Daniel (Week 3) - No Other God Can Save in This Way

The scripture reading for today comes from Daniel 3.

Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these men were brought before

the king, and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, Is it true,

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or

worship the image of gold that I have set up?

Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre,

harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall

down and worship the image I made, very good.

But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately

into a blazing furnace. Then what God will be able to

rescue you from my hand? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

replied to him. King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not

need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.

If we are, if we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we

serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from

Your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want

you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or

worship the image of gold you have set up.

This is the word of the Lord in the centre of Pyongyang, North

Korea. 2 enormous bronze statues tower over the city.

Previously gold plated, they depict Kim Illinois Sung and Kim

Jong Illinois, the former rulers of North Korea.

Locals approach in lines and are required to place flowers at

their feet, and also they're told to bow as a group together

in unison as solemn music plays around the clock.

So even tourists are instructed to photograph the statues in

their entirety. No close-ups, please.

OK, apparently dictators have a good side and a bad side, just

like us. I get it.

OK. But North Korea became so

skilled at building enormous monuments to its own rulers that

it actually began to export the service to others.

So they would produce, like, heroic bronze versions of

presidents and revolutionaries and strong men, especially

across Africa. And so basically, North Korea

has its own Etsy for authoritarians.

You can create your own statue, apparently.

OK. But this is more than just, you

know, respect for two deceased leaders.

North Korea's built an entire system around reverence for the

Kim family. The portraits appear throughout

public life. Their stories are taught almost

like their sacred history, and loyalty to the leader is treated

as loyalty to the nation. This is what authoritarian power

often does. It takes political loyalty, and

it gives it the shape of worship.

It raises an image. It gathers the people,

choreographs the response, and it's all under the banner of

unity. And it makes sure everyone knows

what happens to those who refuse.

So power hungry leaders rise, they demand loyalty and they

present themselves as the answer.

Just follow me. Give me all the power, right?

And often times what they'll do is they'll twist religion or

twist tradition in order to garner favour and to secure

control and to villainize those opposed.

We've seen it all throughout history.

Now, for us here today, the temptation to submit our

allegiance to the powers is usually a bit more subtle than

being forced down to bow down to like, you know, giant bronze

statues in North Korea. But whether you're at work or

with your peers or you're just out and about in our culture,

right, we will eventually feel pressured to a decision point of

loyalty. We will eventually be confronted

with the choice to compromise in some way or not.

Have you ever felt that before? It's coming for all of us.

The question for us is not whether the forces of the world

will demand your allegiance. The question is, what will we do

when we're pushed to give in? For example, your boss may

expect you to compromise honesty to hit sales goals or protect

the company. Or maybe it's believing you must

completely identify with one ideological tribe or political

party just to belong. Maybe it's remaining silent

because I don't want to rock the boat or whatever it is, right?

We are all faced with these moments of compromise, so how

can we have the moral clarity and personal conviction to

withstand the enormous pressures of resisting compromise in our

fallen world? In other words, let me put it

this way, how can we remain faithful in an unfaithful time?

In Daniel chapter 3, if you want to begin turning there, we see

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

this same dilemma playing out involving our four young men who

were taken off into exile, their foreign ruler, Nebuchadnezzar.

He raises up an image, gathers the leaders, and then demands

that everyone bow. And the three young friends from

Judah of the royal family, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

have some choices to make. Now, those are not their real

names, by the way. So I encourage you to check out

our previous sermons on our website as we've gone into

Daniel if you missed the last couple weeks, but we are

continuing on in a Daniel sermon series.

So if you have your physical Bibles, turn to Daniel chapter

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

3, if you could. We always encourage getting that

physical Bible in front of you. Otherwise it'll be on the

screens as well. Daniel three.

So the context here is that Daniel and his friends have been

taken to a place where they don't belong.

They're living far from Judah, which is their home, and they're

in exile in Mesopotamia around the year 600 BC, so long before

Jesus. They're not in just some random

village. They're in Babylon, which is the

world superpower at the time, and it's also an archetype of

opposition towards righteousness under King Nebuchadnezzar.

