God Is Our King

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Transcript:

Good morning. Hi, it’s good to see you all here this morning. We’re going to be in Daniel chapter 3.

We’re going to be in Daniel chapter 3. We started looking last week at a couple of places where the Bible in the book of Daniel talks about our relationship with God or points to the relationship we have with God. And I told you we were going to be talking about this idea of our relationship with Him because we hear it said all the time in Christian circles that Christianity is not about a religion in the sense that it’s not just a list of do’s and don’ts, but it’s about a relationship with God.

And I agree with that, and that sounds good as far as it goes, but what kind of relationship with God? And I made the point to you last week that we have some kind of relationship with every person we come in contact with. And the kind of relationship we have should determine how we relate to those people.

Funny how those words fit together. It should change the way or it should impact the way we deal with people. If I am shopping at Walmart and there’s some other person on the aisle, some woman on the dog food aisle, and I need to get by her, would I put my hands on her back and kind of scoot her out of the way?

No, because my relationship to her is a total stranger. And I’m probably going to get the police called on me if I do that, right? On the other hand, if my sister is blocking the way through the kitchen or the laundry room and I need to get past her, I put my hands on her shoulders, kind of scoot her out of the way, say excuse me, and get by.

And, you know, I’m her brother. That’s normal. Okay? I have a brother-sister relationship with her, so I behave differently than I do with a total stranger, where my relationship is that of a total stranger.

My kids, you know, I consider, well, my kids, every time I leave the house or, I was about to tell one story and decided not to, so I’ll tell another one. Every time I get home or leave the house, we do big hugs and kisses on the forehead and that sort of thing. My daughter’s gotten to where, you know, try to kiss them on the cheek when you put them to bed.

My daughter’s gotten to where she likes to kiss on both cheeks like she’s French or something. Now, I consider y’all to be friends, but when I leave here today, I’m not going to go up to Brother Shank and kiss him on both cheeks. That would be strange because we don’t have that kind of relationship, do we, brother?

We have different relationships with different people, and it changes how we relate to them. So it’s not enough for us to say, yes, I have a relationship with God. We need to define what is that relationship.

Is God a total stranger to us? Or is God an acquaintance? This was in the Sunday school lesson this morning.

Is God an acquaintance that we see a couple times a year at Christmas and Easter? Brother Shank asked me what I thought the most attended church service was the whole year. I said either Easter or Mother’s Day.

And depending on where you are, that could be debated. But is God somebody we spend time with twice a year? Or is he something more than that?

And I contend that for a believer, when we talk about having this relationship with God, it’s supposed to be something much, much more than just a passing acquaintance. And so we talked last week about our relationship with God, who he is, that he’s our creator. And we looked at how God designed Daniel and Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who we more commonly know as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how he knew what was best for them, how he knew what course their lives should take, and they followed that and it led to blessings.

And we talked about God being our creator and much like I would say to my children, I brought you into this world and I know what’s best for you, that God can say that to us as well. He created us, He made us, He designed us, and He knows what’s best for us and it’s for our good and our benefit if we follow what He tells us to do. Now this morning I want to talk to you about a second aspect of the way God relates to us and us back to Him, is that God is not just our creator, God is our king.

God is our king. And this is one of those things that whether people recognize it or not, God is their king. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

And says that at the end of all things that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Okay, whether people admit it now or not, or whether they admit it later, Jesus Christ is Lord. You don’t have to acknowledge him as Lord to still be Lord.

He’s Lord whether you acknowledge it or not. This morning, he’s your king whether you acknowledge it or not. But there’s a big difference between him being your king and you living in subjection to his kingship or him being your king and you living in rebellion.

As believers, we are supposed to live in subjection to his kingship. We are supposed to relate to him as a loyal subject would to their king. And we’re going to look at this, one of the most familiar stories of the Bible today in Daniel chapter 3.

where these three men are forced to make a choice between an earthly king and a heavenly king. And it says here in chapter 3, starting in verse 1, Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold whose height was three score cubits and the breadth thereof six cubits and set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. So there’s this golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has made and it is according to the Babylonian royal cubit.

I’m not going to do all the math here for you. But apparently it was about 105 feet tall by about 10 and a half feet. So it’s a pretty big statue.

It’s made completely of gold. It’s set up on the plain of Dura, which is somewhere in modern-day Iraq. You know, it’s hard to pinpoint.

