Through the Fire

Listen Online:

Transcript:

You know, I tell my kids all the time, I’ve been doing this for a few years, they’re now getting to where I think they can understand some of it, that if they’re faced with a choice between right and wrong, and they don’t know what the correct answer is, to look and say what would be the easy choice and what would be the hard choice. Because more often than not, you’re going to find that the hard choice is the right one. And the easy way out is the wrong one.

Now, there are those times when the stars align and the easy choice is the right one, and that’s so nice, but those are few and far between. More often, the hard choice is the right choice to make. And we’ve seen that already, and we’ll continue to see that as we look through the book of Daniel on Sunday nights.

Daniel and his friends, we call them Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Those are their Babylonian names. I like their Hebrew names, Hananiah, Meshach, and Azariah.

And we talked two weeks ago about what those names meant. one set of names meaning they were dedicated to God and then they were given these Babylonian names to dedicate them to their gods. These four men, as they went through life in Babylon, they were faced with choice after choice after choice of what should they do.

Should they embrace the culture of Babylon around them or should they continue in the things that they had been taught from the time they were young boys to do in order to honor the Lord. And time after time they were faced with these choices and they had an easy choice, which was to say, let’s embrace the culture of Babylon. Or they had the hard choice, which was to say, we’ll do what God has told us to do, which more often than not to put them in jeopardy.

And we’re going to see that tonight in Daniel chapter 3. This story doesn’t involve Daniel. I’ve wondered myself for a while where Daniel was when this took place, because I don’t think for a moment that he abandoned God in the midst of this.

But it only talks about Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But we start looking at Daniel chapter 3, and starting in verse 1, this is a familiar story for you all. You probably could tell this story in your sleep.

I could. I’ve preached it so many times, different applications over the years. But it says, Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold whose height was three score cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits.

And he set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. So what we’ve got here is about a 90-foot gold statue, which is a lot of gold. Probably it’s overlaid with gold, but it’s a 90-foot statue.

To give you some idea, it would be about a nine-story building. And I don’t think we have anything that tall here in Seminole, unless you’re looking at water towers and radio towers, things like that. This was about a nine-story statue covered in gold, about nine feet across, and he set it up out in the middle of the plains where it’s on flat land, where it would stand out among everything.

Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. He wants to make sure he’s very thorough in his description of what’s taking place here.

It says, Then a herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up. So they were all gathered together in this place, and they were told, Whenever you hear the music, we’re going to play all sorts of music. You’re going to hear it, and we want you all to just bow down and worship this statue.

And we’re going to find that it’s very important to Nebuchadnezzar that they worship this statue. And the Bible doesn’t clearly tell us what the statue was of. So there’s speculation here.

Some people have said, well, it was so personal to him because it was a representation of himself. And some people have said, well, it was a statue of one of their pagan Babylonian gods. I kind of think it’s somewhere in the middle.

That maybe it’s a representation of one of the gods, but he modeled it on himself. Because he gets awfully, again, that’s just speculation, that’s not doctrine. But he gets awfully offended when the people won’t bow down and worship this statue.

And we know that a lot of times in the ancient world, as sometimes happens today with our politicians, these rulers thought they were gods. and thought that they were descended from the gods and they should be worshipped as gods. So it was nothing for Julius Caesar or for Nebuchadnezzar or many of the other ancient rulers to say, I’m going to mold this image of this god in my likeness.

And you see it with the pharaohs in ancient Egypt all the time too. And he says in verse 6, Whoso falleth not down and worshipeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. See, it wasn’t just a law, you’ve got to do this.

There was a consequence with it. Sometimes today they’ll pass laws, but there won’t be any penalty attached to them. You know, you must do this, but there’s no penalty attached for breaking it.

He said, here’s the penalty. You must do this, and if you don’t, that same hour, there’s not a trial, there’s not an appeal, there’s no delay. That same hour, you’re going to be cast into a fiery furnace.

And it says in verse 7, Therefore, at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sack, but psaltery, and all kinds of music. All the people, the nations, and the languages fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. For most people, this was not a problem.

Most of the people around in Babylon were polytheists. Not all of them were Babylonians. The Babylonians had conquered an empire, which means they had under their umbrella here, they had people from all the nations, all these pagan nations around them.