It's an archetype of the patterns of what happens with

powerful rulers that are wicked. So up into this point, Daniel,

Daniel and his friends have found like really great success

in chapters 1 and 2. They refuse to divide themselves

with Babylon's food and drink, and God gave them supernatural

health and vitality. In chapter 2, Daniel offered

divine wisdom to the king when all other forms of man made

knowledge failed. So up until now, they haven't

had any major conflicts. Things have been going pretty

darn well until chapter 3 rolls around.

All right, so let's dive in. Chapter 3, verse one.

This is what it says here in the word King Nebuchadnezzar made an

image of gold, 60 cubits high and six cubits wide, and set it

up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisors,

treasurers, judges and magistrates, and all the other

provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he

had set up. So the satraps, prefects,

governor's advisors, treasures, judges, magistrates, and all the

other provincial officials assembled for the dedication of

the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and

they stood before it. Verse 4.

Then the herald loudly proclaimed nations and people of

every language. This is what you are commanded

to do. As soon as you hear the horn

sound of the horn, flute, zither, liar, harp, pipe, and

all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image

of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be

thrown into a blazing furnace. Yikes, the stakes are high.

So here we see that the king has created this really tall image

in the plain of Dura, which would have been like a walled

suburb of the great city. And Nebuchadnezzar is expecting

to have this singular moment of uniform worship from all of his

major officials. And so he creates this sort of

massive obelisk like structure, 90 feet tall, and it's likely

plated with gold. So historically, images like

these weren't uncommon in the ancient Near East.

For instance, ancient societies would often depict their gods

through handmade idols like this.

In fact, ancient Mesopotamians, they would even bathe their

gods, their idols, their images, they would feed them, they would

carry them around and that sort of thing, and they'd have

structures built for them, maybe similar to the Greek Parthenon.

Another example of such a depiction of a statue like this

from ancient history would be if you've ever heard of the

Colossus of Rhodes. Ever heard of that?

There's kind of a depiction of that on the screen, but it was

this massive 108 foot bronze statue of the Greek God Helios,

who apparently is jacked by the way.

Great bod on Helios there. A little bit jealous.

But anyway, it was built on the islands of road and celebrated

like military victory. And it's actually one of the

wonders of the ancient world. Unfortunately, it collapsed in

an earthquake 54 years later. Evidently they just didn't have

the building codes like we do OK, should have called North

Korea for their statue. But anyway, and as we see here

in Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar is having this grand ceremony and

demanding that all of Babylon's officials be represented to

worship the golden image. Now, we don't know exactly what

the image was of, whether it was of Nebuchadnezzar himself, which

could have been possible because the statue of with the gold head

in the previous chapter was of Nebuchadnezzar.

Or it could have been a statue of the gods, like the God

Marduk, since it was less common for Mesopotamian rulers to sort

of deify themselves in that way like we saw in ancient Egypt.

What's more important than discovering what the statue was

is that we discover why it was set up.

Theologian Joyce Baldwin writes this about the grand dedication.

She says the fact that all peoples, nations and languages

were to fall down in worship suggests that Nebuchadnezzar

intended to unite his Kingdom under one religion.

One topical encyclopaedia reiterates this.

It says such images were often used to unify diverse

populations under a common religious or political system.

What's going on here? So Babylon captured and hosted

men and women from all over this region and with so many gods and

religions and allegiances and intentions.

And so the king, he makes use of this religious image to unify

them all under his mighty hand through violence.

You tracking so far? It sort of reminds me of like

the One Ring in Lord of the Rings.

OK, 1 golden image to rule them all, one image to find them one.

OK, I'm I'm not going to do the whole thing, but you get the

point. Daniel 37, verse 7.

Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, flute,

zither, liar, harp, and all kinds of music, all the nations

and people of every language fell down and worshipped the

image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

So for us, we we hear this story and the idea of bowing down and

worshipping a giant statue, I mean, it seems so archaic,

right? Like, we don't even have a

framework in our minds for for such a thing, do we?

I mean, imagine for a moment, OK, imagine for a moment that

this decree went out and all the White House officials had to bow

together to the Statue of Liberty, right?

