The Fiery Furnace

If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to the book of Daniel. We've been working our way through Daniel. And like last week, I do encourage you to bring your bible because although we usually can print all of the text, we won't be able to do that as we go through Daniel because some of the narratives are so long. Be sure to bring your bible next week. We're actually going to take a one week break from Daniel, and we're going to do something we do every four years at Redeemer.

It's going be a very different service. I'm going to take an hour, and I'm just going to walk through the whole bible. And so we're start with your table of contents, and then we're just going to walk through from Genesis to Revelation, and and I'll have two marker boards up here, and it's just going to be go time. So for an hour, we'll walk through the bible, so be sure to bring your bible next week. This is something we do every four years.

And I hope for those of you who've been part of this who are like, oh gosh, here we go again. Yes. I hope you could do that yourself and go all the way through the bible in such a short amount of time. Daniel chapter three, we won't read the whole chapter, but I am going to read a lot of it. I'm trying to start by reading first Peter four twelve, just like I have in the past weeks, just give one one verse to kind of frame what we're about to read.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Daniel three. 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 to gather the satraps, the the prefects, the governors and 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.

Then the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, and 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, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, 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 a burning fiery furnace. Therefore, as soon as all the people heard the sound of horn, pipe, lyre, trigun, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that king Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans 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, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, 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 a furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, Is it true, oh 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, trigun, harp, 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, oh 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 faith was... Face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated, And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their outer 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, 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 we not cast three men bound into the fire? They answered and said to him, 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.

This is the word of the lord. To god. You pray with me. Father, thank you for your word. I pray that you would bring clarity and conviction to this moment, that through your spirit, these words would become more than black ink on white pages, but they would come alive.

They would make us alive. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

When I I think I was 11 years old, for Christmas, I got a BB gun. I'm assuming my dad is the one who bought that, not my mom. It was the Daisy five fifty single action pump. And the reason it was called the five fifty is because in just one pump, it would shoot a BB 550 feet per second. My dad, he he sat me down and he he went over the rules, the gun rules.

He said, remember, son, this isn't a toy. This harm people. So remember, it's... Every gun is always a loaded gun. Remember that the safety...

Just always assume that the safety is off. Remember, the BBs can ricochet off something, and they could come back and hit you. I don't want you shooting this around anybody's houses or cars because it can break glass, and I don't want to I don't want to hear from an angry neighbor. And he said, although this won't likely break skin and you can't kill somebody with this, it's still dangerous. It could poke out someone's eye.

And so, that was the talk, and he thought he had really connected with me in that. Here was my takeaway. It won't kill anybody. So as long as my friends and I wear glasses, we can have BB gun wars. And so that's what we would do, is we would just...

Sorry, whoever it was, I just put a bad idea into a child. Listen to your parents. But I I thought that that was the point of what my dad was telling me. We just wear goggles, and we could go out and we could just shoot one another. And we did.

Nebuchadnezzar, the takeaway that he had from the dream last week, where he was the statue and the head of gold, but God's kingdom in the form of that rock was going to tear it all down. His takeaway from that was, statue. That's a good idea. And so, he decides from from a dream where the statue was going to be destroyed by the kingdom of God, he walks away thinking, yes, I'm going to build a statue. And so, doesn't learn anything.

Or he actually learns this, he goes, okay, I'll do it differently this time. This time, I won't make feet of clay. This time, I'll make the whole thing golden. So instead of that dream that we looked at last week leading Nebuchadnezzar to repentance, it actually led him into further defiance of God. He doesn't repent at all.

And what he does instead is he builds this giant image in order to unite his kingdom and to make it even stronger than ever, so that it would be a kingdom that doesn't ever crumble. Let's look at the statue that he erected. It stood 90 feet tall, nine feet wide, so it's really tall and narrow. We're told that the whole thing is overlaid with gold. Other than that, though, we really don't know anything about it, it's repeatedly just called an image, an image.

But with it being so tall and narrow, it likely wasn't an image of a person, it likely wasn't of Nebuchadnezzar, nor was it an image of a god. Babylon had many gods, but it's not an image of one of them because throughout the story, there's a clear distinction between the Babylonian gods and this image. So what is it? When you just look at the dimensions there, it seems to be a type of obelisk that was erected there as a monument. And, it's not representing Nebuchadnezzar, not representing any particular god, but it's perhaps representing all of those things together.

