Monday: Faith Under Pressure
Read Daniel 1:1-21. What pressures are put on these young men to conform?
Upon arrival in Babylon, these four young men have to face a most serious challenge to their faith and convictions: they are selected to undergo special training in order to serve the king. Ancient kings would often recruit some of their best captives to serve in the royal palace, and, thereby, switch their loyalty to the king and the gods of the empire that captured them.
Image © Providence Collection at GoodSalt.com
Indeed, the whole process was intended to effect some kind of conversion and indoctrination that would result in a change of worldview. As part of that process, the Hebrew captives have their names changed. A new name signals a change of ownership and a change of destiny. Thus, by renaming the captives, the Babylonians intend to assert authority over them and force them to assimilate the values and culture of Babylon. Their original names, which point to the God of Israel, are replaced with names honoring foreign deities. In addition, the king determines that the young men should eat from his table. Eating from the king’s food had deep implications in antiquity. It meant undivided allegiance to the king and reflected dependence on him. And as the food was usually offered to the god or gods of the empire, eating also had a profound religious meaning. It obviously meant acceptance of and participation in the king’s worship system.
Thus, Daniel and his companions find themselves in challenging circumstances. For them to remain loyal to God and survive the overwhelming power of the imperial system demands nothing less than a miracle. To further complicate matters, the city of Babylon itself also stood as a monumental expression of human achievement. The architectural beauty of the Babylonian temples, the hanging gardens, and the Euphrates River meandering across the city conveyed an image of unsurpassable might and glory. So, Daniel and his friends are offered an opportunity for promotion and the chance to enjoy the benefits and prosperity of this system. They can cease to be Hebrew captives and become royal officers. Will they compromise their principles to tread the easy path to glory?
| In what ways could these boys have rationalized a decision to compromise their convictions? In what ways might you now be facing similar, if subtler, challenges? |
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I was somewhat amused to read that Daniel and his friends faced their most serious challenge to their faith when they arrived at Babylon. As a bit of preparation for this week's study, I have been reading the books of Kings. It is depressing as far as devotional reading goes. In the period between 1000 and ~500BC the Kingdoms of Judah and Isreal were ruled by kings for whom the most frequent description was, "He did evil in the sight of the Lord!" There are a couple of bright spots in the narrative but it's not the sort of thing that you would give to an 8-year-old kid to read and tell them that this is what God's people were like!
Throughout this period there were ongoing wars between the Assyrian group of Kingdoms and Egypt. Israel and Judah were overrun and essentially lost their independence. Those of you who have studied geography and history at school will know that the Euphrates Valley, Syria, Lebanon, and Canaan formed what is known as the fertile crescent and with the Egyptians at one end and the Assyrians at the other, they fought like cat and dog to control the valued agricultural land. The little Hebrew nations were just a bit of a nuisance in the way.
Israel was the first to go. We often talk about the missing ten tribes but that is a bit of a misnomer. The Bible says where they were sent and what happened to them. Those that remained behind migrated to the southern kingdom of Judah. Archaeological records show that after the capture of Samaria, Jerusalem grew by a factor of about five.
During this time the kingdom state of Babylon grew and became more powerful. They were essentially one of the Assyrian group. After a period of time, fighting one another they turned their attention to the western part of the fertile crescent. The Kingdom of Judah became a puppet state and was supposed to pay tribute to Babylon. They refused and so Nebuchadnezzar attacked them and destroyed Jerusalem, taking captive their ruling class and transporting them back to Babylon. The Bible talks about the Hebrews being punished by God. I rather suspect that if you read it from a secular point of view, the Hebrews had abandoned any pretense of morality and were open to being overrun by anyone who is was a bit more organized than they were.
So, if you think that Daniel and his friends had lived a protected life in Jerusalem, think again. If you read Kings you will be asking, "Can any good thing come out of Jerusalem!" We are not told anything about Daniel before his captivity, but if his sense of understanding of the true principles of God was established before his captivity, it would have been forged in the face of adversity and moral degradation. He would have been battle-hardened by the time he got to Babylon.
[Completely unrelated to the spiritual message for this week but interesting: Babylon the city is now an archeological site. It is about 2000 acres in size. I did a bit of maths (can't help myself) and that translates to a square roughly 3km by 3km. So in terms of today's cities it is quite small. They must have had good engineers though. They built a bridge over the Euphrates, made canals that diverted the water into their crop growing areas and made gates and walls that were so well made we can still see parts of them today.]