And imagine they all had to bow in unison to the Statue of

Liberty while like Bruce Springsteen is blaring over the

speakers, like under penalty of death of being thrown into the

New York harbour, right? Like, that would raise a couple

of red flags for us. We don't have a framework for

that. And part of what we appreciate

about our culture is that we have the right to choose to

pledge our allegiance to it or not, right, without being

risking being thrown into like a fiery brick kiln like the

Mesopotamians. But for the Babylonians, they

apparently had no trouble bowing down in this moment to this new

image, this new God. Their polytheistic worldview

made it easier for them to bow down and worship the latest

image set up by the powers. After all, when you have so many

idols, what's the big deal about slipping one more in?

This is a culture where the king gets what he wants, and if you

want to get ahead in his courts, you play ball and give him what

he wants. And so here, in this moment of

choice, the author of Daniel is intensifying this moment.

Dana Nolan Fellow writes it this way.

Through repetition of the list of officials and instruments,

the narrator creates a scenario in which conformity is normative

and disobedience is unthinkable, right?

It's unthinkable that you wouldn't bow down in this moment

with all of these instruments, all the officials, everything

that's going on, like all of the energy is moving towards

everyone bowing down in this moment.

It's kind of like like if you've ever been to a baseball game and

they start the wave, you know, it's like across the stadium,

you start to see it, right? They're all raising up and

slowly it's intensifying and it's coming around the stadium

towards you, right? And though it's like growing and

everyone's doing it and in that moment you have a choice, right?

And you're almost like compelled, you got to get up and

do this ridiculous motion like those inflatable men that the

used car salesman, right? And like all of the energy is

heading towards that moment, right?

And so here it's kind of like that.

And instead of like a, you know, a wave at a baseball game,

you're, you're bowing down like a demon God in ancient

Mesopotamia. Same energy though, right?

But the point is the same, to not bow down in that moment, to

not bow down in that moment would have been unthinkable

unless you're from Judah, home of the city of David, God's

people. Verse 8.

Here's what happens next. At this time some astrologers

came forward and denounced the Jews or the Judaites.

They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, May the king

live forever. Your Majesty has issued A decree

that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute,

zither, lyre, harp, and pipe, and all kinds of music, must

fall down and worship the image of gold, and that whoever does

not fall down and worship will be thrown into the blazing

furnace. Verse 12.

But there are some Jews whom you have set up over the affairs of

the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,

who pay no attention to you, Your Majesty.

They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you

have set up. So we discussed this group of

people, these astrologers called the Chaldeans, last week.

These would have been people trained in the books and the

literature and all of the wisdom of divination and omen reading.

And evidently they have a serious bone to pick with these

foreigners, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who have been

elevated at this point to administrators over the

province. And notice they're provoking

language in verse 12 as they address this prideful king,

right? They say.

They say things like the Jews whom you have set up over the

affairs. They pay no attention to you,

your gods, you get the picture. Provoking.

They're intentionally playing to the King's emotions to condemn

their coworkers. And you thought your office

culture was toxic? OK, Like, this is bad.

It reminds me of this scene from the movie Rogue One, one of the

best Star Wars movies of all time.

Yes, I'm going to say that. OK.

And great scene where the the kind of director, the person

who's in charge of building the Death Star or Synchronic, he's

displaying the incredible destructive power of the death *

and he finally is able to kind of showcase it.

And he's hoping his achievement will win him favour and

influence with a powerful Darth Vader and with the Emperor.

But who swoops in to steal his glory?

Who takes command? Grand Moff Tarkin, of course,

betrayal. OK.

And then who kills Krenik with his own creation?

Grand Moff Tarkin? Right now, that's cold even for

the Empire. OK.

And in the similar way, the Chaldeans are out for blood

because these young men don't bow the knee to the King's God.

This is the culture of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar.

It's backbiting, vying for power, violence, jealousy.

This is the way of the world under those under authoritarian

reign, right? But we also see this played out

on a micro level even in our world today, do we not?

Throwing your Co worker Becky under the bus because she took

too much PTO so you can get the promotion, OK?