And it was nothing for them to say, okay, we worship this God and this God and this God. What’s one more? What’s another one?

We already have 36,000. What’s a few more? And you had where all these, it’s sort of like with children.

You already have this number. What’s a few more? They, yeah, we know that’s not true.

They said, we’ve got all these gods. What’s a few more? So it was nothing for all these countries and nationalities to mix together, and I’ll adopt some of your gods.

Hey, that’s a pretty cool god you’ve got over there. I like what he can do. I like the way this one’s designed in the gold.

And so they would swap, and pretty soon you’ve got just tons of gods that they’re worshiping. And really, what’s one more? And a lot of these empires, the Babylonians, the Romans, they were remarkably tolerant for their day.

They didn’t care who you worshipped as long as you worshipped whatever god they wanted you to. They didn’t care if you worshipped the God of Israel. That’s fine.

If you want to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you go right ahead. You still have to bow to our statue. But as long as you bow to our statue, I don’t care what you do.

They weren’t expecting them to convert all the way. Just compromise a little bit. And so for most of the people in the empire who were already polytheists, we’ve already got thousands of gods.

What’s one more? and apparently even for most of the Jews, because it’s recorded here that everybody bowed with a few notable exceptions. It was unusual that three men didn’t bow.

So evidently even for most of the people who worshipped the God of Israel, it seems like they said, okay, we can still worship him, what’s one more? And this whole study of the book of Daniel, we’ve been looking at the Babylon they lived in, And the fact that Babylon is often in Scripture a symbol, as much as it is a real, literal, historical place, it’s also a symbol of the worldly system we live in. It’s always, from the Old Testament all the way through to Revelation, Babylon is sort of a symbol, sort of a poster child for worldliness.

And for the world that likes to vaunt itself up against God. And this is what the world tries to do. The world doesn’t tell us, oh, you have to abandon your faith.

oh, you can’t believe in Jesus, you can’t love Jesus, it just tells us we just want a little compromise. You just have to come around to our way of thinking on these things, and then you can do whatever you want. You know what?

The world doesn’t care whether we love Jesus or not as long as we’ll agree with or participate in or at least affirm the things that they want to do and say and practice. We’re finding that to be true, because it’s not the Christians who are sort of wishy-washy who are coming under verbal attack and persecution in our country, is the ones who say, no, this is what the Word of God says. We cannot compromise on this, and we will not compromise.

I’ve talked to you about people losing their jobs, not only because of the things that they’ve said and that they believe, but things that their pastor has said. Well, you went to his church. Yeah.

See, they’re not bothering the liberal churches, if you want to call it that. They’re not bothering the moderate churches. They’re not bothering the churches that don’t really take a stand for anything.

You can believe what you want. You can love Jesus. You can do all this as long as you come around to our way of thinking on the things that are important to us.

Then do whatever. And that’s sort of what they were saying as well. We don’t care what you worship or what language you speak as long as you bow to this statue of Nebuchadnezzar.

There was a call here for them to compromise and say just add this statue in with the things that you already worship. And it says in verse 8, wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews. They spake and said to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever.

And what they’re wishing here is long life for Nebuchadnezzar. They knew he wasn’t going to live forever. He’s not immortal. Or, you know what, maybe some of them thought, hey, he’s a god king.

Maybe he will live forever. But really, in ancient culture, this is more of a greeting of saying, hey, long live the king. O king, live forever.

Thou, O king, has made a decree that every man shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sack, but psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoso falleth not down and worshipeth, that he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. So they’re reminding the king of what he said.

I would think he would remember that, but yet they came and reminded him of it. Probably it’s not that they thought he had forgotten, but they’re making sure we’re very clear here on what we’re talking about, so there’s no escape. Because we know that at times the king, like Daniel, at times the other kings that we see in the book of Daniel, like Daniel, Darius didn’t really want to throw Daniel in the lion’s den, it looked like.

But they’re reminding him here that, hey, there’s a law that you’ve set down. You set this. This is not just my opinion.

You said this. You made this law. So they’re reminding him of this, saying in verse 12, There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These men, O king, have not regarded thee. They serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. There’s no accusation here, hey, they follow the God of Israel.

They’re saying they don’t follow the gods you want them to. They have not bowed down to the statue you wanted them to. In verse 13 says, Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury, in his rage and fury, it is excessive.

