Daniel 3
Turn in your copy of God’s Word
to Daniel chapter 3. We’ll read the chapter in its
entirety. I believe it’s 30 verses. This
is Daniel. Actually, it’s not Daniel and
the fiery furnace. It’s Daniel’s three companions
in the fiery furnace. I had to realize in studying
this passage that Daniel is not He’s not involved, it’s just
his three friends. So hear God’s word with me. Chapter
three of Daniel, beginning at verse one. King Nebuchadnezzar
made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth
six cubits. He set it up on the plain of
Dura in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent
together the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors,
the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the
officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the
image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the satraps,
the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers,
the justices, the magistrates and all the officials of the
provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar
had set up. And they stood before the image
that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the herald proclaimed aloud,
You are commanded, O peoples, O nations and languages, that
when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the
trigon, harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are
to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar
has set up. And whoever does not fall down
and worship shall immediately be cast into the burning, fiery
furnace. Therefore, as soon as all the
peoples heard the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the
trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, All
the people’s nations and languages fell down and worshiped the golden
image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Therefore, at that
time, certain Chaldeans that came forward and maliciously
accused the Jews, they declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, O King,
live forever. You, O King, have made a decree
that every man who hears the sound of the horn, the pipe,
The lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of
music shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoever
does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning,
fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom you
have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention
to you. They do not serve your gods or
worship the golden image that you have set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar,
in furious rage, commanded that Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego
be brought in. So they brought these men before
the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, is it true,
O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods
or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now, if you are
ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon,
harp, and bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and
worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you
do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning, fiery
furnace. And who is the God who will deliver
you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no
need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we
serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and
he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be
it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or
worship the golden image that you have set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar
was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed
against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace
heated seven times more than it was usually heated. He ordered
some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego, to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then
these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats,
and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning,
fiery furnace. Because the king’s order was
urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed
those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these
three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into
the burning, fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was
astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors,
did not we cast three men bound into the fire? They answered
and said to the king, true, O king. He answered and said, but I see
four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire and they are
not hurt. And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of
the gods. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near
to the door of the burning fiery furnace. He declared, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out
and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
came out from the fire. The satraps, the prefects, the
governors, the king’s counselors gathered together, and they saw
that the fire had not any power over the bodies of those men.
their hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were
not harmed, no smell of fire had come upon them. Nebuchadnezzar
answered and said, blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants
who trusted in him and set aside the king’s command and yielded
up their bodies rather than serve and worship any God except their
own God. Therefore, I make a decree. any
people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God
of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb,
and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other God who
is able to rescue in this way. Then the king promoted Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. Amen. There is a statue of unity in
the nation of India and it is 597 feet tall. It’s about six
times more than Nebuchadnezzar. I think Nebuchadnezzar is probably
in his grave wishing he had done more. Then you go to China and
there is a Buddha. that is about 420 feet tall. And if you look through the list
of statues and their height across the globe, you’ll find that in
the east, particularly in China and Japan, maybe Tokyo, you’ve
seen a few watching the Olympics. There are some in the 300 foot
range, the 200 foot range, even the 100 foot range. We have a statue in New York Harbor, Statue of
Liberty, 151 feet. Maybe a couple years ago, you
watched the Summer Olympics in Rio. Christ, our Redeemer, 97
feet tall there on the top of the mountain. How about Touchdown
Jesus? He’s behind the end zone at Notre
Dame and has been there, I think, since the 60s and the days of
Coach Parsegian. But 90, or no, I’m sorry, 132
feet tall. Not a statue, but a stone sculpture. 132 feet tall, 65 feet wide,
touchdown Jesus. There’s another touchdown Jesus,
or well, at least there used to be, a 65 foot statue of Christ made of iron
and styrofoam along some highway in Ohio. And I think God in his
sense of humor struck it by lightning about 10 years ago and it burned.
Don’t know if it’s been rebuilt. But we love to build statues. We love to make names for ourselves.