Thanks Maurice for presenting and illustrating the need to step-back and more carefully consider the wider context to a scriptural passage/experience being looked at. I appreciate the specific overview and insights you have outlined above.
I hear it's raining in Australia after 5 months of drought. I hope it's true. To God be the glory!! Thank you Jesus!!! Just had to say that even though it has nothing to do with the immediate lesson... then again maybe it does, Faith under Pressure
It has rained in some places but you need to remember that Australia is a very big country and a little bit of rain in one area doesn't break a drought. We had 2mm the other night but with the evaporation rate well above that, and it has not even stopped the little fires let alone the big ones.
Just a brief adjunct to Maurice’s excellent commentary regarding “moral degradation”; in every case of captivity/destruction the Jews apostasy culminated in one thing, child sacrifice to worldly gods of wood and stone. Every time it got to this point, God released ( removed His Protection) the power of Israel’s enemies. In today’s world, that worldly god sacrafice is abortion and the numbers keep rising.
In this life, you may experience what looks like a setback, a failure, the end of everything-but God has something up his sleeve. You may be surprised by the events of this life, but nothing surprises him. So take heart. You are never alone. Your faithfulness and willingness to stand against pressure and persecution will not go unnoticed. You are connected to a limitless God...!
Like Daniel, believers today live in a culture that is hostile to biblical values. It takes great courage and faith to live as followers of Christ in a post-Christian world characterized by moral depravity, injustice, idolatry, and more...
I have also been reading some of Kings and Chronicles, and the real question is how they developed their upright morals and commitment to the LORD in Judah, one could almost think the exile saved them. 2 Kings 21:1-7 lists some of the evil practices under Manasseh, what I found interesting was that they were mainly worship related and ways of trying to communicate with their so called gods. He built altars and offered sacrifices even his own son to buy the favour of the Canaanite and Assyrian gods.
They consulted the stars, looked for omens in various ways like examining the entrails of animals, consulted witches, spirists and mediums. He set up carved images in the temple of the so-called queen of heaven.
Why do some of these practices sound familiar?
Could we say in the secular world we have a cult of celebrities always wanting to know all about them and trying to be like them almost like worshiping them?
Many daily check the papers to see what their 'stars foretell'.
Coming closer to home - do some have carved images of the queen of heaven in their churches?
In Africa we still have sangomas "throwing the bones" for people to make their decisions. Has finance and business almost become a "god" to many, studying the markets daily.
The real lesson I learn from then and now is that Satan sets up counterfeits to draw people away from worshipping the one and only true LORD of the universe.
The counterfeits try to diminish the value of God giving his only Son to save us, the awesome fact that we don't have to earn the LORDs love He gives it freely because we belong to Him.
So although the leaders and priests of Judah and the people rejected His love more and more He sent many warnings to them because He had compassion on them but to no avail so He sent them into exile as the last resort. 2Chron 36:14-20
Protect me Holy Spirit.
Shirley you’re so true. Rev 16: 13-14 speaks about the three unclean spirits that will join forces together in the last days. The will come against God people. Paul to the Eph 6: 10-18 councils us about the forces out there and in the SDA churches that we are fighting against. They will use there wicked devices to concur God’s people. All those wicked Kings who ruled Judah and Israel were engaged in the very things that God hated- witchcraft, fortune telling, palm reading etc, etc and etc.
They were no different from Neb wise men neither the wise men in Egypt. The all had the forces of darkness at the top of their plans.
Today's lesson states: "For them to remain loyal to God and survive the overwhelming power of the imperial system demands nothing less than a miracle".
Actually, this is the context that the whole of humanity has existed within since Genesis 3 where the overwhelming power of the Kingdom of Darkness gained a legitimate hold upon this planet and all who are born upon it (see Romans 5:14).
Thus, God has been exercising the 'miracle' of restraint (see Revelation 7:1 in conjunction with 2 Thessalonians 2:6,7) against the death and destruction that is the default force of the Kingdom of Darkness (John 10:10) in order to create an opportunity for salvation/restoration for as many as are willing (2 Peter 3:9).
