be uprooted and damage may occur no

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matter how God has watches to watch over his children to protect and to keep us so as we sing the hymn of invitation we extend the privilege of the church the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives and to trust in him to We commit our way unto the Lord to let Him direct us, to let Him sustain us.

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I will trust in the Lord. I will trust in the Lord, I will trust in the Lord. I will trust in the Lord, till I die. I will trust in the Lord, I will trust in the Lord, I will trust in the Lord, till I die.

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♪ I'm going to stay on ♪ ♪ Bending knees ♪ ♪ I'm going to stay on ♪ ♪ Bending knees ♪

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♪ I'm going to stay on ♪ ♪ Bending knees ♪ ♪ 'Til I die ♪ ♪ I'm going to stay on ♪

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♪ Bended knees ♪ ♪ I'm going to stand on ♪ ♪ Bended knees ♪ ♪ I'm going to stand on ♪

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♪ Bended knees ♪ ♪ To my God ♪ ♪ I'm going to watch you ♪ ♪ Fight and pray ♪

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I'm gonna watch, hide and pray. I'm gonna watch, hide and pray, until I die. I'm gonna watch, hide and pray. I'm gonna watch, fight and pray.

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I'm gonna watch, fight and pray until I die. I'm going to treat everybody right. I'm going to treat everybody right. I'm going to treat everybody right until I die.

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I'm going to treat everybody right. I'm going to treat everybody right. I'm going to treat everybody right until I die. I will trust in the Lord.

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I will trust in the Lord. I will trust in the Lord until I die. I will trust in the Lord. ♪ I will trust in the Lord ♪

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♪ I will trust in the Lord ♪ ♪ Until I die ♪ - Just hum that softly, if you'll hum that while those persons are still.

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Those persons celebrating. [ Silence ]