<TITLE>05. Par 27-32</TITLE>L-27 But when they said, "You'll have to become one of us..." It would've been all right with Shadrach, and Meshach, and Abednego if they wanted to become one of them, but never would they become one of the aliens. Now, they said, "If you don't do it, we've got a door out here to a furnace that we can open up and throw you into it, and you'll wish you would've become one of us."
They remembered the promise. They marched them right down to the fiery furnace, and when they opened the door and threw them into the flames, their enemy that would've consumed them, they possessed the gates of their enemy. God sent His Son into those flames of fire and cooled the breezes, and talked with them while they were in there. God's promise held true. They possessed the gate of the enemy. Tested first, then they possessed the gate of the enemy.

L-28 Was it not Jesus Who made the promise, "If you even bring offense to one of these little ones, it was better for you that a millstone was hanged at your neck and you were drowned in the depths of the sea. Don't even bring an offense to these little ones that believe in Me. And these signs shall follow them that believe in Me."
He made a difference. He made a showing of what did believe and what did not believe. There are always the three crowds of people: that is, the unbeliever, the make-believer, and the believer. But God has a way of proving who is a believer. That believer stands firm on what God says to be the truth. Yes.

L-30 It was Elijah the Tishbite, when it come to a showdown, till he thought he was the only one in the nation who was still living for God. And the king was going to put him under a trial, and they persecuted him. And that little painted-up queen by the name of Jezebel, threatened his life. And when it come to the showdown, Elijah possessed the gates of his enemy; turned the whole nation back to God again. God keeps His promise.

L-31 It was Moses, after being also in the line of this royal seed, the seed of Abraham, that when he was sent down into Egypt to deliver the children of Israel, and God had give him signs and wonders to perform, and to smite the earth, and to bring forth frogs, and fleas, and darkness, and hail, and rain, and fire, and had done all these miracles, yet when he led them out by the hand of Jehovah, there come a time when he met the gate between him and the promised land. There was the Red Sea, a bar across the way. They were hemmed in by Pharaoh's army, mountains and deserts and the Red Sea, but Moses stepped forward and possessed the gate of his enemy, and crossed the Red Sea dry-shod, as he was walking on a dusty road. "Ye shall possess the gate of the enemy." God said so, and that settles it.

L-32 Was little year, a few years later when the trials come, and the church got all shook up, as is so easy for a congregation of people to do when something just don't seem to happen the way that it's supposed to be. God makes it that way. God brings tensions into the church, "For every son that cometh to God must be tried, and proven, and tested. He lets sickness strikes you. He lets diseases come on you to test you and to prove you, to show the world that you're truly the seed of Abraham. He permits it by His own will. He permits disasters; He permits the friends to turn against you. He permits all these things, and turns the devil loose to tempt you, and he'll do all but take your life. He could throw you on a bed of affliction; he could turn your neighbors against you; he could turn the church against you; he can do most anything, and it's God's will for him to do it. We are taught that it is more precious than gold to us.


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