FAITH IS A RELATIONSHIP OF CONFIDENCE (10 OF 10)
Scripture: Daniel 3:1-29
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Faith Is a Relationship of Confidence (10 of 10)
Series: Discipleship
Christopher B. Harbin
Daniel 3:1-29
Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrians upon deserting Yahweh as their God. The people had been taken from their lands and mixed with other nations until they lost their identity. Subsequently, the southern tribes, Judah, had continued down the same path of abandoning Yahweh. For love of the former king David, God had allowed them to be taken more or less whole into captivity to Babylon, such that Judah did not lose its identity. En route to exile, those of Judah recognized their failure in the words of their prophets like Jeremiah, and gave themselves once again to serve Yahweh more adequately. Among those was Daniel and three friends here renamed by Babylon as Shadrac, Meshach, and Abednego.
Babylon had changed their names to reflect the names of the Babylonian divinities, but these three recognized that they should still maintain faithfulness to Yahweh. The understood that the future of their nation depended on the faithfulness of the exiles. God had promised to return them one day to their land, but only after they had learned to take their relationship with Yahweh seriously.
Amid exile, these three Jews faced problems before Nebuchadnezzar, the emperor of Babylon, due to the required state cult of the Babylonian gods. From one moment to the next, it became necessary for them to position themselves against Yahweh or in favor of the emperor's order. Their lives were at risk on one hand, and the future of their nation on the other. Certainly, these three could not assume full responsibility for the exiled nation. At the same time, they were the representatives of the Jewish nation at that moment. It was a difficult situation for the three. If they were to deny faithfulness in this, they would be turning their backs on God. They would be placing the responsibility for faithfulness in the hands of others. The problem was that they were in an appr ...
Series: Discipleship
Christopher B. Harbin
Daniel 3:1-29
Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrians upon deserting Yahweh as their God. The people had been taken from their lands and mixed with other nations until they lost their identity. Subsequently, the southern tribes, Judah, had continued down the same path of abandoning Yahweh. For love of the former king David, God had allowed them to be taken more or less whole into captivity to Babylon, such that Judah did not lose its identity. En route to exile, those of Judah recognized their failure in the words of their prophets like Jeremiah, and gave themselves once again to serve Yahweh more adequately. Among those was Daniel and three friends here renamed by Babylon as Shadrac, Meshach, and Abednego.
Babylon had changed their names to reflect the names of the Babylonian divinities, but these three recognized that they should still maintain faithfulness to Yahweh. The understood that the future of their nation depended on the faithfulness of the exiles. God had promised to return them one day to their land, but only after they had learned to take their relationship with Yahweh seriously.
Amid exile, these three Jews faced problems before Nebuchadnezzar, the emperor of Babylon, due to the required state cult of the Babylonian gods. From one moment to the next, it became necessary for them to position themselves against Yahweh or in favor of the emperor's order. Their lives were at risk on one hand, and the future of their nation on the other. Certainly, these three could not assume full responsibility for the exiled nation. At the same time, they were the representatives of the Jewish nation at that moment. It was a difficult situation for the three. If they were to deny faithfulness in this, they would be turning their backs on God. They would be placing the responsibility for faithfulness in the hands of others. The problem was that they were in an appr ...
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