We love to have the biggest cross, the biggest church building,
the tallest spire, the biggest steeple. And then if we’re a
tyrant or a president or a whatever it is we are, we build monstrosities
to our own name. And I think you noticed, I heard
a chuckle over here, the satire dripping from this passage. How
often did you hear Nebuchadnezzar made, Nebuchadnezzar ordered,
Nebuchadnezzar set up all the language of idols. They have
to be made with human hands. They have to be set up. They
have to be tended to. They have to be scraped and painted
and pressure washed and all the rest. What a foolish errand this
was for King Nebuchadnezzar. Well, I want us to think through
this passage tonight with the letter P in mind. And the first
P is paganism. Paganism, that’s really at the
forefront of this passage here. Are you going to worship the
God of pagans or are you going to worship the one living true
God? And so we think about paganism and think about paganism over
and against, in the beginning, God. In the beginning, God made
the heavens and the earth. And those of you who’ve been
in our Wednesday night Genesis study, remember there are two
words for make in Genesis. There’s the make word that you
take some wood in your shop or some metal in your workplace
and you form it and fashion it into something through carpentry
or metalwork. But in the Old Testament, there’s
a special word for when God makes something. It’s a divine making.
It’s a making something out of nothing. And so when God, who
always has been, always will be, makes, he makes and fashions
for use in this world, but he doesn’t have a beginning. He
doesn’t have an end. He always has been. He always
will be. Against paganism, in the beginning,
God. He made the world and everything
in it in the space of six days. Made it by the power of his word.
He made it all very good. We think of God, the creator,
having showdowns against paganism. In the Old Testament, there’s
Elijah and the battle with the Baals. Elijah even pours water
on his altar and God laps it up, the altar, the water, the
sacrifice and all. But the Baals screamed until
they were hoarse, their throats were raw, not enough bottles
of water would give them the voice to call down fire. Or how
about the great showdown between Moses and Pharaoh? really between
Yahweh and Pharaoh. Yahweh, in the ten plagues, beat
the gods of Egypt and he always shows himself. But nevertheless,
paganism seems to give it another shot. We remember the command
God gave his people you’re gonna you’re gonna live amongst pagans
in Egypt You’re gonna live amongst pagans in the land of Canaan
unless you get rid of them First commandment you shall have no
other gods before me no graven images, well, what do we see
here in this? Satirical Farce of a story about
Nebuchadnezzar he makes He fashions He issues an edict. Now isn’t
this very interesting because last week we heard about a dream.
And the dream he had was about this big statue. And the big
statue had a head of gold, it had some silver, it had some
bronze, it had some iron, and it had some feet of clay. And
it was interpreted to be the kingdoms of the earth will pass
away until the great kingdom that comes from the mountain,
the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ comes and it will break
and shatter and do away with all these kingdoms. and even
the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar would pass away within a few
short years. But what does a maniac tyrant
do? He can’t be outdone by God. He
can’t worry about these dreams and interpretations and promises
made. And so he’s going to build a
statue and it’s going to be big, 90 feet, nine feet wide. He’s going to put it on the plain
of Dura where a crowd can gather. You can imagine, He’s got other
projects going, the hanging gardens of Babylon. He’s got parties
to hold and all this, and it’s timeout, edict time. You guys come off of the garden
project, we’ll get back to that. I need a statue. And I need it
in 30 days. And if it’s not ready in 30 days,
it’s off with your arms, off with your legs, off with your
head. He seems to be into the maiming business when he doesn’t
get his way. Now he’s into the burning business.
But he pulls them off, build a tower, build it big, build
it for of the world to see. And not only is there a tower
being built, an idol, an obelisk, or whatever it is being built,
but there’s the party planning committee, right? They’ve got
to have a ticker tape parade. All tyrants do. Hitler did. Stalin
did. Hussein did. Kim, over in, little
Kim, or whatever his name is, over there in North Korea, they
do it. They strike up the band. They
roll out the tanks. They fly their flags and they
get their millions coerced into coming to the party and singing
Happy Birthday or Hail Chief or whatever it is. And so while
this thing is being built, the rehearsals are taking place,
they’re cutting up the papers and sending invitations. At last
it’s built. It’s the big day. Daniel’s three
friends, not Daniel, notice he’s not in the story. He’s probably
still in the palace doing something important because he’s been promoted.