But I can tell you, if it’s a plain, if it’s a flat place, that statue was going to be seen for miles being that tall. It’s kind of, you know, I know it’s not quite as tall as Devon Tower, but I’m still amazed that, you know, out in Newcastle, maybe even further back, But out in Newcastle, you can already see Devon Tower because it’s that tall and because Oklahoma City is so flat. When I got ready to move to Arkansas, a group from the church was going to come move us, help us move.

And they said, is it really flat where you live? I said, if you stand on my roof, you could see New Mexico, which is an exaggeration, you know. But you can see for a long ways with it being flat.

And out there on the plains of Dura, this golden image would have caught the reflection of the sun. It would have been bright. it would have been like a beacon that you could see for miles and miles around.

And Nebuchadnezzar put this up, and it said in verse 2, that Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. So he calls together all of the powerful people in the kingdom and says, you’ve got to come see this image, we’re going to dedicate it, this statue, you’ve got to come see it. And there’s debate.

I’ve read people who make the case back and forth. Some say that Nebuchadnezzar made a statue of himself and wanted everybody to bow down and worship it. Some people had said it was a statue of the pagan god Nabu, which is where they get part of King Nebuchadnezzar’s name from.

I think there’s a third option here. I think Nebuchadnezzar could have made a statue of himself identifying himself with the pagan god Nabu, which would explain why he wanted it to be worshipped as an idol, because it has something to do with the god Nabu, but why also he would get so enraged and take it as a personal slight when people wouldn’t bow down to it because then they’re not respecting him. And we see this all the time.

We see this kind of thing happen. Saddam Hussein would try to build statues of himself, not identifying himself with a god, but would build statues of himself and have murals painted of himself where he’s trying to identify himself with Nebuchadnezzar. All those years ago, he was the new Nebuchadnezzar.

The pharaohs of Egypt said that they were the living embodiment, I think, of the god Ra. The emperors of Rome, like Nero, for example, who we talked about a little bit. If you ladies were on the same Sunday school lesson where we’re talking about Paul’s time in Rome and appealing to Caesar, they considered themselves living embodiments of the gods.

This stuff still goes on in our world today, just in the last couple decades. Francois Duvalier, who was the dictator of Haiti, some of you may remember hearing things about him, they called him Papa Doc. He wore dark clothes and dark sunglasses and a particular style of clothing because he wanted to identify with a voodoo spirit called Baran Samdi because that was such a fearsome reputation and wanted people to identify him with that spirit so that the people of Haiti would stay in line and be scared of him.

So this is nothing new to say we’re going to identify with this deity or with this spirit. So it’s entirely possible here that it’s a statue of Nebuchadnezzar the god Nabu. And so he sets up this image and wants everybody to worship it, wants to have this huge dedication party, and he has all the people from the far-flung reaches of his empire come to come to visit it.

It says in verse 3, then 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. Then a herald cried aloud, to you it is commanded, people, nations, and languages, that at the time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. I think they really want us to remember that it was the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

I feel like I’m repeating myself over and over with that phrase because I am. But they said that when all of these important people got there to the image, his herald told them that all of you are commanded that when you hear all of these instruments, that you’re supposed to fall down and worship not just the idol, but the idol, the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And whoso falleth not down and worshipeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

So there’s no trial here, there’s no due process, no hesitation. He says, whoever does not bow down and worship will that same hour be cast into a fiery furnace. I mean, that is pretty intense.

This is the only word I can think of to describe it. That’s pretty intense to be that worried that people are going to bow down or not bow down that you say, you know what, we’re just going to kill you right then without worrying about it. Without hearing your side of the story, without even going through the pretense of a trial, we’re just going to kill you.

But Nebuchadnezzar, again, I think, was so invested in wanting people to worship this image because it had to do with identifying him with Nabu. And so in verse 7, Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, 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. Wherefore at that time, certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews.

Guys, this was going on all the time. You hear people all the time in the Bible, and so-and-so accuse the Jews. It is still, not to get on my soapbox about it, but it is still going on.

Today, the Jews defend themselves, and there’s an international outcry of them being murderers. The Chaldeans, that means Babylonians. And usually, those words are kind of interchangeable, but I’ve noticed that in the Old Testament, when it uses the word Chaldeans instead of Babylonians, a lot of times it’s referring to the Babylonian wise men.

So some of the leaders came to the king and accused the Jews, and it says in verse 9, They spake and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. Thou, O king, hast made a decree that every man that 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.

