• LESSON 3 (January 21) • The God Who Delivers   BACKGROUND:   A “cubit” was the distance between one’s elbow and the tip of the middle finger—approximately 18 inches—which means Nebuchadnezzar’s image of gold would have been somewhere in the vicinity of ninety feet tall and nine feet wide.    God’s prohibition against idolatry would have been well-known to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.  o At the head of the Ten Commandments were “You shall have no other gods before me” and “You shall not make for yourself a carved image… you shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exo 

-6).  o The Old Testament Scriptures were filled with declarations that the LORD is the one and only God (Isa 43:10-13; 45:5-6, 18, 21-22).  o Idolatry was one of the primary reasons God’s people had been sent into exile in the first place (Isa 30:19-22; Jer 8:19; Ezek 6:1-14).   “The plain of Dura” was an area six miles south of Babylon.  QUESTIONS WORTH THINKING ABOUT:  1. Why do you think these “certain Chaldeans” would “maliciously accuse” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego by name? (3:8-12)  2. What are some possible ways Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have responded after Daniel 3:15?  3. What can we learn about these men from their response in Daniel 3:16-18?  4. What should we make of Daniel 3:25?  5. Are there any ways that Christians experience any shade of the same sort of pressure today?  CLOSING THOUGHT: “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)

150128 The God Who Rules the Kingdom of Men

• LESSON 1 (January 7) • The God Who Works Behind the Scenes DANIEL: “God is my Judge” BACKGROUND: • The third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah (605 B.C. – 2 Kings 23:36-24:7) • God had promised exile if his covenant with Israel was not respected (Lev 26:27-39; Deut 4:25-27; 28:58-68). • When God’s prophets warned that Babylon was going to bring disaster, the people refused to listen (Jer 7:1-4; 20:7; 26:1-24). • Daniel and his three friends were uprooted and transported 500 miles away. • “The first year of King Cyrus” (Dan 1:21) was 539 B.C. QUESTIONS WORTH THINKING ABOUT: 1. “And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into [Nebuchadnezzar’s] hand…” (Dan 1:2) What is that statement communicating? 2. What did the names of the four Hebrews originally mean? What did their new Babylonian names mean? (Dan 1:6-7) 3. How do we know God was working behind the scenes in Daniel 1? What impact should that truth have on our everyday lives? 4. How was the resolve of these young men a living answer to the call of Proverbs 3:5-6? CLOSING THOUGHT: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens l