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STUDIES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

—INTERNATIONAL S.S. LESSONS—

SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS DESIGNED TO ASSIST THOSE OF OUR READERS WHO ATTEND BIBLE CLASSES WHERE THESE LESSONS ARE USED; THAT THEY MAY BE ENABLED TO LEAD OTHERS INTO THE FULNESS OF THE GOSPEL.

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DANIEL AND HIS COMPANIONS

III. QUAR., LESSON XIII., SEPT. 23, DAN. 1:8-20

Golden Text—”Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself.”—Dan. 1:8

In this lesson we have before us four more of those beautiful characters among the ancient worthies whose examples the Apostles taught us to emulate (Jas. 5:10; Heb. 11.) In these four men we see the grandeur of the fixed purpose of noble and loyal hearts. Severe temptations were set before them, but not for an instant did they sway them from the path of rectitude.

At an early age, at the beginning of the seventy years captivity of Israel in Babylon, they were carried to Babylon and obliged to enter the service of the royal court, where the king’s command as to their course of life was such as implied the forsaking of their own religion and their God, even their names being changed to those of idolatrous significance. The luxurious diet of the king, of course, would not be subject to the restrictions of the Jewish law (Lev. 11; Deut. 12:23-25); and this first command, which conflicted with the law of God, they sought if possible to avoid,—no doubt praying God’s providential favor to this end.

In this they self-denyingly ignored the luxuries, and ran the risk of encountering the wrath of a despotic king in whose hands was the power of death, to be executed on the merest caprice; while on the other hand his favor was likely to advance them to honorable distinction in the kingdom.

God favored them so that the wrath of the king was not incurred, and they became, to that great Gentile nation, living witnesses of the power and grace of the God of Israel. But the time came in the case of each of these four witnesses when they were called upon to seal their testimony with their blood; and they met those tests of fidelity with an unflinching, resolute purpose. Notwithstanding the king’s command to pray to him and to no other god, Daniel still adhered to his usual custom of praying to the true God three times a day with his window open and his face toward Jerusalem; and for his fidelity he calmly yielded to the persecuting spirit which cast him into a

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den of lions. His three companions with equal fortitude refused to worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and paid the penalty by going into a burning, fiery furnace, saying, Our God is able to deliver us if it please him, but, leaving the matter of deliverance or destruction to his will, of one thing we are sure, We will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

What heroic examples of godly zeal and fortitude, and of friendship cemented by the bonds of a common noble purpose. Four young men devoted to God mutually agree to set their faces like a flint against temptation, and to live righteously and godly in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; and truly they have shone as lights, not only in their own day, but down even to the present time. In youth they chose the right ways of the Lord, and they gave a life-long testimony to the praise of his grace.

Let our purpose be like theirs, and as the Psalmist expresses it,—”My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed.”—Psa. 57:7.

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— September 15, 1894 —