world-shaking, world-changing faith

Three men with Christ in the furnace at ancient Babylon

Here is Wikipedia's introductory paragraph concerning George Müller, a great "hall of faith" Christian, of the nineteenth century:

"George Müller (born Johann Georg Ferdinand Müller, 27 September 1805 – 10 March 1898), a Christian evangelist and Director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England, cared for 10,024 orphans in his life.  He was well known for providing an education to the children under his care, to the point where he was accused of raising the poor above their natural station in life. He also established 117 schools which offered Christian education to over 120,000 children, many of them being orphans."

That amazing paragraph relates only a portion of Müller's life and work.  But I want you to know a little something about the man who reportedly said:

"The only way to learn strong faith is to endure great trials.  I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings."

I have read Müller's own writings.  He said that he had no particular burden to provide care for orphans, when he first began that ministry.  But he wanted to give a living demonstration to the world, that the God of the Bible does hear and answer believing prayer.  He prayed about the matter, asking God for direction; thus, he decided to start an orphanage.

Müller determined that he would never ask anyone but God for help.  How did that pan out?  Here's what Wikipedia says:

"Not receiving government support and only accepting unsolicited gifts, this organisation received and disbursed £1,381,171 – around £90 million [more than $116 Million dollars] in today's terms – by the time of Müller's death, primarily using the money for supporting the orphanages and distributing about 285,407 Bibles, 1,459,506 New Testaments, and 244,351 other religious texts, which were translated into twenty other languages.  The money was also used to support other "faith missionaries" around the world, such as Hudson Taylor [founder of the famous China Inland Mission]. The work continues to this day."  (emphasis added)

What would the lives of those 10,000+ orphans ~ and their children ~ have been, had George Müller not stepped out in faith to bring glory to God?  Because that George Müller was willing to "stand firm amid severe testings" for the sake of God's glory, the missionaries affiliated with the China Inland Mission were better able to do their work amongst the people of Asia ~ which, missionary work, laid a strong foundation and was the precursor of the 150,000,000-member Christian Church in China, today.  And what a fabulous undertaking that must have been ~ during the nineteenth century, to print and distribute nearly two-million Bibles!

George Müller was a man whose faith, though it may not have appeared at that time to shake the world, yet his faith did dramatically change the world, for God and for multitudes ~ for all time yet to come.  

Oh! no one wants to suffer hardships, afflictions, or trials of faith.  Nevertheless, many are willing to do just that ~ if it will lead to their own fame and prosperity.  But how many are willing to suffer hardships, afflictions, and trials of faith ~ for the glory of God?  Very few.

In ancient Babylon, there were four such men, who were willing to suffer ~ even unto death, for the sake of God's glory.  How blessed they were to have each other as friends and companions!  When they were but young men, they were taken as prisoners from their own homeland to Babylon.  There, they soon came face-to-face with the threat of death, when the king could find none to interpret a deeply troubling dream of his.  Whereupon, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah set themselves to fast and to seek God for the answer.  God did not disappoint them.

By their faith, and by God's faithful reply, not only were those four friends' lives spared.  Moreover, they were promoted to places of honor in the kingdom of Babylon.  They had honored God, and God had honored them.

There were of course more trials of their faith still then to come.  Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are most often referred to, today, as the "three Hebrew children:" a term (children) which I despise.  For, they were giants among men, because of their great faith and love to God.  They stood upright ~ at the cost of their own lives, while hundreds or perhaps thousands of lesser men (though rulers in the kingdom,) prostrated themselves to worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden image.  I love to meditate upon that scene, that moment in time, which literally changed the world.  Throughout history, God has oftentimes sent angels to deliver his servants who were in trouble.  But on that day, when those three holy men were willing to lay down their lives in defiance of a wicked king ~ in order to give glory to God, the Son of God himself came down from his place high above the heavens, to stand with those brave men in the midst of the fiery furnace and to protect them from the flames!

Such a testimony is not included in the record of Scripture, to be the stuff of children's bedtime stories.  But the events of that singular day in very ancient history have been divinely preserved for our sake.  Why? so that we might allegorize that story? or, so that we might weave it together with other such 'fables' in the mythological fabric of a dead religion?

