April 1924
226
T H E
K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
bear to the nation is failing, and the name of God is being profaned among the heathen.” (G. C. Morgan). Reader, are you guilty in His sight? If so, turn to your Lord in real repentance, and just as He will yet forgive and restore faithless Israel (see Hosea 3 ), so He in His won drous grace will forgive and restore you (1 Jno. 1 :9 ). How Daniel Became Strong. Dan. 1:8-20. Memory Verse.-11“We will drink no wine.” Jer. 35:6. Approach.— Prances did you ever hear of a child who was afraid of the dark? Yes, the little boy. of whom I told you last week. How did he become strong and brave, so he. was not afraid of the dark? By asking Jesus to help him by remembering that Jesus was in the ELEMENTARY dark just the same as He was in the Mabel L. Merrill light. Let us bow our heads and thank God for giving us such a wonderful Saviour who can help us every day, and make us brave and strong. Lesson Story.— Paul, what did God do for one of his faithful prophets who was in danger, in our story last week? (Review). Some of the people of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, for they were following after the heathen nations around them and worshipping false gods. God sent his prophets and warned Israel again and again, but many of them would not obey the. prophets warning, so God let king Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon come down to Jerusalem, and carry away many of the people to his own country. The king commanded his officers to choose some of the finest young men of Israel, that he might take them to be servants in his palace at Babylon. None should be chosen, the king said, who had any fault in them, but only such as were young and beautiful and quick to learn. After they had been taught for three years, they were to come to the palace and wait on the king. Among those that were chosen were four young men, named Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. Some of us can not remember these names, but we can remember Daniel, for he was the leader among them. The king had teachers set over these four, that thy might be taught as he commanded. And the king sent them each day, meat and wine from his own table, intending so to feed them until they should come to live at the palace and wait upon him. Now the people of Babylon worshipped idols, and offered up sacrifices of ani mals to them. But'Daniel did not wish to eat of the meat that had been offered to idols. Therefore Daniel said to himself that he would not eat of the meat, nor drink of the wine that the king sent, and th'e three young men who were with him said they also would not. And Daniel spoke to the chief officer, who had the care of the young men, and asked his permission not to eat the food which the king sent. Now the Lord had made the chief officer love Daniel, but yet he was afraid to displease the king. For if, after a while, the faces of Daniel and his friends should be thin ner and paler, the king would be angry, and put the officer to death. Then Daniel came and said, Try us, I beg thee, ten days: give us, for that time, only vegetables to eat and water to drink. Afterward look at our faces, and then at the faces of the young men who eat the king’s food, and if we look not so well as they, give us what ever thou shalt think best to eat. So they were given vegetables and water, and at the end of the ten days, their faces were fatter and fairer than the faces of the others who ate of the king’s food. Because Daniel and his friends would not eat or drink anything that would harm their bodies, God helped
V. 4. It reminds us again of Christ’s voice ringing down the centuries: “O Jerusalem . . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt. 23:37 ). Every other measure for the saving of Israel from destruction had been in vain. Rewards and punishments and promises and discipline had failed. There was just this one hope, the new emphasis on the love of God. Would that this might touch their hearts! This expression of God’s love, multiplied, shining like the sun in Jesus Christ, is the wisdom of God and the power of God for sa lv a tio n .^ Peloubet. V. 4. (1. c.) The morning cloud is ‘‘one of the masses of cloud which the westerly winds bear from the Mediterran ean, and which more than supply the place of dew; but after making a fair show in the bright morning light, they are soon sucked up by the hot sun and pass away.” “The dew that passeth early away” instead of soaking into the soil. The religious experience that touches the feelings but does not change the heart or the life ,/lik e the seed sown on rocky ground in Christ’s parable.^—Peloubet. The presence of a prophet in Israel was always an in dication of spiritual and moral declension on the part of the nation. “Prophets were never sent while the nation was walking obediently.” This was eminently true in the case of the prophet Hosea, who depicts DEVOTIONAL the terrible spiritual declension of Is- COMMENT rael in a most vivid way— in the figure John A. Hubbard of a wife who is unfaithful to her hus band (see chapters 1, 2, 3). In the realm of sin-j—man’s sin against man— none is more terrible than this of infidelity to marrage vows, none arouses a greater sense of shame and indignation, none causes greater sorrow of heart,— except, indeed, in cases where the conscience has become defiled, seared, benumbed, as is all too common, alas, in these days! Israel was betrothed to Jehovah, whose faithfulness to her was seen in His every thought of and action toward her. But how great was her unfaithfulness to Him! And the heart of no earthly husband was ever grieved by an err ing wife as was Jehovah’s heart by Israel’s disloyalty to Him. In this present dispensation, the Church is the bride of Christ. “I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). See also (Eph. 5:25-32). Paul was jealous over those believers be cause he feared that they, like Israel of old, would prove unfaithful to Christ. Read the following verse (2 Cor. 11 :3 ), and compare this very suggestive translation of Conybeare & Howson: “But now I fear lest, as Eve was beguiled by the craftiness of the serpent, so your imagina tions should be corrupted, and yon should be seduced from your single-minded faithfulness to Christ.” Would that we Christians realized how great is the danger of seduction in these days! How may we be seduced? Through false teach ing, as the context of this verse shows, (see verses 4-15), and through worldliness. In Jas. 4:4, R. V., we read: “Ye adulteresses (that is, who break your marriage vow to God, margin), know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” To be guilty of friendship with the world is to be guilty of spiritual adultery! And “the har lotry of worldliness is manifest in every direction. Thou sands who name the name of Christ are taking possessions which have been bestowed by God, and are spending them in the pursuit of unworthy ambitions and pleasures. Those by covenant related to Christ are inflaming themselves with carnality under every green tree. Through these things the testimony of light and love which the Church should
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