Demonizing political opponents rather than engaging them to

rile up your voters, right? We see this play out, this

jealousy and this backbiting for power all over in our world even

today. These three young friends may

have gotten away with bowing down to this image had it not

been for these astrologers, power hungry, grabbing for for

power and influence, and had it not been for Nebuchadnezzar's

pride and his power threatening or our power being threatened.

And so here we see the result of of both of this.

Verse 13. Verse 13, Furious with rage,

Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

So these men were brought before the king, and Nebuchadnezzar

said to them, Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,

that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have

set up? Now when you hear the sound of

the horn, flute, zither, liar, heart, pipe, and all kinds of

music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I

made, very good. But if you do not worship it,

you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace.

And don't miss this last question, he says.

Then what God will be able to rescue you from my hand?

Oh, so here the young men are given a second chance to make a

choice. Bow or die.

But we. See, this question come from

Nebuchadnezzar, which really sets up the entire theme of this

whole chapter. He asks then, what God will be

able to rescue you from my hand? You see the young men from Judah

had defied the King's God and now the king is defying their

God in chapter 2. Before this we we saw where the

true source of wisdom comes from and now here Nebuchadnezzar is

about to see where the true source of power comes from.

Their response is absolutely incredible.

I love this verse 16 so good. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego

replied to him. King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not

need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we

serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from

Your Majesty's hand. But.

Even if he does not, we want you to know, your Majesty, that we

will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you

have set up. Wow.

Nebuchadnezzar asks. What God will be able to rescue

you? And what's the men's response?

They gently but confidently say the God we serve is able to

deliver us from it. That's who.

He. Alone has the power to save and

he can deliver us from you to Nebuchadnezzar and check this

out. They don't just stop there.

They say even if he does not, we will not serve your gods or

worship the image who has the power to save us.

They say only Yahweh, only God himself.

Will he do it? We sure hope so.

But. Even if we knew he wouldn't,

even if we knew we wouldn't be spared, we still will not bow a

knee to any other fake God. That's what they're saying here.

We will not serve your gods. Wow.

This is why the men don't try to defend themselves in this

moment. They were technically guilty.

They went against the law and the rule of the day.

And yet, even in the face of the death of death, they make their

position crystal clear. We can't do it.

We won't do it. Why?

What gave them such conviction? Right.

Like, what was it that gave them such moral strength to be able

to make such an impossible choice against opposition?

You see, for these young Jewish men bowing down to a foreign

God, it was completely incompatible with their core

identity, with their core beliefs, and with their story.

Think about it. These young men had grown up in

the noble courts of Judah and would have been well trained in

the accounts of Israelites and Moses and the Exodus right?

The image of gold was a clear violation of the 10

commandments, specifically number one and two, which reads

this from Exodus 20. I am the Lord your God, who

brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

This is what God says. You shall.

Have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself

an image in the form of anything in heaven above, or on the earth

beneath or in the waters below. These men knew that the statue

of Gold wasn't the real God, and they also knew that the real God

didn't need any image made by human hands to represent him,

because the one true God, Yahweh, already had an image to

represent him. The image is the.

Imago Day humanity itself. Humanity the.

Ones Genesis reveals are made in his likeness, right?

His image isn't a golden statue. It's us.

It's his people who live and rule and reign and steward his

creation. So, so get this, check this out

for a moment, In this moment where every single person is

bowing down to this golden image.

It's actually a face off between the gods.

On the one side you have the man made image of a false God or a

ruler, and yet on the other side, facing them, standing up

strong, you have these men made in the image and likeness of the

one true God, Yahweh, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were

representing God himself in that moment as his image bearers.

They knew their identity and they knew their story.

They knew who they were. You catch that?

It's a face off between the image of God and the image of

false gods. The plot thickens as

Nebuchadnezzar is about to mess around and find out where real

power comes from. Here's what it says in verse 19,

Verse 19. Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious

with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in his attitude toward

them changed. In the original language, it's

interesting. And it says his image changed

that. Interesting.

He ordered the furnace heated 7 times hotter than usual and

commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing

furnace. So these men, wearing their

robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and

thrown into the blazing furnace. The King's command was so urgent

and the furnace was so hot that the flames of the fire killed

the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

And these three. Men firmly tied fell into the

blazing furnace. Notice here how extreme the

King's reaction is when his control is challenged.

