Daniel 1-3 Today, our children are bombarded with the enormity of decisions. As it is true today, it was in Daniel’s time. Our arch-enemy seeks their souls, but God’s ways are not our ways, they are higher and superior. [Is 55:8-9]
Century after century, God has sent His prophets and men to speak to His children about being obedient to Him and the Law. Yet, the Jews have continued to be disobedient to the Lord, and thus He has brought out what the prophets have said, You will go into exile. God raised up King Nebuchadnezzar, who, like many despots, wanted the riches his men had been shown by King Hezekiah, and he also wanted the brightest and most easy to sway intellectually and spiritually. What he was not aware of was the impact that the word of God had had on the minds and actions of four young men, as we shall see. We have no idea the teaching or examples they had had in Israel, but we do know this principle: We are to raise our children so that if confronted with the ways of our arch-enemy, they will choose God’s way. Prov 22:6 tells us to train our children in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not turn from it. Daniel and his three friends proved this principle when confronted with choosing the royal delicacies and wine.
Will our children make the right choices or not? Will we train our children for such a time as this? Will we pray for God to place a hedge of protection over them for when we are not with them?
Over and over, I pray Zechariah 2:5 over my grandchild: ‘I will be a wall of fire surrounding Jerusalem and the source of glory in her midst.’” If God can do that for his most precious city, can He not do that for our children?
What would be your answer to that question? There more “shamers” amongst us than we want to readily admit. Let’s look at the evidence. The disciples failed to trust Jesus to provide sustenance for the crowd. Is this us too? Do we like the Pharisees look for a sign rather than trust Him? Are we often ungrateful when we see Him work like the healed blind man but fail to stop and say thank you? Are we silent before others when we set our interests on men’s ways rather than on God’s ways?