DANIEL
August 16, 2015
GRACE, MERCY AND PEACE TO YOU FROM GOD OUR HEAVENLY FATHER AND OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST. AMEN
It is such a beautiful day! It is on days such as this, especially when I get to come share my faith, that Psalm 100 comes to mind. This is a wonderful psalm of thanksgiving…
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Did you catch the middle of this Psalm? “we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.” We have been called and chosen by God to be His! To be a child of God! To be loved so much that he sent his only son to die for us, to go to the cross and a death beyond comprehension for us…for you and for me! And then…no matter what we do, how much or how badly we sin, he is still here…loving us, forgiving us and fulfilling his promise of eternal life! And as the psalm closes we hear “…and his love endures forever…” No matter what we do…God loves us! Isn’t that incredible! So…
One of my favorite books in the bible is the Book of Daniel. If I ever had any doubts about God always being with me The Book of Daniel takes away every one of them. This book has God out in plain sight, not hidden and hard to find, but right out there where we can see him and his love for us. Remember the 3 men in the fiery furnace? Daniel in the lions den? The handwriting on the wall? These are all found in the Book of Daniel.
Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego… the 3 young Jewish men who along with Daniel found themselves suddenly snatched from their homes in Israel and taken to Babylon as part of the “spoils of war” when Babylon defeated Israel. We meet up with this quartet after they were selected to serve the king in his court. They have been clothed in fine clothes and housed in fine apartments. They were living very good lives. Even the food was really good. But food became an issue. Much of the food mandated by the king was against the Jewish dietary laws. Would Daniel and his friends go against their religion? Their faith? Give in to the king just to be safe?
They did not! They asked the king to give them time to prove their diet would make them even stronger than the diet of the king would make them and it did. But then…The king built this huge statue and ordered all in the land to bow down and worship it. The king was powerful and decreed that anyone not worshipping him would be thrown into a fiery furnace. What would you do? This was not a little oven like in our kitchens or even like the furnace in our homes, although I would not like to be put in either of them!
This was a very large furnace built like a bee hive with a hole in the top in which to drop in people and a door at the bottom through which to keep this incredibly HOT fire going. I mean SUPER Hot! Our 3 young men… Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were faced with that question. Should they desert their God and bow down to the king? Or should they refuse and face death in the fiery furnace? What a decision, but these 3 did not miss a beat! They chose to stay true to their God. AND off they went to be lowered into that intense fire.They said that they trusted their God with their lives. If He chose to let them die that was fine, but also if He did not let them die, that too would be o.k. I often wonder how strong my faith is and what I would do when faced with tough decisions… to follow God or to give in to the temptations, the golden statues, put in my path that would lead to pain and maybe even death. Is my TRUST in God anywhere near His LOVE for me? I can but hope and pray so if the time ever comes!
And so our 3 friends are lowered into the furnace and the king thought “Well, that takes care of that and here after no one will ever disobey me again!” Sounds good, but he reckoned without the will of God. The next morning when they went to check the furnace, imagine their amazement when there stood not 3, but 4 men, unbound, just standing around talking. Can you imagine the faces of the king and his entourage? How about your face if you had been there? WOW! Beyond belief! And yet, why would we be surprised with our God involved? We know he is always with us, no matter what. Here we see that He had sent an angel to be with the 3 young men in the fiery furnace. To protect them from all harm and even from death. Just as he does with us every minute of our lives!
And what about Daniel? He was cruising along doing his job and finding favor with the king because he was doing such a GOOD job! And as often happens, his colleagues became jealous of his position. They went to the king and got him to issue an edict that no one could worship any other god than the king for the next 30 days. Well… How do you think Daniel reacted to this decree?! Did he bow down and worship the king? Did he continue to worship, as was his habit, several times a day, bowing toward Jerusalem and being very visible while doing it. It was surely not long before the jealous group went to the king and said “Aha! We saw Daniel worshipping his God, bowing toward Jerusalem and that is against your ruling!” Can’t you just hear them? Naaa NAaa Naaa Na Na! So now the king really liked Daniel, but he had said anyone not following his rule would be tossed into the lions den. Now the lions let loose in this den were not fed very much, so they were REALLY hungry! Anyone or anything thrown in with them would be torn apart and devoured immediately! But here comes Daniel, to be thrown in with them and everyone, except Daniel, knew without a doubt that he was a goner!
Daniel, though, had a strong, firm and wonderful faith in his God, in our God. He as his 3 friends, was quite willing to put his life in the hands of our God and trust Him to take care of him in this life, or if it was his will, to let him die and be welcomed into heaven. ABSOLUTE TRUST! AND…ABSOLUTE LOVE on the part of God! As we know from hearing about Daniel, maybe in Sunday School, the Lord was with him! Imagine the kings surprise when he found Daniel alive and well standing among the lions? And what else happened? The king told everyone they should believe in the God of Daniel because he truly was powerful and a God of action!
Isn’t it wonderful that the God of Daniel is our God too?! This God who saved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace and Daniel from being eaten by the lions is the God who has also promised to be with us at all times and in all the places of our lives!
The same God who sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to come into our world, to live and then to die on the cross for OUR sins! AND to be raised again after 3 days and to return to heaven where he waits for the day that he will Welcome each of us into his heavenly home! To live with Him throughout eternity!
And now may the peace that passes all understanding be in your hearts and minds forever.
AMEN
