Please turn now in the Bible to Daniel at chapter 3. Daniel chapter 3, which you can find on page 739. Daniel chapter 3, I'm going to read the entire chapter. Just give your attention to the Word of God. King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold. whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth 6 cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather 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. Then the satchaps, the prefects, and 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, 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 peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, All the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshipped 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. when Nebuchadnezzar, in furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. 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, 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 hand?" 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, 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. And 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 we not 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. And 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. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. And the satchaps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The 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. And the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. Last week, we covered chapter 2, the point of which was that God is in charge of kingdoms. He sets up one king in his kingdom. He takes him down and sets up the next king and the next kingdom. And eventually, he will set up his own kingdom, the kingdom of God. I was speaking to Nebuchadnezzar. You have destroyed my kingdom on earth, the kingdom of Israel, but it's not because you were stronger than me. It was because I gave it to you. You want to go to God for wisdom, not to magic. So that's the lesson of chapter 2. God is in charge. But what about his people? After all, the book begins by saying that God gave the king of Judah into the hand of of Babylon. So what about his people? God's handling the macro level things. He's covering the big waves of history. He deals with kingdoms. What about the little guy? Will he protect his people? It becomes a very acute question when Nebuchadnezzar takes the wrong lessons from his dream. He was told, God has put every living thing into your hands. That's chapter 2. He says, chapter 3, well, in that case, I will tell every living thing what they're going to do. He was told in chapter 2, what you saw in a dream was a big image with a head of gold that represented you, and then other parts of the body from other metals represent subsequent kingdoms that will come after you. He said, well, what if I make an image that's all gold, my metal? Will that change the course of history? What if I make everybody bow down before my gold, my statue? Will this ensure loyalty to me? He seems to take the wrong lessons from his dream. And so we see the megalomania of the king. He makes this image. He probably overlays it with gold. And it's 60 cubits by 6 cubits. Now, what's a cubit? Keep it at a distance from the tip of your elbow to the tip of your middle finger. It's a very handy measurement. It's always with you. It is approximate. It's often thought of as about a foot and a half for a grown man. So therefore, he sets up a 90-foot gold image that's nine feet wide. Think of our steeple and maybe not quite double it. Okay? Imagine it twice as high as our steeple. He puts it in a plane. So it has no competition. Not an area with a whole lot of trees either. It's this one standing solitary thing and it's gold in a hot sun kind of climate. It is bright. It is awesome. Glinting off of this. You can see this from miles away. It's not a mountain. It's something that he had set up. And then he has all the officials from all the provinces come in. That's quite a trip. They didn't just hop on the airline and get there in two hours. Some of them had to take two weeks, maybe more. This was a major undertaking to bring everyone together who had a hand in running his empire. In China, I think every five years, almost every ten years, the Communist Party has a big congress, where they get the whole party, all the leadership together, to let him know what the plan is going to be for the next five years. Maybe work out the leadership and so on. Get everybody in the big Chinese empire on the same page. This is the same kind of thing. And key to his Congress is the dedication of this image. Now you notice something. The biblical author says, gives all of the ranks. He's bringing in the satraps and the prefects and the governors and all this stuff. But the herald doesn't speak of the ranks. He says, all languages, peoples, and nations. It's a lot more grandiose. That's emphasizing that this is an empire, and the Babylonians have conquered all these other peoples. All you peoples, when you hear the blast of music, you will bow down and worship this image. You'll feel the power of the music. You'll see the power of the image. You'll see everyone else bowing down. It will be like a great communist or Nazi rally, where you stir the emotions and get everybody to feel the power of oneness. If you all clap together, you feel that, ah, we are one, we are powerful. We will have this great rally, bowing down in front of the image that Nebuchadnezzar set up. And now, it's interesting to say that this was in a plane in Babylon. because the Tower of Babel was set up on a plain in Babylon. The Tower of Babel was tall, and the peoples gathered to make it, to defy God and build this tower. And it was at that point that God splintered them into nations and languages. But here Nebuchadnezzar is trying to reverse the work of God at Babel. He's trying to bring them, all the nations, back together to the same place, to bow down in front of some lofty object. Except that at least Tower of Babel was a joint project. This is just his project. But you notice the repetition. This is a very repetitive chapter. And that is to give a feeling of cumulative inevitability. Whoever Nebuchadnezzar summoned They all showed up. Whoever was told to bow, they all bowed. To give you that sense of powerful inevitability. A little boring, but how could you do otherwise? You have the mob instinct. Everyone's doing it. You have the life preservation instinct. There's the furnace. So everybody bows before the image. Nebuchadnezzar is the king of kings. except that in this big multi-ethnic, multicultural empire, there's one little people that has a theological problem with bowing down to images. A lot of them have political problems, because they'd rather not be bowing down when a Babylonian king tells them to. But only the Jews have a real theological problem. As in, you shall not make any graven image, you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Only the Jews have a theological problem right here. And Daniel seems to be off at the king's court. That's where we left him in the chapter 2. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were, at Daniel's request, set over the province of Babylon. Now, what could go wrong? when you are not Babylonian and you are sent over the province of Babylon. What could go wrong is that everybody under you resents the fact that they've got a foreigner being their governor. And some of them resent it because they wanted that job for themselves. Just imagine how Pennsylvania would feel if somehow the president were to impose a governor from Texas over us. Doesn't even talk right. We might resent that. And if it was, in fact, somebody actually from outside the country, it would be worse. Yes, so they have enemies. And so it does not appear that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were terribly conspicuous. It does not say that Nebuchadnezzar noticed them not bowing. However, you may have seen this pictured in various cartoons. It seems as though maybe they managed to stay in bed that day, but their absence was noted. by their enemies. And their enemies go to Nebuchadnezzar. And they have the accusation ready. And they make it personal. These men whom you have appointed, they owe you everything. And they pay no attention to you. Notice, there's no discussion of broader purposes or theological difficulties. They make it personal for Nebuchadnezzar. These guys are disrespecting you. And you know, King, it's a big empire with a lot of people. You can't let disrespect to yourself expand. That's how the world operates. They ignore God and what is His due. They will ignore conscience and what is true about God. And they'll phrase things in their own terms. Nebuchadnezzar wants loyalty and control. Chaldeans phrase it in those terms. They're not loyal. You're not in control. So Nebuchadnezzar brings them in. If they were in bed, they're out of it now. He brings them in. And because he does, I mean, they've proven themselves before, he says, I'm going to be a big man. I'll give you another chance. We can replicate the scene. I can bring in the bands. And when the band plays, you better bow down. And then they get their only statement in the whole chapter. They say, you will not need to bring in the band. It is already determined. Our God is able to deliver us. Now they bring up God, actually, because He had already brought up God. You notice that? He phrased it in very personal things. You're not respecting me and my image? You will bow down in front of my image, and then he gets theological. And who is the God who's going to deliver you from me? Don't raise your Jewish theological scruples in front of me. I don't want to hear it. Who is the God who's going to deliver you from me? They say, our God is able. We think our God will. But even if he does not, we will not worship the image that you have set out. Their answer is not long-winded, repetitious. It's not disrespectful, but it's also not flattering. They alone give a straight answer that doesn't go around and around in a circle. And if you want to resist temptation, you might want to imitate that. The longer you spend contemplating the temptation, the stronger it's liable to get. If you want to resist temptation, say no and walk in the other direction. That's what they do as well as they're able to do. They can't walk anywhere. But they don't begin to debate. They don't say, well, let's have an extended discussion of the issues involved. They simply say, no. We will not bow down and worship the image. And the king shows his bestial fury. He's so angry, his very face changes. He's furious. He says, tie him up, overheat the furnace, throw him in. He gives his reply to their reply. It's done, and some of his own men die as a result. But then God answers. God gives His reply. God says, OK. And He sends His angel. And the ropes are burned up. They're Nebuchadnezzar's ropes. But the clothes are not burned up. because the clothes belong to the men. And the men are not burned up. And instead of three bound men lying and dying, Nebuchadnezzar sees four unbound men walking and living. And the fourth, he says, looks like a son of God. The sign is that God is present with them, either with an angel or with the angel of the Lord, which is to say Christ, appearing ahead of time. Our focus, the way it's told, stays on Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar comes up. Nebuchadnezzar says, come out. And they do come out. They hadn't rushed to come out. But nor do they say, oh, no, King, we're safer in here. Thank you very much. No. King says, come out. They come out. Off they come. And now it really ruins his gathering because at least the top ranks, who are all assembled from across the provinces to worship his image, now those top ranks join him in gathering around the three men. What happens to the fourth, we're not told. They gather around the three men and notice that they're not hurt at all. You can't even smell fire on them. But you do see that Nebuchadnezzar was quick. Nebuchadnezzar had an eye for his own image. And so Nebuchadnezzar engages in a little quick talking here. Now, he does use the language of Jewish theological scruple. Notice that? Suddenly, he doesn't say, well, the issue is that they've disrespected me. Suddenly, it turns out he does know what the issue is. The issue is, in fact, as he had said, that they would not serve and worship any god except their own god. They yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god but their own god. But to show he's still in command, he says, I make a new command. Anyone who disses this god the way I just did will be put into a fiery furnace. He's the same king. He's still commanding people. He's still got a fiery furnace. He is still. the king. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and all the Jews are encouraged that God is not just in charge of the broad strokes of history, setting up and taking down kings. He also protects his own. He has his eye on his own people. Now, there is an ongoing relevance to this confrontation. Kings and governments still want to use religion for their own purposes. And that is what this is, when he sets up an image, that is, an idol, and he tells everyone to worship, and he says, oh, so you're not going to worship my gods? He's using religion for political purposes, and this is still something that governments like to do. Some religions, you can say, are in fact set up for this. When you look at Hinduism, And you see that the top cast says, well, we deserve to be in charge and have all the wealth and power because we were better in a previous life. And you at the bottom deserve to be untouchable and stay out of our way and live in filth because you were worse in a previous life, though of course we cannot demonstrate or show this previous life or connect it to you in any way. You have their religion set up to justify the social arrangements that you see there in that country. Of course, governments want power, and they will use any lever they can get to. And religion is often a powerful lever, so they'll use that. That far, Marxist criticism of religion has some merit. That does not make all religions fake. There is, of course, something called counterfeit money. People try to make their own dollar bills and pass them. The reason there's counterfeit money is because there's real money. If there wasn't real money, we would spend no time on counterfeit money. The reason there are false religions is there is a true religion. The reason it's an important lever is because here we come before God, the maker of all things. But governments often want to use every lever. And the devil will use governments for his purposes, to stomp out the true religion. You'll notice here, Nebuchadnezzar makes a decree. From the Babylonian perspective, you can phrase it as, we are going to have a moment of imperial unity. But from the Jew perspective, you're going to try to make everybody worship an idol. Notice how you can phrase it in one way or the other. And how is it that there was a decree that really only targeted the Jews? How did that happen? There's a devil behind Nebuchadnezzar. whether he knows it or not. This continues. Notice in Revelation 13, if we kept reading, we would have gotten to the number of the beast, 666. You notice this figure was 60 cubits high and 6 cubits wide. We're supposed to be connecting the two things. We're dealing with the same kind of thing. ongoing in history, Revelation 13, that you were dealing with in this 60 in 6 image here in Daniel 3. Yes, governments use religion, and the devil uses governments to attack the kingdom of God, because the devil is afraid of the seed of the woman. And the devil hates the people of the Lord. This is relevant because, again, it continues. to take a relatively small but real example. Why did the Obama administration try to force Geneva College to pay for birth control that would kill the child after fertilization? Why would you do such a thing? If you want such a pill, can't you buy it for yourself? If you want your college insurance to do it for you, can't you go to a different college? Why would you make a Christian college do such a thing against what they say is right? Well, you rephrase the issue. I don't want to hear about your religious scruples. This is about health care for women. A woman might want that, so you have to pay for it. It's part of your health insurance plan. And the same administration also changed how we've always spoken as a country. As a country we've always spoken about freedom of religion. You know what that means? That means the ability to live your life as you believe God is calling you to live. That requires that the government's laws be relatively small so that people from different religions can have a fair amount of freedom to live as they believe God is calling them to live. But under the Obama administration we began to hear about freedom of Worship. Now, you see here, worship is of central importance. But what they mean by changing from freedom of religion, which is about life, to freedom of worship, is you can go into your little boxes and do what you want for a couple of hours. But when you come out of that building, you're mine. And you will live by the regulations that we set down. You can be glad that Geneva College won its court case. But I want to encourage all you Americans, no self-pity. No self-pity, Americans. It's far worse in China. In China, Chairman Xi is not just closing churches and temples and mosques. He's replacing it with a cult of himself. Everyone's supposed to learn his thoughts. Now, he's not passing out little red books that would be far to 20th century. He has an app. All Communist Party members have been instructed to download the app. Others have as well, so that you have an app with a thought of Chairman Xi. Just to be sure I have my facts straight, I googled it this week and I discovered that Western computer science experts have analyzed the code on this app and discovered a backdoor in the app that allows somebody out there to control your phone. Wonder who the somebody would be. It's relevant, because the powerful continue to want to exert ever more and more control, because on easy lies the head that wears the crown. And so as they have this urge to exert more and more control, the devil uses that urge to seek to limit the kingdom of God. That's why. It might bother you. Why don't you just hold power and steal money and be satisfied? Why not just be a corrupt ruler and leave us alone? I don't have any money. You break into our church, you find out that. So why not just be content with being a corrupt government? Why isn't that enough for you? Well, there's a devil pursuing a demonic end behind many of these things. So what are we to see here? We're to see here that worshiping God and obeying God are of central importance. It's not just she and Nebuchadnezzar who seek to exalt themselves. We're prone to exalt ourselves in such a way that when persecuted we may rationalize giving in. That is to say, we may say it is so important that our organization continues to exist that we will do things the way they're telling us to do it. I'm thinking of a certain adoption agency. not the Catholic one, which took him to court. It's possible to say, what's important is that we keep doing our mission so we will let the government tell us how we're going to operate, even when it's not a Christian way. Notice