It seems excessive for him to get this upset about something like this. Have you ever seen people who were just in their anger and their rage? They were just out of control.

And you thought, what is wrong with you? Why are you so mad about this? I mean, there are some things that would make me in rage and fury.

And usually it’s not the things that I see people in rage and fury about. I mean, you’re hurting a member of my family. I’m going to be furious.

But he didn’t bow down to your stupid statue. But this was a big deal for Nebuchadnezzar. In his rage and fury, he commanded them to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do ye not serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Is it true?

Is it true that you have disobeyed me? Is it true that you haven’t taken on these gods to worship and haven’t bowed down to the statue? And in verse 15, before they answer, before it records an answer here, it says, Now if ye be ready at the time, at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sack, but sultry, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made well.

He says, I’m going to give you another chance. If you’re prepared right now, if you’re prepared right now, just bow down, just one time. If you’ll just bow down to this statue, then hey, it’s fine.

We’ll put this behind us and we’ll move on. But if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?

What God indeed. Little does he know. But he asks them, because I think Nebuchadnezzar, from knowing Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and knows that when he says, if you won’t bow, they’re going to come back with some smart-aleck comment to his mind about their God and what their God has commanded them to do.

He knew that as Jews they couldn’t worship these statues. The Ten Commandments forbade it. I mean, not only is it all throughout the Old Testament law, not only is idolatry prohibited, but it made it into the Ten Commandments.

You shall not make any graven images, and you shall not bow yourselves down to them. And so he knew that this was sort of at the heart of who they were as Jews. He knew they couldn’t.

There was no room for compromise here because God said so. And so he throws in that comment here of saying, I’m going to throw you into the fiery furnace. What God on earth is going to be able to protect you from it?

Verse 16 says, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. I would be. We talked last week about the magicians and the sorcerers and astrologers in Nebuchadnezzar’s court who were trying to measure their words and their response, and they were trying to buy more time.

They’re trying to figure out how they can smooth talk their way out of the predicament that they found themselves in. They were being very careful. And I think if I’m facing down a crazy man, a tyrant, who’s saying, I’m going to throw you into an oven if you don’t do what I want, I’m going to be very careful about my response and see if I can find a way to talk my way out of it.

They’re not. When they say, we’re not careful to respond to you, what they’re saying is, we don’t have to stop and think about this. We already know what the answer is.

And folks, you will be strongest as you walk through our Babylon of our day, and you’re called on a hundred times a day to compromise the things that you know God has called you to do. You’re going to be at your strongest to resist those compromises when you already know the answer before the question is asked. When you’ve already determined in your mind that I stand with God regardless of the cost. I stand with God and the things He’s called me to do, and I stand on the truth, whatever the cost, whatever the consequence.

They were not careful to answer Him in this matter. We don’t even have to think about it. If it be so.

He said, if it be so means if you’re really going to go through with these things that you’ve said. Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace. He is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace.

It’s not we think he can. We think he might be able to. There was a certainty here that the God of Israel had the capability, without question, had the capability of delivering them from the burning, fiery furnace, if indeed that was what he wanted to do.

And he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. See, there’s a certainty there too, that he will deliver us from your hand. He is going to set us free from what you’re calling us to do.

Now, that’s a little harder for us to say. And we talked about this in the 5 o’clock class, or somebody made a comment on it, about, you know, well, we say all the time, I know God is able to do this. God is able to hear me.

God is able to do this. He’s expressing with certainty. They’re expressing with certainty.

God will deliver me. But the deliverance may not look the way that we expect for it to. Now they’re saying here, God has the capability of pulling us out of this situation.

God has the capability to extract us, and he might do that. But even if we go into that fiery furnace, even if we’re burned up in that fiery furnace and we go to be with him, we’re still not going to bow, and we’re still out of your clutches. There’s a certainty, there’s a resignation here.

And they’re not resigning themselves in the sense that they’re discouraged and they’re defeated. they have joyfully and victoriously surrendered themselves into God’s care. And so we don’t care what the consequence is here.

We know that God will do what is best. And folks, we have that same promise too, that God will do what’s best. We quote that verse all the time from the book of Romans, that he works all things together for the good of those who are. . .

I knew it before I started trying to quote it. He works everything together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. and I have preached for years on different aspects of what that means.