Nebuchadnezzar is crashing out. OK, he he is spiraling.

Neb is a mess, all right. Whereas the three boys death

would have brought glory to the God they serve, here we see the

meaningless death of the soldiers at the hand of the

power hungry ruler. It's meaningless.

There's no point. But then something.

Happens verse 24. Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped

to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors.

Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?

They. Replied certainly, your Majesty,

he said. Look, I see four men walking

around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks

like the son of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar then approached

the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God,

come out. Come here.

So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire,

and the sage traps, prefects, governors and royal advisors

crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not

harmed their bodies. Not not, nor was a hair of their

head singed. Their robes were not scorched,

and there was no smell of fire on them.

Amazing. It's this.

Chapters remarkable climax right where we see these young men

delivered by God from certain death.

Where they once. Were bound, they're now free.

Where they should have been burned, they're now unscathed.

And so. Whether the the person that 4th

man in the fire, whether he was, you know, an Angel of God or

whether he was Jesus himself. We're not quite.

Sure, but what we do know is this.

God. Met them in and delivered them

from the fire. He met them.

In and delivered them from the fire.

Because they were. Willing to stand up for God.

God had, now had. An opportunity to stand up for

them, and even though there was no promise that he'd saved them

from death, God was still with them.

What? Courage from these young Judean

nobles, right? I mean, think about that.

Where do you get such courage and such conviction, right?

And in, in my study this week, I began just like praying and

asking and searching the Scriptures, like where did I

work? How do you get that level of

just moral conviction? And.

You know, I began to do some study and I, you know, thought

back, of course, to the story of the golden cow.

Remember that one where the Israelites, you know, Moses is

gone for like 2 seconds and they're like, we don't know

what's going on. Let's build a cow and worship

it, OK. And there's like, serious

punishment that comes from them. I'm like, yeah, they would have

known that story. These three men.

They would have. They would have known that

story. But I'd like, like, is that it?

Is that enough to, like, really make them have this kind of

moral fiber and this conviction? And then I began to pray

further, and my mind was brought back to a time earlier.

The time. Of of this earlier story from

when the Israelites who are God's people, they're actually

in Egypt and the story of Moses and the Exodus, Exodus and God's

deliverance from power hungry Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt.

Remember that the story of the Passover and how the gods

plagues or the plagues sent by God ruled over or they they

defeated the Egyptian gods. These.

Plagues were a direct counter to Pharaoh's evil rule in God's or

in the Egyptian gods, right? And this was not merely just an

ancient story buried somewhere long ago in Israel's past, right

for for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the story of the

Passover, right where God delivered them and they put the

the blood on the lamb and the Angel, death passed over them.

They were free. They were set free.

The story of the Passover had actually actually recently been

brought back to the center of national life.

What do I mean? Just one generation earlier,

King Josiah of Judah, that that which is their homeland, had

rediscovered the book of the covenant.

And what he did was he tore down all the idols throughout the

land, and he called the people back to wholehearted worship of

the Lord. And what he did is he gathered

the nation in Jerusalem to remember the God who had once

broken Pharaoh's power, who had once delivered his people from

slavery and from the rule of the gods.

So what followed then in this moment was that the greatest

Passover celebration ever recorded in Israel's history

happened with the reign of King Josiah.

Check it out. This is what it says in Second

Kings. The king gave this order to all

the peoples. Josiah, celebrate the Passover

to the Lord your God as it is written in the book of the

Covenant. Neither in the days of the

judges who led Israel, nor in the days of the kings of Israel

and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed.

In other words, we see elsewhere that like they found out, they

they revitalize the Passover and the story, their story of being

delivered out of the hands of Egypt.

And here we see the celebration of Passover like they hadn't

seen for centuries. Here's the point.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego belonged to the generation born

during Josiah's great revival of the Passover, so they may have

been carried and raised as children into the greatest

Passover celebration Judah had seen in centuries, growing up in

homes where the Passover story was front and center in their

hearts and minds. OK, let me just frame this for

us. Imagine you're like a young

child. You're maybe 2-3, four years

old, whatever. You're a young child and your

parents bring you to the greatest 4th of July celebration

of all time, right? We're talking about professional

fireworks filling the sky for hours.