But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are called to join in the festivities. And so here’s paganism at its
best. Here’s an egocentric man saying,
here’s our God, worship it or else. Now let’s think about piety
for a moment. We’ve got a little there on paganism.
How about piety? They won’t eat the king’s food.
They won’t defile themselves with the king’s diet. They’re
Jewish. They’re children of Yahweh. They won’t assimilate into Babylon
or serve their gods. Remember, of their piety, not
just their diet, but their prayer meeting. Oh God, we’re dead meat
if we don’t interpret this dream. Oh no, we’ve got to tell the
dream first and then interpret it. And so they’re men of prayer.
And we think about the pressure that we have as we live life.
The pressure to be pious or to give in and compromise to the
world. The godly pressure, a good thing. God calls us to be faithful.
He promises reward. He gives us the strength. But
the pressure in this world to give up our morals, to put away
our character, to say so what to God requires. Here’s a question
for you from our passage. What if it’s the Lord’s will
for you to die over true worship? That’s been the case in centuries
past. It’s been the case in our denomination’s
history, the killing times in Scotland in the late 1600s. Worship
this way or else. No, we must worship that way.
Or look just north of the border, our Canadian brethren, particularly
in the Western province, I read of it every single day, a new
threat because a pastor wants to hold worship. on the Lord’s
Day, and it’s against health codes in their province. Some
of these pastors have gone to jail. Some of these pastors are
facing fines with lots of zeros on the back ends of them. Some
of these pastors have spent a month or better in jail in recent days
simply for holding public worship. So what if it’s the Lord’s will
for you to suffer or even die? for the true worship of Yahweh.
Our piety is important. And it’s important for us to
obey God and to please God and to glorify him at all times,
even if someone says, don’t you dare. Even if someone says, if
you do, it’ll be your neck. But these temptations, these
pressures come to us in all kinds of ways. That’s the third P we
wanna look at. We’ve got paganism. We’ve got
the piety, the piety of Daniel’s three friends. But how about
the pressure? There’s the pressure of the edict. Oh, king, live
forever. You’ve made an edict. When we
hear, did you, how many times did I read it? When the satraps
and the petraps and the whatever else, they’re all gathered, had
about seven or eight. And then when all these things
are tooting and strumming and whatever else these instruments
do, when the band strikes up, you better bow. I mean, there’s
an edict. This guy’s a maniac. He’s a tyrant.
He’s probably got monitors. There’s a big brother, right?
We’ll know if you don’t. How in the world out of thousands
of people did they notice three? Three not worshiping the idol.
Three not bowing down. Well, it was a malicious tattle-telling,
the Bible tells us. But there’s pressure. Everyone’s
doing it. Everyone’s there. Register with the government.
Have your vaccine passport. In a day and age when we have
just suffered through, what, 10 years of medical reform and
we have this act, I forget the name of it all of a sudden, the
HIPAA Act, yes. No one has the right to know your medical history.
Well, you’re unvaccinated. Right? We’re living in a time
of pressure. You want your toddler to go to school, got to stick
him. They just passed a law, I think, in the District of Columbia.
A teacher has the right to give your child a shot without you
knowing. And what if you, on the next
day, go to the pediatrician, and they haven’t told you because
they don’t want a lawsuit, and your child gets a second dose?
What a world we live in. But that’s the pressure. Or how
about workplace conformity? There’s not only the vaccinated
and the unvaccinated, there’s the mask wearers and the non-mask
wearers, or maybe you work in a corporate office and that corporate
office wants to be able to say to the whole world, our office
gives more to the United Way, but you’d rather give your money
to the church or to world missions or to a family that you specifically
know and need. And so when the office pool goes
around and you say, I declined to give to The United Way. Or how about this? I love it
when you’re at the checkout line. Sir, would you like to round
up for the children? No, I wouldn’t. And I’ve learned
to say I give through my church. but don’t you feel like a big
jerk who doesn’t care about juvenile diabetes or whatever the cause
is, or children over in Alabama don’t have soccer balls because
you’re at Dick’s Sporting Goods, or whatever the case may be.
There’s pressure, pressure, pressure, and there’s tattling, tattling,
tattling, and where do we find Daniel’s three friends? They’re
in front of the king. Nobody gets in front of the king,
and we read he is furious. He is angry, he’s red in the
face, he’s screaming mad, he’s ranting and raving and he’s walking
back and forth and he is heating up his furnace because they are
going in it. Well, there’s another P and it’s
the word persuaded. And it’s how we as people of
faith, how we have to live. And do you catch the attitude
of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Nebuchadnezzar, we really don’t
care what you think. We really don’t care how mad
you are. We’re paying no attention to
you. The tattletale said we’re not,
and no, we’re not. Did you catch earlier in the
passage the king made an edict that you must worship? I jotted
a little note in my Bible. There’s a greater king, and he
made an edict to the people of Israel. You shall have no other
gods before me. But how quickly, when the pressure
is applied, how quickly we are not persuaded. We lose our convictions. Well, it won’t hurt this time.
And so we have a king who’s furious in rage. And he says to them,
essentially, good luck. You’re going into the fiery furnace
and no God can save you. You’re in my hands. What do they
say? We’re in God’s hands. Our God
whom we serve is able and he will deliver us, at least we’re
hoping so, if it’s his will, out of your hand. Did you catch
in that hymn we sang, if thou but suffer God to guide thee?
Did you catch that word leisure? We think of leisure as a day
at the beach. We think of leisure as a stroll through the park
with a parasol. We think of leisure as sitting outside Starbucks,
sipping a latte, something like that. Leisure is God’s pleasure.
What if it’s his pleasure for them to burn? What if it’s his
pleasure for you to suffer? What if it’s his pleasure for
you to die? He will deliver us out of your hand. Nevertheless,
we will not serve or worship.” They are fully persuaded. The music can play. The crowd
can go on and on. And did you catch the second
chance Nebuchadnezzar gives them? Remember, he kind of likes the
Hebrews. They’re 10 times smarter. They’re better dream interpreters.
they’re better looking than his people. All the rest that we
learned in chapter one, he’s partial to them. But did you
catch? He gives them another chance.
So we’re going to take it from the top here. I’m going to count
to three and the horns are going to toot, the strings are going
to strum, the people are going to bow and you just do it. Get right on in there and do
it. And when they say no, His countenance changes toward them.
He doesn’t care any longer that God has been favorable to them.
He doesn’t care that their buddy Daniel interpreted the dream
and he had promoted all four of them in his capital city endeavors. Nevertheless, they are persuaded,
we will not serve or worship. We will remain undefiled. We will honor Yahweh. We will
keep, hold fast our creed. Remember some of the stories
of martyrs. Will you renounce Almighty God?
I think of Polycarp, the man in the early church. He said,
whatever numbers of years I’ve lived, Jesus has been faithful
to me. I will not be unfaithful to him
at the very end. And so you think about the pressures
you face. Are you persuaded? that whatever
your God ordains is right, but he is worthy of our worship no
matter what. Well, there’s a final P here. It’s protected. You read of the
details of Nebuchadnezzar’s royal buffoonery here. I mean, he is
hopping mad. He is not going to be outdone
by these Hebrews. Let’s heat up the furnace. Seven
times. Now, some of you are fireplace
people, right? There’s only so much heat your
fireplace can withstand, or you’re gonna have a chimney fire, or
a wood stove fire, and he forgot to read the little stamp on the
side of his fiery furnace. Only heated up to so many degrees. Oh, but he wants that thing stoked.
There’s a apocryphal story called the Prayer of Azariah. And in
the era of the Greek influence in Palestine after Ezra and Nehemiah
and until the coming of Jesus, there’s about 400 years of silence
in the Bible, but wouldn’t you know it, people made up some
books of the Bible. They’re not in our Bibles, they’re
apocryphal, they’re deutero or second canon, we call them. But
there’s this prayer of Azariah and it’s fascinating. It’s the
prayer of one of the guys in the, in the furnace. And to say what’s missing here
is if God and his perfect inspiration of the scriptures didn’t put
enough details. You know, we like to add more and it’s got
to be sensational. It says that they stoked the fire up so much
they kept adding pitch and wood and hay and stubble and whatever
else they could get in there. And if they had unleaded fuel
at the time, they would have probably said that and they were
throwing kerosene on it too. But they said the fire was so great
that the flames came out 70 feet into the air. Now that’s a big
house fire. You hear the sirens, you ride
by a good fire, you see it on Fox 8 at night, the flames licking
up into the trees. That’s a big fire. That’s a hot
fire. That’s probably not apocryphal that this was a big fire, but
we don’t need the prayer of Azariah to help us. But notice, Notice
the details, not just seven times hotter. They had their cloaks,
their tunics, their hats. They had their other garments.
Think about snow days when you get bundled up. You’ve got your
toboggan and your ear warmers and your neck warmers, and you’ve
got your long underwear on, you’ve got your sweatshirt on, you’ve
got your undercoat on, your overcoat on, and you’re like that kid. Christmas carol or whatever it
is where he can’t walk, he’s stuck out like this, that’s a
Christmas story. Yeah, it’s almost like Nebuchadnezzar wanted them
to be dry as kindling. Let’s put them in there and let’s
see the flame get as big as possible. So you get the royal buffoonery
here of Nebuchadnezzar. A seven times hotter fire, the
cloaks. Joke’s on him as executioners.
They can’t get near the flame. The three fall into the fire. and they’re protected. What does
Nebuchadnezzar see as he peeks in? Well, he’s astonished. It says in verse 24, he rises
up in haste. He says, did we not put three
in? And there’s fourth. And there’s
a reference to the son of man, a Christophany, most likely an
appearance of Christ. And he calls them out and he
has his, People look at them. There’s not a singe or a smell
of burning. Their snow gear, their cloaks
are just fine. What does this passage tell us?
Well, it tells us there’s maniacs in the world, right? There’s
Nebuchadnezzar. But bigger than that, it tells us we will face
the call to compromise. And we have to be persuaded that
our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the workplace
pressures, from the vaccine passports, the big brother. Our God is able
to protect us when the government says, no, you can’t worship because
your people will spread diseases. You’ll be a super spreader. We’ve
got to take care not to compromise, especially in the area of worship.
And maybe the pressure to compromise comes from without. No, you can’t
worship. But we give up so easily, don’t
we? We’ve become in the last 34 years a nation of sports on
Sunday. I remember hearing someone once
say when the NFL wanted to move from Monday night football to
Sunday football on ABC. People said, no, the religious
right won’t have it. That was back in the days of
the religious right, the Falwell movement. No, these are Sabbath-keeping,
Sabbath-observing, church-going people. Sunday football won’t
make it. Well, guess what? Sunday football has made it,
and it’s on Monday, and it’s on Friday night, and it’s on
Saturday, and it is a household idol in our nation. Churches
closed to watch, what is it? The Super Bowl. It’s not the
Lord’s Day anymore. It’s Super Bowl Sunday. We’re
called to compromise and we’re just happy to do it. Happy to
advance in the world. Well, we need to think about
compromise. We need to think about being
persuaded. We need to think about when God calls us and commands
us in areas of worship, we ought to do it. Well, what if it gets
hard? Well, we love to sing amazing
grace. And we love that line, through many dangers, toils and
snares, I have already come. His grace has brought me safe
thus far. And how does it end? Grace will
lead me home. Let’s pray together. Our Father,
we thank you that when we face the fiery furnace or the maniac
king, we can do so fully persuaded that you are able to rescue us
from the hands of men and keep us safe in the arms of Jesus
our Savior. We pray that you bless us with
this truth deep in our hearts and on the forefront of our minds.
In the name of Christ, amen.