The Bible tells us that if we are believers, this broken, sinful world in which we live is not our home.

So how can we stay strong in our faith when we face opposition for our beliefs and feel pressure to blend into the surrounding culture?

Today we'll hear an encouraging message on Truth for Life as Alistair Begg teaches from chapter 1 in the book of Daniel.

Here we have the record of what happens to these particular individuals.

The king, verse 3, commands his chief eunuch to bring some of the people of Israel, of the

royal family, the nobility, the youths without blemage, and so on.

Just bring the cream of the crop in here, and what we'll do is we'll make sure that we fashion them and

refashion them in such a way that they will be done with that old stuff about the God of

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If we can get our hands on them, if we can educate them,

if we can rename them, if we can relocate them, just change their whole world view,

then we'll have them. The brilliant program of subtle coercion and sometimes not so subtle

coercion. What they're seeking to do is to make sure that they change the way these

fellows think about the world. And the way in which it is done is, first of all, by a geographical

relocation. That's straightforward, isn't it? Well, it is straightforward, but it causes,

at least us to pause on this.

When they were taken away from all that represented familiarity to them, all that geographically,

if you like, represented security to them, all that, if you like, kept them in the routine of their lives. Just to be taken

out of that could in itself find them saying, well, I no longer have the place I used to go to,

I no longer have the people I used to spend time with. I no longer have the

reinforcement of my family members. So I think I'll just give it up for a while. Or maybe

I'll just give it up for good. It happens quite routinely to youngsters when they go off

to university. Apparently, just a change

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