what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do here. They do not say, well, if I bow, it's just my body bowing. I'm standing on the inside. No, they say God gets the outside and the inside. Nebuchadnezzar is only requiring the outside. He doesn't say, believe in something. He doesn't even say, say something. All he says is, you hear the music, you fall down. They don't say, well, it's just falling down. I trip every day. They don't say, it's just the outside. They say, no, no, no, no. As Nebuchadnezzar says, they yielded up their bodies. Because the outside and the inside are to match. We're not to say, I'm giving God the inside, so I don't need to give him the outside. They also don't say, it's only once. I mean, with Daniel, if we bow down to God three times a day in prayer, it'll be like, you know, 5,000 times to God and only once to this... No. They understand the importance of the commandments. You shall not bow down. They do not say, well, you know, We're really key to the preservation of the Jewish people being one of the few high-ranking Jews here. So we need to keep our positions to look out for our people. So we're going to bow down so we can keep doing the good. They don't say that. No. They don't say Nebuchadnezzar feeds us. They don't say the Lord drove us out of Jerusalem. We're being compelled. What else are you going to do? They don't say any of that. They say obeying the Second Commandment is more important than any of those semi-plausible arguments. Because we don't serve God by disobeying God. You serve God by obeying God. As Samuel said to King Saul, obedience is greater than sacrifice. And if we keep changing when the state tells us to change, the state will keep changing us until we're unrecognizable. or until we're a counterfeit, until we're like that second beast in Revelation. The message here is that God comes first, and worshiping and obeying Him are most important. His purposes matter, and our role is to obey Him. And we see here there's a time for wary coexistence. Daniel 1 and 2, they finesse things. They carve out, we're not going to eat your food, we're not going to drink your wine, Other than that, we'll study what you want us to study. We'll take the job you want us to take. We'll interpret your dream for you." Daniel 1 and 2. But there comes a time when the devil will force a black and white, on or off, binary decision. You're either going to bow down to the image or you're not. And they say, we're not. The price is their death. They say, we accept the price. Bear in mind, beloved, that most Christians who have faced this choice have not been delivered from the fiery furnace. They have died in it. This is the exceptional case. The exceptional case to show us that God does watch over us and God will deliver us in his own way. But we are to pursue his purposes and not our own. So what are God's purposes? You know, the way this is told, it's not about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. If you were going to stage this as a play, which I'm not recommending, but you wouldn't need to put your best actor in their roles. It's Nebuchadnezzar who's the central character, as it's told. You want Nebuchadnezzar to be your best actor. He's got the hardest job. Because it's not really about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They got two key verses that change the action. But even when they're in the furnace, the focus is on Nebuchadnezzar looking at them. What's the point of that? The point is that they are suffering so that God would be known among the Gentiles. We have one purpose here for believers suffering, so that the world would know who God is. So the world would be told that there is a God so real, so vivid, that he is worth dying for. When all the world is cowed by the threat of death, but we are not, we testify that there is hope beyond this world. When all the businesses are cowed by the threat of bankruptcy, but we are not, we testify that there is hope beyond money. Israel suffered so that God would be known among the Gentiles. Therefore, Israel had to keep existing. And the church suffers so that God may be known among the Gentiles. Therefore, the church will keep existing. This is one purpose for our suffering, to testify to the reality and power of God. And what is God's power for us? You'll notice that these three, they're not spared being tied up and thrown in. They're not spared from the furnace. They're spared in the furnace. God is with them in the furnace, not with them in such a way as to spare them the furnace. And again, most martyrs die. These here are the exception. Jesus told us that we would suffer. And He told us that we would witness to the world. And so we are to show and understand that some of our suffering is for the sake of that witness. that we may witness to the world that our God is able to deliver us whether from death or through death. He's able to deliver whether by miracle or by flight or by the miracle of the resurrection. Ultimately they learn here that they are most safe when they are most obedient to God. The choice was not resist and die or assimilate and live. For to assimilate would be to die. That is, would be to lose one's reason to exist as God's people. No, they resist to live. They resist to glorify God. They resist for His purposes in the midst of their suffering. They resist knowing, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you. And they resist knowing that God gave life. God will give eternal life. God is therefore greater than life itself. And this is the meaning of love Him with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. It includes our worship, and it includes our bond. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the steadfastness of Your three servants here. We thank You that most of us have not seen or experienced suffering like this. We pray for our brothers and sisters who do face such dreadful, forced choices. We pray for your spirit to be with them, to uphold them. And we thank you for the witness of the various martyrs. We thank you for the witness of the girl in Nigeria, and the cops in Egypt, and of many others too numerous to name. Examples of your people not loving their lives even to death. And so, Lord, we pray that we would have the same spirit of perseverance in whatever circumstances you call us into. Give us wisdom, we ask. Give us discernment. But above all, give us obedience to your will. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.