It's like a monument being erected that speaks to the greatness and the spirit of Babylon itself, and its purpose is to unify everyone in its worship to it. In other words, it's just another type of a Tower Of Babel created or being built likely on the very same space of the former Tower Of Babel. In Genesis 11, we read that the motivation for building the tower was that the people wanted to make a name for themselves, and they didn't want to be scattered over the face of the earth. They wanted to be great, and they didn't want to be divided. And so, built a monument to their strength and to their unity, and that's exactly what Nebuchadnezzar is doing here.

He makes this great golden image that every tongue, tribe, and nation must now bow down to. You see, Babylon was a very diverse place. In verse four, we we see it being described as made up of all different types of people, races, nations, languages. And this is because what Babylon did to Judah, it had done to all other nations, in which it it go and invade, and it would take the best from that nation, and it would import it into their society, the best of their philosophies, the best of their religions, and bring it in, just add to their gods. Babylon was a melting pot, if you will, a melting pot of all different languages and people and religions.

Nebuchadnezzar knew though that that could bring problem with it. The problem with having so many religions is if one of these religions says that they alone have access to truth and no one else does, that they alone know the path to salvation. And so, if any one of these religions becomes exclusive in their claims, it could divide the kingdom and the kingdom could come crumbling down. The only way Babylon had been able to exist so far is because of its religious and moral tolerance. And when you picture Babylon...

I mean, I I picture the chariots. They all have the the the coexist bumper stickers. The the neighborhoods, they have the hate doesn't live here. Just banners flying down that speak about their tolerance and love for one another as they're flying in all of the stores. In other words, it was fine for you to worship your god, to celebrate your religious holidays, to sing your worship songs, to read your holy books, as long as you were not so arrogant as to believe that you alone knew the way, that you alone had access to the truth.

And so to ensure that unity of the empire, Nebuchadnezzar, he sets up this image, and he says, everyone, everyone, every nation, every every race, every nationality, all the religions, everyone, you bow down to this idol, this image. You must worship the spirit of Babylon. And I don't think I have to do much to convince you that our culture is very similar. We're not asked to bow down to an actual image, but we are asked to bow down to the spirit of Babylon, and that tolerance is one of the highest, if not the highest virtue you could have. If you're a Christian and you go around saying that Jesus, he's the way or he is the truth, he is the life, and salvation is only to be found in him, well, that's going to be seen as extremely divisive.

It can even be seen as hateful. Remember the neighborhood association meeting that I told you guys about a couple of weeks ago, where I had to stand before the the neighborhood association, tell them about what we were building and doing, and it should have been a really easy thing, but the hate came out. And actually, one of the things that's interesting is they readily recognized all the good things our church was doing. I mean, and how we're we're tutoring, you know, at Avondale Elementary, working in the homeless shelter here. They've seen our our church serve in the community all these ways.

The problem was our claims as to who Jesus is and what we believe. And when that person came up and just said, after thirty minutes of just getting hammered up there and said, let's just let's just boil it down. Just cut to the chase. Does your church affirm same sex marriage or not? And when I told them our church does not, we hold a biblical view of marriage, the hate came out.

Absolutely came out. And this was one of the things that was said over and over and over. We're a very tolerant neighborhood. We're a very accepting neighborhood. And if you can't get on board, we don't want you here.

It's like, do you actually hear what you're saying? That you're very tolerant except for me and what I believe. Now, having said a word about what we're doing, but you're completely intolerant as to what I believe. What does Daniel have to teach us about those who bow down to the idols of the culture? Well, you probably noticed when we were reading it that there's a whole lot of repetition in this text.

I mean, even as I was reading this past time, was like, gosh, I gotta do this two more times. Just read all of this. One commentator, he said, when he read chapter three, he said, it's full of endless, redundant, verbose, superfluous, unnecessary, long and repetitive list. And he's not wrong. I mean, you look at just verses two and three.

King Nebuchadnezzar sent together the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all of the officials of all the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then, the satraps and the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, it just goes on and on. And I'm reading this, I'm thinking, doesn't the author know what a a pronoun is? He could just use they, just they. They gathered together.

Why the repetition? Not just of the people, but of the instruments. I mean, my goodness. How many times did I have to say the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every music. You hear that, you ought to fall down.

You know what it reminded me of? It was when my kids were little, and I would read to them things like, we're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one. It's a beautiful day. We're not scared.

Then there's some obstacles like, oh, we can't go over it. We can't go under it. Oh, no. We got to go through it. Repeat.

Repeat. Repeat. It reads like a children's book intentionally intentionally. The authors, he's telling this story like it's a silly story. He's using all of this repetition to to mock the mindless uniformity of all of these officials.