Now, I don’t know about you all, but if I ever made a decree that somebody had to do something or I was going to kill them immediately, I would probably remember that. And yet they go to Nebuchadnezzar and they say, do you remember, you know, yesterday when you made that rule that everybody had to bow down and worship when they heard the music? Or if they didn’t, that you were going to kill them.

Oh yeah, I remember that. In verse 12, there are certain Jews whom you’ve said 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. And so they point out that there were these Jewish men, Hananiah, Meshach, and Azariah, who we know as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And they said they have not worshipped.

Well, it seems to me that they would have been among the ones who were called in. and they would have stood out as hundreds, maybe even thousands of people gather around this statue on the plains of Dura. And the music’s playing and probably the music’s swelling and it’s music that grabs the emotions and puts people into this frenzy of wanting to worship either out of fear of the king or dedication to what they’re doing.

They all begin to bow and grovel at the feet of this statue and worship and out there on the plains of Dura are three men who, As everybody else is prostrate on the ground, they’re still standing. And they would have stuck out like a sore thumb. And sometimes, sometimes in order to do what God expects us to do, sometimes in order to be obedient to God, we have to be the ones that stand and stand out and stick out when everybody else is bowing down to the idols.

So they go and tell the king, these three men didn’t bow. So you know what you’re supposed to do. And Nebuchadnezzar, verse 13, in his rage and fury, commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

He was mad. He said rage and fury. I think on occasion I have felt maybe the beginnings of rage.

I don’t know that I’ve ever felt fury. And he was feeling both. I mean, he was angry beyond belief.

And he commanded them to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they brought these men before the king. And Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that ye do not serve my gods, nor worship the golden image that I have set up. So he does ask them, okay, we shouldn’t take this here as him wanting to hear their side of the story.

He just wants to know, is it true that you didn’t do these things? Because if it’s true, there’s no excuse, there’s no explanation, you’re just going to be thrown into the fire. And I think it’s interesting that what they said, what these Chaldeans said about the three men was that they have not regarded thee, which means they have no respect for you, that they don’t serve your gods or worship the golden images.

Folks, we can have respect for our leaders and still disagree with them when they go against what God has said. We just can. And we notice later on in their response that they are not out of line.

They’re firm, but they’re still respectful to the king. And yet there’s this idea that if I don’t worship who you worship and if I don’t go along with you and your immorality that somehow I’m disrespectful or I hate you, We see that still today. We live in a society where we’re rapidly approaching a time where we can’t disagree with somebody without it being assumed that we hate them.

Folks, we can disagree with something and someone, and it not mean that we are disrespectful toward them. And this is what upset Nebuchadnezzar is what he perceived as the lack of respect because they didn’t obey what he said, and also because they weren’t worshiping his statue. And so he said, is it true that you’ve not bowed down, that you’ve not served my gods and you’ve not worshipped my statue.

But then he doesn’t even wait for the answer. Because they could very easily say, well, yeah, we did. We were over there when they didn’t.

He just goes on in verse 15 and tells them to prove it. Without even waiting to hear whether they did or didn’t, he says we can rectify this right now. Now, if you be ready at what time, at that time, excuse me, now, if you be ready that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sack, but psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image I have made, well, everything will work out well for you.

But if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. And one of the dumbest questions ever asked. One of the dumbest questions ever asked.

And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Well, they have a good answer for that. He tells them.

He tells them here. You know what? I’m not even going to ask you if you worshiped or not.

Let’s just say if you’re willing to worship right now, I’ll assume you did, everything will be fine. If you’re not willing to bow down to the statue right now when you hear the music, it’s over for you. And asks them, and what God is there that will deliver you out of my hands?

Which is a rhetorical question on his part. He’s basically asserting his own foolish belief that he is master of the universe, and that he can do whatever he wants, and that the gods, it doesn’t matter who, would be powerless to stop him from doing whatever he wants to do. That is pretty out of touch with reality.

That’s pretty prideful and arrogant. But to be the king, the emperor of Babylon, to be the king of kings, and be surrounded by people who give you absolute power, he probably had grown to believe he was master of the universe. And so in verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

Now that phrase, that statement has puzzled me for years and I’ve had to go back and study and restudy and re-restudy, try to figure out exactly what they mean by that, and it’s very simple. We don’t have to think about this for a moment. We don’t need a minute to discuss amongst ourselves what we’re going to do.