When taking a fresh look at, for example the book of Daniel and our understandings of such scriptures, we would do well to keep this awareness in mind as it is the default state of reality upon this planet from Genesis 3 until the new heaven and new earth to come.
God correctly outlined back in Genesis 2:17 that should Adam and Eve exercise their free will to embrace sin/lawlessness, death would result. Sin was unfortunately embraced, death forces were unleashed and God has been having to exercise the principle of restraint and partial release of restraint ever since in conjunction with maintaining free-will and working all things together for good to those who love/unite with Him (Romans 8:28). The specifics of how that restraint and release of restraint is played out in a specific situation is incredibly complex, but I believe we can be sufficiently aware of the existence of these principles to help us more carefully handle/interpret scripture (as per 2 Tim 2:15).
Being faithful to principles is something we have to practice every moment. Because at any time we can be tested to choose between right and wrong. And it might seem to be easier to choose right when our moral values are "awaken", which means we are connected and have a vivid experience with the Origin of what is truly Good, Jesus. Reading His Words and praying constantly might be of great help to achieve this counciousness. Daniel and his friends were certainly young men with firm purposes and faithful and practical devotion to God.
AN IDOL NAME FROM ASHPENAZ.
Which you have no choice but to go by.
Did you know that the young Hebrews accepted to take the pagan names but refused to eat the pagan food?
FROM:
Daniel = God is my judge.
Hananiah = God has favoured.
Mishael = who is what God is.
Azariah = Jehovah has helped.
God is my judge, He has favoured me, He has helped me, who is like him?
TO:
Belteshazzar = Bel will protect.
Shadrach = command of Aku.
Meshach = belonging to Aku.
Abednego = servant of nebo.
god bel will protect me. I belong to god Aku. I am under his command and I am a servant of god nebo.
They changed their names but not their characters.
Cyrus a lot people get too wrapped up in pagan phrases and symbols not realizing what is important is our character. What separates pagans and Christians is character.
The one that comes to mind as a common issue for many is working on the sabbath. In my job when I first started I made my employer aware of the times I needed to leave on Friday, especially in the winter months when sun set early. However with a change of leadership this was not something that they were aware of. I found I was not prevented from leaving but I compromised myself by not necessarily leaving on time to ensure the workload was completed. I am proud however that my children 18 and 21 in their part time jobs do their best to get Sabbath off and explain why. I hope to reestablish this and not conform or compromise.
Asking for help in time like these.
Sharon, keep praying and asking to be off. Cont to do your best at work. Take your case to God. I realized many jobs are not for SDA. What I think is, the time is now that we as parents and church folks should edu the younger people about suitable careers for SDA. My child had wanted to go into (a branch) in the military but had to practice on the sabbath. I didn’t approved it. Now I am sure she is glad she didn’t.
Hello Sharon B.
As you have probably noticed, most of the conversation on this site seems to be honing in on “Christ-likeness”/character transformation...ambassadors for God of Eternity, ESPECIALLY when the “chips are down”. Would you accept that God is with you every moment of every day? Perhaps even at work...on Sabbath?
And no, I am not proposing that we re-examine our habits of Sabbath celebrations unless our relationship with God is growing. With our character transformation, our Sabbath worship of the Creator may also be transformed.
Our God is pleading for us every day and time for you and I to have good judgement in heaven benchmark because he is currently watching us ,so bro and sis I'm kindly acknowledge u that think that our God is the for us he not fail us.
Probably castrated, enslaved, what reason did the Hebrew boys have to stay faithful to God?
Not all the captives were selected to serve in the palace. Therefore, his own people must have pressured them into saying don't start trouble for our people.
Against all that was going against them they stayed faithful to the Lord why?
If our faith does not transcend beyond human reasoning, we would be incapable of demonstrating the faith of Jesus in our life.
What is the foundation of our faith?
In what way does "Character" separate a christian from a pagan? Definitely not in every flawless and sinless way. Because if it did, then there would be no need for 1 John 1:8 and 1:10 or even 1:9, or for that matter 1:john 2:1,2 for any true Christian or SDA. And there are other verses of scripture like Hebrews 4:16 and 7:25 and throughout the whole Bible similar verses of hope and mercy for the true Christian even in their flawed and imperfect "Character." No not in this way at all but I would say that it is more in "Who" the "Christian" honors and serves and shares to "Pagans" about that.