I mean, look at them. They're being presented like puppets on a string. Here come the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, all bowing down once again when you hear the the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, all of this. Nothing more than mindless puppets. For the past week, every time I've I've read this, I've had the the soundtrack to The Sound of Music in my mind.

They say, trust the prefects, you know, the councilors, governors, the... Yay, the yay, the... Yay. I mean, it's just like it's just... I'm just...

I just picture the entire scene over and over, and it's just these officials. It's not sheep, but it's these officials on strings. Notice what verse seven says. As soon as the instruments played, the people bowed, literally, reads this, as the people were hearing, they were falling. As the people were hearing, they were falling.

Meaning, they had an instant reaction to the music, like the strings were almost cut. They just fell. It was like Pavlov's bells to them. They hear a sound and whoosh, without so much as a thought, they sprang into action and they worshiped. There's still music that plays in our culture in which people without thinking bow down to them.

I mean, I'm... I I am always shocked at when I I what I think are just really solid, bible believing people who've grown up in church and hearing the scriptures, and yet, all it literally takes is like a TikTok video, and they they fall down and submit their lives to whatever is being said. Or all it takes is some kind of Netflix show just showing some sin as normative, and instantly, they have a new value system. It's like, where's even the struggle or the fight? You hear the music, you fall.

The only ones in this story who are presented as alive, free, are these three Hebrew men. They're no one's puppets. They will not mindlessly follow to the tune of their culture and believe such nonsensical things like all religions are the same, or that you can have your truth and I can have my truth. There's many truths out there. That's nonsense.

They know it. Not everybody can have their own morality. That's nonsense. And, they won't participate. And when the music played, we read that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they refused to bow down.

We don't read anything about them trying to make a big deal about this. They're not, you know, loudly saying, everybody watch us, we refuse to bow. They're they're not picketing, holding up signs. They're not in any way trying to draw attention to themselves, but they refused to bow, and as a result, their enemies noticed. And the enemies, they told Nebuchadnezzar about it, and Nebuchadnezzar said, bring them to me.

And he says, hey, Maybe he's thinking, maybe they didn't hear clearly. Maybe they didn't know what would happen to you. We're gonna do this all over again. And they said, no need. No need for us to answer you.

In other words, they went to King Nebuchadnezzar and they said, we're guilty as charged. No defense is even necessary. And then we get to verses seventeen and eighteen. They are the climax of this story. After being told they're going be thrown into the fiery furnace if they don't bow down, they respond this way.

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. But if not... In the summer of nineteen forty, in a story that's probably familiar to most of you, more than 350,000 soldiers were trapped at Dunkirk with the German forces coming on the way, and it did not look like there was any hope of rescue at all. And a British naval officer, he he just cabled back three words to London, but if not.

But if not. Those three words became the headlines of the papers all throughout London. And, for a nation at that time that was deeply rooted in scripture, everyone knew its meaning. God can rescue us from this peril, should he choose. But even if he doesn't, we will not bow or yield to the evil forces coming our way.

But if not... And God actually did do a miracle there. I mean, the the British people, when they heard that the but if not, they responded. People took small fishing boats, yachts, sailboats, whatever, and they took over there, and they rescued 338,000 of the 350,000 soldiers. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they know without a doubt, God can deliver them.

He's able, but they have no idea if he will. They had faith that God could, not that God would. They give us such a good biblical picture of faith here. It's what real faith looks like. Faith is having confidence in a certain outcome.

You know, if I just really really believe, if I pray hard and I I really believe that God is gonna give me that job, he's gonna give me that job, or even God's gonna give me that parking space, you know, I really believe, Lord, you're going to give me one. We pray for that. Maybe something more serious in which we think, okay, if I could just muster up enough faith, muster up enough belief, then I'll be healed from this sickness. It's not faith. Faith is trusting that God is worthy of your worship and your obedience no matter what happens, no matter the outcome.

Over the years, I have said this to you guys, I don't even know how many times, but I'm going to say it again. If you want to have that kind of faith, if you want to have a life in which absolutely nothing can rattle or shake you, you need to build your life on these three truths. You need to know that you know that you know. God is sovereign, God is good, and you are his child. You know those three things, God is sovereign, God is good, and I am his child, nothing could ever shake.

You'll never know fear again. That's exactly what Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, they they believe here. They know that God was sovereign over their lives and that God could deliver them if he wanted to. And he knew that God was good, meaning that even though everything around them had the appearance of evil, there was actually a benevolent hand at work, and that they were his children, meaning that God loves them and that he would move heaven and earth and do whatever it takes that they would forever be with him. I wonder if you noticed what they said when they...

