The Story: Tests
A little boy was thumbing through the old, large family Bible. As he did, a dried leaf fell out. He picked it up and ran to his mother, shouting, “Mummy, I found Adam’s suit!” For 18 weeks now we have been following The Story from the start of the human race beginning with Adam and Eve. We have seen how God has helped and led in the lives of individuals and nations.
Now we come to the stories of Daniel and his three friends. Unfortunately for them these teenage boys were among thousands of people taken captive and sent to live in Babylon. Their names were Daniel, Hanniah, Mishael and Azariah. However when they became slaves they were renamed Belteshazzer, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Many of us are familiar with the incident when Daniel is cast into a den of lions who were feeling just a little bit hungry. Daniel’s friends also faced equally terrifying situations. They are commanded to bow down and worship the King or be thrown into a furnace so hot that those stoking the fires were being killed. Now these three teenagers had been brought up to acknowledge that God alone is worthy of worship. They all came from families who believed in God and tried to follow His commandments. What were they to do?
I don’t want to spoil it for you by telling you what happened next as you can read the story for yourself in chapter 18 of The Story or in Daniel chapter 3 in the Bible. However, I can tell you they did not just face one difficult situation but kept on finding themselves in situations where their faith was tested.
You may not have had to face a situation where you are required to either compromise your faith in God or face death but many times throughout our lives we may have times when our faith is severely tested by a crisis.
How fireproof is your faith? Is your faith in Christ strong enough to meet the challenge of a personal tragedy? An unanswered prayer? Criticism? Personal threats? Loss of health? Loss of possessions?
Can the experience that these three teenagers went through back around 605BC help us when facing our demons and faith crises? As we explore their story this week maybe we might just find strength for our own times of crisis.