But when you start looking at it in context, it doesn’t mean that everything is going to work out just peachy for us. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to work out the way we want it to. And I’ve even taught that that means that God is working things out for our ultimate good and for His will and what that means and that whatever happens is good for us even if we don’t see it in the short term.

But the more I look at that in context and try to understand what the Apostle Paul was talking about, what is the good for us is not always what we would think is good, short-term or long-term. It’s what is going along with that plan that he has to conform us to the image of his son. God is working everything around us for the good, meaning to work circumstances to make us, give us the opportunity to be more like Jesus.

And so there may not be the 30-minute sitcom wrap-up where everything is wonderful and happy and group hugs. There may not be any of that on this side of eternity. But he’s always at work in our lives for what we see as the good or what we see as the inconvenient, the unpleasant.

God is at work through all of it to help us become more like Jesus. And they had that same assurance. Now, they didn’t realize the Messiah’s name was Jesus.

They’re looking forward to things that we look back on. But they had joyfully surrendered themselves to God’s care and said, you know what, even if God plucks us right out of the fire, hey, great. If God lets us die in the fire and we still get to get away from you, it doesn’t matter because either way, God is going to come clean for us.

But if not, meaning if he doesn’t rescue us from this fire, be it known unto thee, O king, we will not serve thy God nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. You can take this to the bank, that even if God doesn’t pull us out of that fire, we are not bowing down. We are not worshiping these gods.

We’re not worshiping your stinking statue. We are here with the God of Israel. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, verse 19 says.

And the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Folks, he was so angry, his whole face changed toward them. And he commanded that they should heat the furnace.

One, seven times more than it was wont to be heated. crank up the heat in there seven times hotter and he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and cast them into the burning fiery furnace. He was so mad that not only did he crank the heat up seven times but he calls in the strongest troops he has to come and rough up three Jewish bureaucrats.

Think about that. These were not necessarily strong men. These were the guys that he had in charge of his provinces and to come and bind them and cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosin, their hats, and their other garments and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. So they were thrown in. Therefore, because the king’s commandment was urgent and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

It was so hot that these men who went to throw them in were cooked themselves. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spoke, and said to his counselors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?

And they answered and said unto the king, True, O king. And he answered, this is why he’s confused. There are two things he’s confused about.

He said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt. We took three men, and they were tied up, and we threw them into the fire. and then I look into the furnace and I see four men and they’re unbound and they’re walking around in there.

They have not been hurt. They’re not injured by the fire. They’re just walking around in the furnace that killed these tough soldiers.

And he says, and the form of the fourth is like the son of God. I love that. The fourth guy in there looks like the son of God.

And I’ve read where people, you know, I don’t know if they’re trying to criticize this translation, whatever they’re trying to do, where the Hebrew or the Aramaic would indicate that what he’s actually saying there is a son of the gods. That would make more sense to me because Nebuchadnezzar was a polytheist. He believed in many gods. But for him to look in there and say he looks like a son of the gods, I still don’t think that could be anybody but the Lord Jesus Christ. Because Nebuchadnezzar is looking at that and trying to look through his lenses and the way he sees the world.

What he’s looking at is he’s saying there is a divine being. He didn’t know who it was and didn’t know it was the Son of the God of Israel, but he says there’s a divine being in there. There’s somebody who does not look like you and me.

There’s somebody who radiates this power, and there’s somebody in there who is with them and keeping them safe. The fourth is the form of the Son of God. And the teaching there has always been that the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, showed up in his pre-incarnate form before he was born in Bethlehem.

showed up and was there with them as they went through the fire. And we’ve talked about this in months past, about the Trinity and who Jesus was, and that Jesus didn’t just start being at Bethlehem. I know that’s hard to wrap our minds around.

You mean he was around before he was born? Yeah, he was. But Jesus was there when God the Father did creation.

They did it together. He was there before that. There has never been a time when God the Son, Jesus Christ, did not exist. And so he was around even in the Old Testament.

And a lot of times I think, and there are theologians way smarter than I am who think, that a lot of times when we see the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, talking to Joshua outside of Jericho, showing up as the king of Salem, or Melchizedek, talking to Abraham, some of these people that just seem a little more divine than human in the Old Testament, that those may just be times that the Lord Jesus Christ showed up. that God sent his son to walk through this fire with them. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace.

