This is such an important passage that I decided to take it slow and break it down into 3 parts. So integral is this section to the rest of the book that I feel we really need to soak in and chew on what is happening here and how it relates to us today. I’ll go ahead and give you the three main points of the three messages: Be Prepared, Be Determined, and Be Faithful. Each point will have a longer sentence that will form the thesis for each message.
I. Be for the that non-Christian cultures will throw at you to lead you away from God. (3-7)
- Our consciously or subconsciously forms the assumptions that give meaning to our thoughts, dictates our action or inaction regarding an issue, and forms the basic of our world.
- Daniel and his three friends faced the same challenges in their day.
- : That was the last time Daniel ever saw his family, the , the last time he was in a society that spoke his language, the last time he enjoyed corporate worship with his , etc.
- They were from all that was familiar and now they would be far more susceptible to all the “” they would encounter.
- Indoctrination: Their goal here was quite simple – to turn these backward, monotheistic Hebrews into believers at best, at worst.
- They told Daniel, “You are going to our way, you are going to have our , you are going to speak our language, you are going to worship our gods. We are going to feed this to you day after day after day, and by the end of 3 years, you are expected to be us.”
- : The next step involves total immersion into the world of Babylon.
- All this was designed to them and pull them away from God and the .
- Their new identities were designed to them and reorient them away from Jehovah God toward the pagan gods of the land in which they were pilgrims.
- You know the most important principle about living for God is your ? You are a child of God, saved, forgiven, following Jesus, growing in . I am a Christian, so I should act like it.
- Daniel would rather be at odds with the whole world than God’s truth. If it came down to a choice between what God’s Word said and what the Babylonian world said, Daniel would always God’s Word.