Earlier said, you know, God might deliver us from the fiery furnace. He could do that. We don't know. But then, said, the one thing we do know is we will be delivered from the power of your hand, Nebuchadnezzar. That might be through a rescue of a fiery furnace or it might be through our death, but know this, you're not the one with power over us.

You don't hold us in your hand. God holds us in his, and he holds us in his hand forever. Nebuchadnezzar is so infuriated by this. We read that his expression changed. That word expression is actually the same word as image.

His image changed. Just like you have the image being set up earlier, now Nebuchadnezzar is becoming like this image. And you can't help but think of the prophets, in particular, Psalm one thirty five, which says, talking about idolatry, Those who make them will become like them, and so will all who trust them. Nebuchadnezzar is becoming just like that lifeless, mindless image that he erected. He's so infuriated, he orders the furnace heated seven times hotter than normal, and these three men to be thrown in.

It did get so hot, it actually killed the executioners as they were throwing Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in. But then, Nebuchadnezzar, he is thinking, problem solved, until it wasn't solved. And he looks into that furnace, and he doesn't see three men. He actually sees four men, and they're all walking around unbound, like nothing in the world is wrong. And that fourth person who's in there with described as one who has the appearance of the son of the gods.

Nebuchadnezzar, he yells into the furnace, and he says, he says, you know, what what's happening? Come on out. And he says, kind of an act of worship, not quite yet, but he does declare in verse 39 that there's no other god who's able to rescue in this way. He he's really astounded that not a hair on their head is singed, they don't even smell like smoke. And he's like, who can save like this?

But I want you to notice that these one little words in verse 39, he says that there's no other God who was able to rescue in this way. That in this way is what's so unique about this. The key to understanding this story. And Nebuchadnezzar, he doesn't just say, wow, look how God rescued you. He says, look how he rescued you in this way.

He he points out the way it was done. It was unique because God didn't save these three men from suffering. He didn't save them from being arrested. He didn't save them from being thrown into the furnace. He saved them in the furnace by being there with them.

God didn't save them from the furnace, he saved them in the furnace by being there with them. And here, get such a clear picture of Jesus. And perhaps that fourth person there, I don't want to be too dogmatic about this, could have been an angel. We don't know. Perhaps that fourth person in the fire that looked like the son of the gods was indeed the son of God himself, taking human form.

At the very least, he's a picture of Emmanuel, which is God with us. I I I don't know all that's gonna happen in your future, but I do know this. You will walk through furnaces. No one goes through life unscathed. The question is this, are you gonna walk through them alone or not?

For those who are faithfully following the Lord, who have put their faith in Jesus, the answer is you will not be alone in those trials. God will be there with you. And when it comes time for the end, when it's time for you to take your final breath, the Lord will be there with you then too. Death is really the the ultimate furnace. It's the ultimate thing that's supposed to consume us.

But even in death, we will realize that we are not going through that alone. And, actually, Jesus has has already gone to that furnace before us, and he has extinguished all of its flames. In Luke chapter 12, Jesus, he's talking about the cross, and he's he's gonna go to the cross, and he describes the cross as this, there awaits a baptism of fire for him. When he looks at the cross, he sees it as a time where he will be utterly consumed by the judgment fire of God. He'll endure hell on that cross, and he does.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Jesus allows himself to be thrown into that fire for us, and he extinguished all of those flames. The cross was not the end for Jesus. It was the end of death, the end of judgment. Jesus conquered the grave. He extinguished the flames.

And as a result, we no longer have any fear in death. It's no longer that furnace that consumes us, nor is any of the other smaller furnaces we have to go through in life because we're confident of these things. God is sovereign, God is good, and we are his child, and we are forever his child. I've I've heard this, that the Christian life, we need to make a transition into not just believing or having the faith in Jesus. At some point, we have to have the faith of Jesus, not just in him, but demonstrate that same type of faith in which we can obediently walk into...

In any situation, like, whatever happens to me, my life or my death, it's yours, father. Because the faith that we have in Jesus, when Jesus comes inside, he begins to change us, and we begin to have the faith of Jesus. Do you trust that Jesus, he's the one who has gone into the flames for you, that he is indeed sovereign, he is good, and that he has made you a child of God? If so, you have nothing to fear in this life. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and their example. But really, at their very best, all they do is point us to you, Jesus. Thank you for having a faith that did not waver, a faith that was thrown into the ultimate furnace for me in order that I might never know the judgment of god, but I might only have life. That's a bedrock for us to build our entire lives on. And I pray that if there's anyone here who has not done that, may they cry out to you, Jesus.

We pray this in your name. Amen. I