SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/8/2013 7:56 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 True Faith Confronts the Challenge
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Daniel
3:1-12
Message of the
verses: We will look at the last
sub-point under this main point of “True faith confronts the challenge” in
Today’s SD.
The Hearts of the Three Jewish Men (vs. 8-12): “8 For this reason at that time certain
Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the Jews. 9 They responded
and said to Nebuchadnezzar the king: "O king, live forever! 10 “You, O
king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, flute,
lyre, trigon, psaltery, and bagpipe and all kinds of music, is to fall down and
worship the golden image. 11 “But whoever does not fall down and worship shall
be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire. 12 “There are certain Jews
whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon,
namely Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. These men, O king, have disregarded
you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set
up.’”
If we could have had a view from above over the
“celebration” that was going on in Babylon at this time, a view like the
“Goodyear Blimp” gives us in our world today we would have seen three men
standing tall while all of the others were bowing low in worship to a false
god. What was in the hearts of these
three men that caused them to defy the orders of the king? Perhaps they were thinking about what Isaiah
the prophet had written, “1 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I
have called you by name; you are Mine! 2 “When you pass through the waters, I
will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you
walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.” We can say for sure that these three men had
great faith, faith in the One who could save them from these circumstances that
they were in. Dr. Wiersbe states the
following as he describes faith: “Faith means obeying God
regardless of the feelings within us, the circumstances around us, or the
consequences before us.”
We see that there were
people in the crowd who were called “Chaldeans,” whom we have meant in chapter
two. These men were a part of the king’s
servants who were to give wisdom to the king through their “magic.” We know from the last chapter that they almost
lost their lives until Daniel gave the message to the king that he wanted them
to hear, but we also know that the king had made Daniel and his three friends
rulers over the different providences of Babylon and this did not set well with
them, and so they must have had an eye out for them and saw that they bow to
the idol. The brought them to
Nebuchadnezzar and quickly told him about them not bowing to the idol. When these men told Nebuchadnezzar about them
they also brought up that the king had appointed them to the high positions
that they now were in.
More from Dr. Wiersbe about true faith: “True faith isn’t frightened by threats, impressed by crowds, or swayed
by superstitious ceremonies. True faith
obeys the Lord and trusts Him to work out the consequences.” We have to remember the first of the Ten
Commandments which states “3 "You
shall have no other gods before Me. 4
"You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what
is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You
shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the
fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to
thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:3-6) If these three men would have bowed to this
idol one time they would have destroyed their witness and broken their
fellowship with their Lord. Dr. Wiersbe
points out that when Jesus was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness as seen
in Matthew chapter four that he asked the Lord to worship him, and the tense of
the Greek verb shows that Satan only wanted Jesus to bow down to him one time,
of which Jesus did not do, but quoted Scripture to him to overcome the
temptation. We see that these three
courageous men would not bow down even once.
Spiritual meaning
form my life today: These three men
have set the bar very high showing that they had a great faith in a great
God. They are a wonderful example to me
and I desire to follow in their footsteps and not bow to any idols that Satan
brings into my path, but trust the Lord to keep me from those temptations. I posted an earlier SD on my other blog this
morning from the 17th of December of 2003 and in that SD I had a
memory verse that I was committing to memory:
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God
is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be
able to endure it (1 Cor. 10:13).” This
is a great verse to give me the strength to overcome temptations.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Quote this verse when I am being tempted by
the evil one.
Memory verses for the
week: 2 Cor. 5:17-18
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creature; the old 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: “Moses
was 120 years old when he died.” (Deut.
34:7)
Today’s Bible Question
“Through what might we have hope?” Hint:
the answer is in the 15th chapter of Romans.
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
5/8/2013 8:58 AM
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