Think about this. He’s just seen this furnace kill some of his strongest men, and yet he is so awestruck that he can’t help but wander toward this furnace himself. And spake and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God.

See, Nebuchadnezzar is going to be reminded time after time throughout the book of Daniel that all these gods he has, they don’t amount to anything compared to the God of Israel, that he is the most high God. Now we know that he’s the only God, he’s the only true God, but to Nebuchadnezzar he’s the most high God because none of the other gods and all of the gods together couldn’t hold a candle to the God of Israel. Ye servants of the most high God, come forth and come hither.

In Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came forth in the midst of the fire. And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counselors being gathered together You and I wouldn’t be able to do that. I get too close to the fire pit when we’re burning stuff, and I’ll end up with singe marks on my shirt.

Madeline and I were headed to the hospital Friday to see Kathy, And I was just choking and dying in the car from smoke from fires that were miles east of town. There’s no way I’m going to stand in the midst of a burning, fiery furnace and come out just smelling like a rose. But that’s exactly what they did because God’s hand was on them.

Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who had sent his angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him and had changed the king’s word and yielded their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any god except their own god. He said, therefore, I make a decree that every people, nation, and language would speak anything amiss, speak anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill. He really likes this punishment.

Last week, this is what he threatened his magicians with. I’m going to tear you limb from limb, and I’m going to turn your houses into a garbage dump. That’s sort of his go-to move here.

Because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort of. . .

And just a few minutes ago, he’s saying, what God, you and what army kind of a comment. What God is going to deliver you out of my hand? And now he’s saying, because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.

There’s no God like this that could deliver people out of my hand. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. So he demanded that they would bow down before the statue.

And again, it wasn’t, hey, convert, and you must now exclusively worship the Babylonian gods. It was just a call for compromise. hey just worship this statue just worship our gods in addition to what you do but they couldn’t do it there was this call from Babylon to compromise and they couldn’t do it because God was clear and there are going to be things that we can’t do in Babylon there are going to be places where we can’t compromise because God is clear we talked about some of these this morning with the doctrine of Christ what is the doctrine of Christ and we talked about some of those things that are essential that are non-negotiable that affect our view of Jesus and everything he did and that we have to We have to stand on and we have to make sure we’re nailed down on.

And we cannot compromise because then we’re talking about a false Jesus. We can’t compromise on his virgin birth. We can’t compromise on his miracles.

We can’t compromise on him dying on the cross. And you’ve got the whole list. I gave it to you this morning. His resurrection.

His once for all sacrifice on the cross. We can’t compromise on these things. The world’s totally okay.

Babylon is totally okay if we love Jesus. Don’t say he’s the only way. No, you can’t say he’s the only way to God.

We can’t compromise on that. We can’t say, oh no, he’s just one of many ways. We can’t compromise on that because God’s word is clear.

And there are going to be times when that becomes costly. There are going to be times that we have to make the hard choice. But again, I told you already that the thing that’s going to help us best to stand against the temptation to compromise is to have already made the decision beforehand.

To have already made the determination. I don’t even have to think about this because I know where I stand. I know who my God is.

I know who Jesus Christ is. I know what he did for me. And I know what he expects from me.

See, there’s a line where we can’t compromise. And we cannot turn our back on what God has told us or what God has called us to do just to accommodate Babylon. And sometimes we’re going to have to be willing to pay the cost for that.

Sometimes there’s going to be a price involved in that. Their price was being thrown in the furnace. and they said God can deliver us from this, but even if he doesn’t, even if he doesn’t, we’re not going to bow down to the statue.

And God didn’t spare them from the furnace, did he? God delivered them from out of the furnace, but God didn’t spare them from the furnace. They still had to go in and walk through the furnace.

They still had to go in and walk through the fire. Now, the amazing thing to me is that God went and walked through the fire with them. You look at a lot of the Old Testament, a lot of the false gods that were talked about in the Old Testament, Molech and some of the others, people had to pass through the fire for their God.

One of the reasons God got so upset at the Israelites for worshiping false gods is because to some of these, they were sacrificing their children, burning their children alive to these false gods. And the Bible talks about them walking through the fire, passin

Powered by atecplugins.com