We don’t need to think about it and weigh the pros and cons. While you’re in the midst of asking us this question about will we worship or will we not, the answer is already on the tip of our tongues and we don’t have to think about it. We will not.

He says we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. We’re not mincing words. We’re not dancing around the issue.

We know exactly what the answer is and it is no. They say in verse 17, if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. They say we trust God and his ability to deliver us out of a fiery furnace, that if God so chooses that we go into the furnace, we’re not going to be hurt. If God so chooses, he can orchestrate this where we’re not even put into the furnace, and we trust that whatever he determines to do is best. And regardless, we believe God is able to deliver us from the furnace, and we believe he will deliver us from you.

So they’re saying here, we don’t know for certain that it’s going to be his will to deliver us from the furnace, but we know he can do it. But we know that one way or another, he’s going to set us free from this decree that you’ve made. and trying to force us to worship you and your false gods.

So when talking about the fiery furnace, they say in verse 18, but if not, but if not, even if God chooses to let us go into the furnace, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Now we’re going to end the verse-by-verse study right there, but you probably know, if you don’t know, go read the rest of the story for yourself. I’ll tell you, I’ll go ahead and spoil it for you.

They are thrown into the furnace and God goes through it with them. And God delivers them from out of the fiery furnace to the point where Nebuchadnezzar makes a decree to all his people saying that God is the only one deserving of worship. And God is the only one who can deliver in such a way.

And really the amazing thing about this story is the way that God delivers them from the furnace. But today, what I want to focus on is just their answer. Just their answer to King Nebuchadnezzar.

Now this man, as I’ve already mentioned, thought he was master of the universe. To say, you know, it’s like we’ll see sometimes on TV or even in real life, people will say, you know, God, if you’re not out there, God, if you’re really out there, strike me down. It is the height of foolishness and arrogance to challenge God as though we’re somehow stronger than he is.

God, you can’t do anything to me. Sure he can. And what’s more, God can destroy us without doing anything to us just by removing his protection.

We would be destroying. But he says here, I’m going to do what I choose to do, and there is no God. There is no God who can stop me from doing what I want to do.

Oh my goodness, are you kidding? That’s incredibly arrogant. The man thinks he is the ruler of heaven and earth, the master of the universe.

He thinks he’s the king of everything just because he’s the king of Babylon. He is, you know, obviously he has a great deal of power because he was able to take over Judah. He was able to bring all of these people into captivity.

The only reason that Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are there to begin with is because Nebuchadnezzar ordered they be brought back, ordered them uprooted. He had this control over their whole lives at that point. He had seen fit to give them positions of power in the kingdom.

He owned them, he thought, in that regard. Even giving them the names, you look back at their names, their Hebrew names, and I’m trying to get out of the habit of calling them by their pagan names and call them by the names that their parents gave them, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Those were their names, and those had something to do with God.

When you hear in the Hebrew names, Ayah or Yah at the end, it’s a shortened form of one of the Hebrew names for God, and it usually means something to do with the Lord, like the name Joshua or Yehoshua, I can’t pronounce it exactly right in Hebrew, but it meant that salvation is of the Lord. When you see El at the end of a name, it means God, which is why there’s the Hebrew name Michael, which means who is like God. That’s not saying that Michael is like God, but saying who is there that is like God?

And so he was taking these names that dedicated these people to God, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and gave them their pagan names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which last week I intended to talk about this and knew what the names meant and have since forgotten. But they were dedications to pagan gods. And he renamed David too, Belteshazzar.

And Bel being one of the, I believe, a dragon god, if I recall correctly. He dedicated them to these pagan gods, but we also know that in their culture, if you name something, you owned it. It indicated dominion.

I think I wrote about this a while back in a bulletin article talking about Adam. If not, I meant to. How God named us and God named day and night.

And God controls everything. And you know what? I named both of my children.

You know why? Because they’re my children. I own them until they’re 18.

I have a certain amount of control over their lives. He was asserting his control and saying, I own you. I’m changing your identity.

You belong to me. You’re my property. He really was under the impression that not only was he their earthly king, but that he was king over their whole lives.

What he didn’t realize is that we already have a king who is sovereign over everything. Not only over Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, but also over him as well. We already have a king who is in control of all things.

We already have a king who is sovereign over the universe. We already have a king who demands our utmost loyalty. And now, before we take that to extremes, we can still be loyal to earthly kings and earthly rulers.

