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In Dan. 3 we have the spirit and character in which the godly remnant will pass through their trials. It is not in that character, however, not the outward difficulties here referred to, but it is the aspect of the thing that I desire to call your attention to, because there are various trials which attend the soul while passing through this world. In Israel God was showing forth His mighty power in temporal deliverances, as in the case of Pharaoh; but with us it is a different thing, being spiritually delivered we are waiting for God's Son from heaven. All through, those who are faithful to God have been a suffering people. Obedience and reliance on God, characterize the seed all the way through. It is another thing we find here. Besides the love of power, they use religion to unite and band together, to oblige conformity to the king's word. No matter whether king or pope, if it is his religion, for religion being the strongest motive in the human heart, men use it to sway and influence others to gain their own selfish ends.
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Dan. 3
When God had tried man, as the Jews by the law, and they failed, He puts absolute power in the hands of one man, and instead of his using it in serving God, he sets up an image and commands all men to worship it. And what do we find? God's people abstain from it in the character of the remnant-they will not submit. They do not do it, and it is a great crime of course, upsetting the whole thing. Then comes persecution, and to that they do submit, However God might allow His people to suffer, nothing ought to alter their reliance on Himself. Faith was as simple a thing in Babylon as in Jerusalem. God is the God of heaven and earth at all times, and none can hinder His power nor the exercise of it in grace towards His people. He may suffer them to be in trial. He may not always give outward deliverance, but patience is always the same, and the ground of confidence the same here in Babylon as in Jerusalem. If the circumstances and trials are different and great, the Lord's power of interfering is always the same-it is never hindered a bit. The outward trial may hinder God's power from our eyes, but He is always the same. I doubt not in this day many a heart is feeling discouraged and ready to say, " Who will show us any good?" "Lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us I" And what would you get more? For what is better or mightier than the light of God's countenance? However sorrowful we may be about things, that is not to weaken our confidence in God. It was when all seemed hopeless in Israel that Immanuel was found among them, and however hopeless the condition of God's people may seem when a false god is set up, God remains the same.