Lesson 347: “Understanding the World with the Word"
One of the “new crimes” of our day is identity theft. In 2006, 9,000,000 Americans were victims of identity theft. Far worse than losing your financial identity is to lose your spiritual identity. Daniel and his three friends were pushed and shoved into a new indentity. King Nebuchadnezzar even changed their names to “fit” the new religion of the land they had come into. This land into which they were being taken captive had always been in defiance to God. The captors were trying to force the Hebrews into the pagan world but the Hebrew children understood the Word of their One True God and refused to bend.
These captors are all around us today. We must strive to hang onto our identity, not lose our distinctiveness and align ourselves with the Word and not the World. The world tries to change our minds and the devil whispers “where is your God now”. The world will saturate us with different control-centers that take God out of the picture and out of control of our souls. The children of Israel had lost their land and their king and Babylon was telling them their King was a loser. Babylon conquered Jehovah’s people. Our world today is trying to conquer God’s people. God did not spare the Hebrews from captivity and there was no hope that they would ever be returned to their homeland (in their minds). They had been transferred from a land where they served One God to a pagan country with many gods and they grew confused.
Today the world serves many “gods” and tells Christians that we have no hope of a future because our God cannot save us from the disasters all around us. They say that our God and the ones who believe Him are losers. These pagan people believe that there is no truth to the Biblical fact that Jesus is the One and only way to a hope of eternal life. Society reminds us daily that we are praying for relief from a world out of control but our God holds off and lets the world spin out of control. The reason God is waiting is only for Him to know and He is not deaf to our pleas as the heathens would have us believe. “He who has an ear, let him hear” (Rev. 2:17) and Christians need to open up their spiritual ears and understand the world through the Word of God. The world enjoys life to the fullest and smirks at the Christians who believe that God sent His Son, Jesus into the world that we might enjoy life to the fullest (John 10:10).
The Hebrew children in the pagan world of the Babylonians would not bend but stood faithful to the True God of Israel. Daniel wrote that his Lord “delivered” Jerusalem, Judah, temple articles and the followers of Jehovah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar! No one TAKES from God! He gave His people to the pagans in judgment because of disobedience. If we continue in our disobedience God will give us over to Satan to teach us not to blaspheme (1 Tim. 1:20). “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God” (Heb. 10:31) therefore, “let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23). Understand the world through the Word of our Living God!