God forbid!  Those were real men and real events ~ and a real deliverance: one which shook and changed the ancient world!  King Nebuchadnezzar himself was an eyewitness to those events.  He greatly magnified the God of "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo" (their Babylonian names).  Oh, and, they were promoted in the kingdom.

Daniel also encountered circumstances which did require him to choose between honoring his God, and honoring himself.  The choice was not an easy one: if he chose to honor God, he would be thrown into a den of half-starved lions.  But if Daniel chose to honor himself in order to preserve his own life, he could not then stand with God.  So, Daniel opened his window, as he was wont to do, and he prayed to his God.  Daniel knew that even to do such a simple act as that ~ and in seeming obscurity ~ in order to be faithful to, and to give glory to, God, meant that he had to lay down his own life right then and there, at that open window.

Because that Daniel dared, for the sake of God's glory, to open that window; therefore, God shut the lions' mouths.  Not only that, but God must have given to Daniel a supernatural peace, in the midst of that den of lions.  Daniel could not have been the same after that experience.  His faith not only changed his circumstances, but his faith changed himself.

Daniel's faith furthermore shook and changed the world, in his day.  

Where are the world-shakers and world-changers, today?  Where are those who, not for their own glory (as I have observed, ad nauseam), but purely for the glory of God, they are willing to "endure hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ;" who are willing to uphold their Christian witness even in obscurity, for the glory of God?

Thank God, there are yet some who "have not bowed their knees to Baal," to the idols and the gods of this world.  In the Spirit, I sense that this world is beginning to tremble ~ not because of Satan's threatenings, but because of the saints' faith.  I am sure that, during that night when the Spirit of God literally blew open a path through the depths of the Red Sea ~ whose waters "congealed" to form massive walls between which lay a highway of deliverance for the people of God, there must have been a great shaking.  And when God came down in billows of fire upon Mount Sinai, and began to speak, the earth shook terribly at his voice.

God said that, once more, he is going to shake not the earth only but also heaven itself.  What a shaking that will be!  The powers of darkness shall be thrown down even from the atmospheric heavens; and the nations of this world shall crumble and collapse, when God "ariseth to shake terribly the earth" (Isaiah 2:19-21).

"Throw down your rod, Moses."  Moses just happened to be near the base of the "Mount of God," in the desert of Midian, on that fateful day when he came face-to-face with God, at the burning-bush.  What was Moses doing there?  I believe that Moses was desperately seeking for God, and that's the only place Moses knew where to look for Him.  Moses had been in the wilderness tending his flock of sheep for forty long years.  When God appeared to Moses, God told Moses to throw down his rod ~ a symbol of Moses's own power and authority; which immediately became a serpent.  (Is our reliance upon our own authority and ability, perhaps, Serpent-like?)  God then told Moses to take it up, again.  Moses evidently did not question God in that moment.  Still, I wonder if Moses might have had a little conversation with God ~ in his own mind ~ which may have sounded like this:

Moses:   "You want me to do what?  Pick up that rattlesnake with my bare hands?  What is the purpose of that?  How am I supposed to get a hold of that thing without getting bit?  Why should I do a craz.., uh, I mean, a thing like that?" 

God:   "Because, I said so." 

Moses:   "Oh, well, that's different.  If you say so...."

God did indeed say so.  And Moses obeyed.  But in obeying the Word of God, Moses found that, when he reached down to take hold of that "serpent," it had no more hurtful power; but it was a rod, again.  Yet, it didn't quite seem like the rod which Moses had thrown to the ground.  There was something different about it.  When he picked it up, it felt weightier, stronger and, somehow, it made him feel stronger, too.  (A dear Brother made me aware of the fact that:) Afterwards, in Scripture, it is never again referred to as Moses's rod, but it is called "the rod of God" (Exodus 4:20; 17:9).

God said so: that is the basis for our faith.  When we believe and obey (we do not truly believe, if we will not obey), our faith will shake ~ and change ~ the world.  Because, our faith releases the power of God.  Yesterday, in prayer with my precious wife, she said: "God, it is going to take a miracle! and it is going to take You! and it is going to take our faith!"

Yes, yes, and yes.

...to the glory of God.