We're talking about bald eagles somehow flying in formation

together, right? Followed by B2 bombers dropping

red, white and blue smoke in the sky, right?

Hot dogs the size of your arm, all right, Even the toddlers are

waving flags and yelling freedom, right?

Like this is the idea. And you may as a young kid in

this in this party, you may not understand every speech, you

remember every detail, but the message still gets into you.

The message that we were delivered.

We are free and we will never forget who got us here, right?

We would have that baked into US church in the same way.

Check this out. In the same way, during their

most formative years, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's family

likely experience the same powerful reinstitution and

celebration of the Passover. Under King Josiah, there was a

complete and total resurgence around this singular idea.

God delivered us from the gods and rulers of the day.

For the Judeans growing up during the sweeping

revitalization of the Passover, it was central to their story.

It was baked into their DNA. There was one simple message

embedded deep in their souls, and it was this.

If God. Can deliver then.

He can deliver. Now I'll say it again, if God

can deliver, then, He can deliver now.

That was their. Conviction.

That was their confidence. So where did it come from?

It came from their trust in that their trust in the one true God

over false gods and prideful rulers, right?

And even King Nebuchadnezzar in this moment had to acknowledge

where true power comes from. Verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar said

praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego

who has sent his Angel and rescued his servants.

They trusted him and defied the King's command, and were willing

to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any God

except their own God. Therefore, I decree that the

people of any nation or language who will say anything against

the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be cut into pieces,

and their houses be turned into rubbles.

Check this out, for no other God can save in this way.

Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the

province of Babylon. What does Nebuchadnezzar say

here about the three, three men? He says they trusted him.

They trusted in him. Nebuchadnezzar.

In this moment he answers his own question from earlier, which

is the central theme of this chapter.

Check this out. Nebuchadnezzar goes from asking

what God will be able to rescue you to answering no other God

can save in this way. That's the story of this

chapter. Yeah, you can clap for that.

What God will be able to rescue you?

No other God will be able to save in this way.

What? Unshakable faith by these young

men. An incredible story of God's

deliverance. And so for us here.

Today, right? Like I think the question is

like, how can we have the same level of confidence in the Lord?

How do we get that? How do we have?

Unshakable faith during shaky times.

A few quick things. First, let me say this.

First, I think we must honestly identify which idols we are

tempted to both worship and serve in our day.

We have to. Honestly identify like who are

we tempted to serve and worship? What idols are we faced with

here and now? Right, Why did all the other

Babylonians bow down in this moment, right?

It's because they'd already opened opened up their lives to

multiple gods. They'd already opened up their

hearts. They were polytheistic.

They welcomed in all the latest gods and trends and influences,

right? Like whatever the king over me

worships, I worship too. And they lacked knowledge and

belief and conviction in the one true God, right?

So church here today, we have to recognize that by by nature.

By. Nature, our hearts are prone to

welcoming in many idols as well. The hard reality, but it's true.

Meaning. We are constantly being pulled

and seduced to trust created things to bring us joy and

relief. We long for right rather than

trusting in God to give us those things.

John Calvin, he's a famous theologian.

He puts it this way. I love this man's nature, so to

speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

As in like, like, by nature, you and I, like, we just keep making

up idols to worship. We're like, oh, the idol is

success. Yep, I'm going to create that in

my heart, right? We just keep pumping them out on

the conveyor belt. Philosopher and theologian Paul

Tillich calls this the ultimate concern.

He writes whatever concerns a man ultimately becomes God for

him. Wow.

So what is what is your greatest concern right now?

What's your ultimate concern if you're honest?

Church You. And I have so many different

affections, let's be honest. So many different affections

vying for our attention and trying to make room in our

hearts today, myself included. The perfect life, the perfect

family. The maximized schedule or the

balanced calendar? Comfort, ease, security, the

dream home, the vacation, the career, whatever it is.

Am I speaking to anyone so far? OK, Is it just me?