And I believe the Bible teaches that we’re supposed to be. However, our loyalty to a ruler, to a king, our loyalty to a place, our loyalty to a family, to whatever it is, we express loyalty to, we have loyalty to brand names now. Do you realize that?

They talk about brand loyalty. How often you’ll buy Ford over Chevy or Chevy over Ford or what toothpaste you buy. We have loyalty to that.

We have loyalty to sports teams. Our loyalties, our allegiances are spread out all over the place, but there’s not one of them. There’s not all of them combined that are even supposed to rival the loyalty that we have to our King in heaven. He is our sovereign.

That word means something. We talk about a country being sovereign. That means it is the highest authority in its territory.

The British talk about the queen being the sovereign. Well, there aren’t a bunch of little sovereigns under her. By definition, there can only be one sovereign.

And so Queen Elizabeth is the sovereign in the United Kingdom in a political sense. Folks, there is one sovereign in the universe who rules over all others, and it’s the God we serve. And Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had the right view of this.

They recognized that it doesn’t matter what the earthly king says if it is contradicting what the king of heaven says. Now, if he had said when the music plays, come down to the plains and pay your taxes, they probably would have done that because it didn’t conflict with what God had said. It didn’t go against what the heavenly king had said.

If the heavenly king had, I’m getting confused now, if Nebuchadnezzar, if the earthly king had said, okay, we’re going to switch and when the music plays, you’re going to drive your chariots on the left side of the road now. They could have done that and it would have been all right. But the moment any earthly loyalty starts conflicting with what our heavenly king has said, when it begins conflicting with what our heavenly king wants, then there should be no question about where our loyalties lie.

There should be, you know what, we should not be careful to answer in these things. You know what, world around me, you say we’re all going to wear purple stripes on Tuesday. You know what, if that’s the rule, fine.

You know what, world around us, the government says I have to pay taxes. I may not enjoy it, but fine, I’ll do it. When the world says, though, you need to worship this, you need to worship this false god, you need to go to this temple, you need to, hey, you need to worship this sports team, you need to worship money, you need to worship television, you need with what God has said.

We need to not be careful to answer them and have the answer be right there on the tip of our tongues. No, because my first loyalty, my greatest loyalty is to the king who sits enthroned in heaven above any earthly loyalty or allegiance. Just a few things in this passage.

I think y’all are nodding your heads already. I think you’re on board with this. I think you’ve got the point.

So we’ll move through these points pretty quickly. First thing this morning, as our king, as that’s his relationship to us, as our king, God deserves our loyalty. It says in verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

They didn’t have to dance around it. They didn’t have to think about it. They didn’t have to weigh the pros and cons because they already decided before the fact where their loyalty lay.

They didn’t have to wait for the question to be asked before they had the answer ready. They knew where their loyalty went. This morning, where is your loyalty?

You don’t have to answer that out loud. I’d prefer you didn’t. But that’s something we need to think about today.

All of us need to think about today. As we leave here, we need to think about it as we go through our week, not just this week, but all the time. Where is our loyalty?

Is my loyalty with God where it belongs? Is he the king? Is he the sovereign that my loyalty lies with first and foremost?

Because if we get that answer, if we get that decided and taken care of before the problem arises, we stand a much better chance of doing what he wants us to do than if we wait until we’re in the in the conundrum, until we’re in the question, what should I do? It’s real easy at the time to justify, well, I’ll just do this if we haven’t already made up our minds that our loyalties with God. As our king, God deserves our loyalty.

And folks, these men were absolutely loyal to God. Second of all, as our king, God deserves our obedience. So as we think about our relationship to him and he relates to us as a king, so how do we relate back to him as our king?

Obedience. Obedience. It’s spelled out throughout the Bible.

People would talk about doing the sacrifices and God says, it’s not the sacrifices I really want. It’s obedience. I don’t take any joy out of the blood of bulls and goats, he says, but he talks about the condition of the heart and he wants us to obey him.

And it says in verse 18, They tell Nebuchadnezzar, but if not, whether God spares us from the fiery furnace or not, if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden images which thou hast set up. It’s really easy to say, God, I’m going to obey you when it works out well for me. God, I’m going to obey you when you have promised to reward me.

God, I’m going to obey you when things are going well. But it’s an entirely different thing to say. Obedience to God is going to cost me something and yet I’m going to do it anyway.

And I know that God can spare me that cost. I know th

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