SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/7/2013 7:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
True Faith Confronts the Challenge PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Daniel 3:1-12
Message of the
verses: We continue today in the
third chapter of the book of Daniel looking at the first twelve verses.
The Hearts of the People:
(vs. 4-7): “4 Then the herald loudly proclaimed: "To
you the command is given, O peoples, nations and men of every language, 5 that at the moment you hear the sound of the
horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe and all kinds of music, you are to
fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up.
6 "But whoever does not fall down
and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing
fire." 7 Therefore at that time,
when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon,
psaltery, bagpipe and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations and men of
every language fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the
king had set up.”
We spoke a lot of idols in yesterday’s SD, but today we
want to speak about faith along with idols.
All the people who were gathered at this place had faith, for just as
philosopher and psychologist William James states, “Faith is one of the forces
by which men live.” Human beings have to
have something to believe in and faith is what is used to believe in the things
that they believe in. Dr. Wiersbe writs
“The difference between the true believer and the unbeliever isn’t the presence
of faith, because everybody lives by faith in something. The difference is in the object of that
faith. The crowd believed the herald and
the king, and therefore they obeyed. The
three Hebrew men believed the commandment of God, so they disobeyed. The crowd had credulous faith, but the Jews
had confident faith. The Christian
believer lives by faith in the living God and what He has revealed in His
Word.”
We learned in an earlier SD from the book of Daniel that
there were perhaps 75 young men that the king had brought to Babylon in 605 B.
C., and among them were Daniel and his three friends, however we will only see
three who disobey this order given by the king because it was against what the
Word of God says about worshiping an idol, but what about the others. We may see a clue from the book of Job: “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he
will give for his life (Job. 2:4).”
Satan was speaking this to God and he is saying that men will do almost
anything to stay alive even as the rest of the young Jews did as they bowed to
this idol. One may ask where was Daniel
at this point? John MacArthur states in
his sermon on this chapter that it is possible that Daniel was out of town on business
of the king. However when we see the
roll that Daniel has played up to now we see that he was the leader and now we
see that these other three men had learned their lessons well and were able to
put their faith in God as they stood up for God in this situation.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As a young boy I
learned this story of these three young Hebrew men, but the Word of God has
something to say to us every time we open its pages. I see the jealousy of God in this section,
for God is jealous for His Word, and these three young men were also jealous
for the Word of God. I see great faith
that these men had in God to take a stand as they did and that is refreshing to
me as many times this is not seen in our world today.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I pray that I too will be jealous for the
things of God and have the faith and courage to make a stand for the cause of
Jesus Christ.
Memory verses for the
week: 2Cor. 5:17-18
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creature; the things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all these things are from God, who
reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation,
Answer to Yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Micah”
Today’s Bible
Question: “How old was Moses when he
died?”
Answer in Tomorrow’s SD.
5/7/2013 8:33 AM
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