The show stopping body? Come on.

We all want to look like the sun God.

Helios, right? Still thinking about Helios.

OK, Who's ripped? OK.

How about the desire to have influence, to be known, to go

viral? Whatever.

How about that? Relationship.

To fulfil my. Needs and my desires.

Look, it's not that all of these things are bad in and of

themselves, because they're not. But the.

Danger is that we're tempted to elevate these things to a place

of ultimate concern in our life. Does that make sense?

It's to elevate them to a place higher than God.

So when we do that, God just becomes one more thing in the

frenzy and fray of all of these lesser affections, right?

And so when we promote these lesser gods, these things vying

for our attention, these desires, when we promote them,

we're demoting the prime priority of the one true God.

In other words, when we lift up idols in our hearts, we bring

God down or we attempt to, and the result is that God just

becomes, you know, just one more thing we turn to when we're in

need, when we feel like it. Look, we got to be honest here.

We got to be honest about what's actually vying for our hearts,

desires and attentions. So let me put it this way.

Let me put it this way, Church, who or what sits on the throne

of your heart? If you're really honest, what do

you find yourself being most concerned with day-to-day?

What's grabbing at your attention and what are you

ascribing value and glory in allegiance to?

What are you worshipping? Look church, to remain faithful

and unfaithful times, we must choose to reject lesser idols or

ultimate concerns. Who do you really trust will

save you when you're in a predicament?

Who do you trust to? Liberate you from your anxious

thoughts. Ease your.

Burdened mind or deliver you from your struggles, you just be

honest about it. Maybe for you, for for many,

maybe for you, it's the idol of addiction, right?

Like chasing the next high and hoping that it'll bring you some

kind of relief or comfort, right?

Maybe it's alcohol or it's drugs, or it's sex, or it's

shopping, or it's your phone or whatever, right?

And if that's you today, like we're not here to shame you in

that, that's not the goal. But we are here to tell you that

there is a God who loves you, who has the power to deliver

you. Who wants to?

Deliver you. Do you want that for others of

of you? Maybe it's the power or the idol

of of of power, right? Maybe you feel like me that you

need to have control all the time, right?

Confession time. Maybe it's a climbing higher in

the corporate ladder to make sure you have enough resources.

Maybe it's making yourself more influential so that you'll be

unwoundable by others. Whatever it is, maybe for you

it's power. Or maybe it's.

The the idol of a relationship, right?

Like rather than trusting in God's will, you you're instead

bowing to the will of a spouse or a kid or boss or a neighbor

or whatever in an unhealthy way. Look, whatever it is for you, we

all have them. We all have idols creeping in.

I just. Want us to?

Ask and have you ask the question, who or what is of

ultimate concern to you and your life right now?

Who or what are you? Turning to to fulfil a need that

God himself in his gracious love is eager to fulfill in your

life. Look, regardless of what it is,

all of idol worship comes back to the worship of self, of self.

And what I love about the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and

Abednego is that they weren't just defying the Babylon's God,

but in their humility they were defying the gods of self

preservation. Even if.

He does not. They said.

We will not serve your gods or worship the image.

You see the image of gold, that wasn't the one that had the

power. The image of gold wasn't the

threat. It's the love of self that is

the threat. It leads.

Down 1000 destructive paths when we let it.

And so how do we? Remain faithful and UN faithful

time. Second, we have to fix our eyes

completely on the one true image of God, Jesus Christ his Son.

Colossians 115 puts it this way. The Son is the image of the

invisible God, the first born over all creation.

Look. Nebuchadnezzar saw an saw an

image in the furnace that day, and it wasn't an image of some

golden beast with horns or wings or claws.

It was an image like God himself in human form.

It was an image like Jesus himself.

After Jesus lived, when Peter, his disciple, and the other

apostles were brought before the religious legal courts on the

charges of teaching that Jesus indeed had been crucified for

their sins and indeed had been risen again in the flesh and

under the threat of punishment of death, they boldly proclaimed

this. They said this.

They said we must obey God rather than human beings.

How did they have? Such courage.

They'd been with Jesus, they'd seen Jesus, they'd watched him.

They knew him, they embraced him, and they worshipped Him.

Their. Eyes were fixed on the one true

image of God, Jesus himself, the image of the invisible God.

Like the young Judeans in exile, you and I will have to face many

moments where the powers in the end that be pull at us right

demand our loyalty and invite us to bow.

Finally to. To be a stand up person in a bow

down world, we have to remember our story.

In the Exodus we see that God made a way for his people to be

saved from the gods and rulers of Egypt, and he did it by

demonstrating his power over the false gods of Pharaoh and

rescuing them from death through the blood of the Lamb.

He was with them as he parted the waters and LED them through

on dry ground, and he was with them as they travelled through

the wilderness until the promised land.

In other words, God made a way when there was no way.

That's the story. Notice the.

Language Moses uses to describe this deliverance in Deuteronomy

4 he says But As for you, the Lord took you and brought you

out of the what? Note the language iron smelting

furnace out of Egypt to be the people of his inheritance, as

you now are. He did it in their.

Story and he's done all of this and more in our story through

Jesus. So don't just remember our

story. Remember your story.

Remember what happened? When God met you, remember your

story of how God brought you out from the power of the false gods

and idols and affections. Remember your story, how the

spotless Lamb Jesus rescued you from sin and death and hell by

his blood. How in his perfect love God made

a way for you when death was surrounding you and there was no

other way out. Remember your story, how He

promises to never leave you or forsake you as you make your

pilgrimage through this life into the next?

Church is by. Remembering God's grand story of

redemption that we can remain faithful and an unfaithful time,

grateful in my story that God took me.

Took me from a. Path that was leading towards

destruction and self worship and idol worship and perversion and

all sorts of other mayhem. He took me out of that path, out

of that trajectory. He rescued me from that certain

death, and He led me instead on a path of restoration and

righteousness and goodness and love.

It's not from my own. Doing, I couldn't save myself,

but Jesus did it and he's done it for many of you in the room

as well. And, and if you're in the room

and you're not sure that he has done that for you, if you're not

sure you've been rescued in that way, the invitation for you

today is to simply acknowledge and place your faith in what

Jesus did on the cross for you. You see, we.

Were headed towards certain death and at just the right

time, Jesus came. He lived a perfect life.

He died for you and for me so that we can be reconciled and

reunited back to God. It's by placing our.

Faith by in God that God gives us His grace and we can enter

into His Kingdom, a Kingdom that lasts for all time long beyond

any rulers, long beyond any kingdoms of Babylon or Rome or

whatever. That's the invitation for you

today, and you can make that choice right now in your heart.

You just say God. God rescue me.

I know I'm on a. Path to destruction I don't know

where I'm headed experienced the deliverance from certain fire

and death because of the 4th man in the fire the very presence

and deliverance of God. So if you're here today and

you're feel like you're just like going through it, like you

feel like the, the furnace is at your feet, right?

You feel like you're stuck behind a rock and a hard place

and you don't see a way out. Maybe you're suffering, maybe

you're hurting, maybe you're in pain.

I, I want, I want to invite you to just remember one thing from

this story that God didn't save them from the fire.

He saved them within the fire. Right.

Like he didn't put out the flames.

He went into. The flames with them.

So if you're. In a situation today where

you're just like, I don't know what's going to happen out, I'm

being tempted to compromise in some way.

Would you just would you just remember that that God is with

you. He sees you, He knows you, He

gets it. Look, whatever trial you're in,

right? Like you can call on God's name

now, and you can know with confidence that even if he

doesn't take the suffering and the pain away, there's no

promise of that. He will.

Lead you through it to the other side, you hear me?

He will lead you through it to the other side, no matter what

fire you're in or what ruler is confronting you.

Whether you find yourself confronting a Red Sea or in a

burning desert or a finery furnace or a lion's den or

religious court or jail cell or an addiction or whatever it is,

God will be with you. He'll be with you.

Amen. He'll be with you.

This is how we remain faithful in a faithless age.

Reject idols, remember God's story and fix your eyes on the

true image, the true image who is Jesus himself.

If we do that, we can walk with confidence that no matter what

happens, no matter what happens, God will be present with us.