Another in the Fire [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Allen Wright.

Whatever you can fill in the blank and say, if blank, if I only had blank, then I'd be fulfilled and I would feel secure in this world. Whatever you put in there is likely an idol that's been set up in the heart. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, No Worries, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer.

You can learn more about it. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on all of this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Though you may walk through the searing heat of adversity, no worries. There's another in the fire.

We're in a series called No Worries, emphasis on no worries. This is what the scripture actually calls us to, a life free from worry. And today, we're going to look at one of the most marvelous stories in all the Old Testament that is set in a time of exile for the people of God. It's six centuries before Christ, and the people have been overrun by Babylon.

The empire has deported them under the leadership of their King Nebuchadnezzar. And so people like Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are in exile in Babylon. And there we see these three young men put into a fiery furnace. And we're going to discover the power of recognizing God's presence with you in the midst of every circumstance.

But what we're going to see today is actually a deeper dive than we've had before. And you can't miss it when you read this story that before it's all about the presence of God, the story is about the refusal of these men to bow down to an idol. We're in Daniel chapter three at verse one, and I'm going to give you some excerpts of this if you want to follow along. In Daniel chapter three, starting at verse one, King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and his breadth, six cubits, that's 90 feet high, nine feet wide.

And he set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. And the herald proclaimed aloud, your commanded O peoples, nations, languages, that when you hear the sound of the hornpipe, lyre, trigon harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you're to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. And whoever does not fall down in worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. Well, then they learn at verse 12 of these Jewish men that refuse to do so. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and 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.

And so Nebuchadnezzar comes to them, verse 15, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the hornpipe, lyre, trigon harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I've made well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall be immediately cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?

Well, that's the question of the story, isn't it? 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. So verse 19, he ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. And in verse 22, because the king's order was so urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and backfired on them. And in verse 24, King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished, rose up in haste and declared to his counselors, did we not cast three men bound into the fire? And they answered and said to the king, true, O king. And 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 in verse 27, the hair of their heads was not singed.

Their cloaks were not harmed and no smell of fire had come upon them. I once preached a message on that text called smoking or non-smoking. There was a little boy who was afraid to go into the basement at his house and his mother wanted him to get over it. So she said, honey, would you go down to the basement?

Please get the broom for me. And he said, mommy, I don't like to go in the basement. I'm scared. She said, no, honey, there's nothing to be scared of down there.

It's just another room in our house. And there's, there's nothing down there to hurt you. And he said, please, mommy, I don't want to.

So she tried a different task. She said, honey, she said, listen, she said, listen, Jesus is everywhere. And he's with you. In fact, Jesus is in the basement. He said, Jesus is in the basement. Really?

She said, yes. So a little boy walked over to the door that goes down the stairs to the basement, cracked it open and said, Jesus, if you're down there, would you hand me a broom? It's one of those things to say, God is with you sounds like the right thing to say, but when you're in a scary time, how do you really count on that? And in a sense, that's what this story is about. But as we'll see, it's a story as much about how idols are born and how they come down and how that relates to our worries. And I hope to show you in the end, how the removal of our idols is the most beautiful way that you can become more intensely aware of the presence of God in your own life. In order to get at all of this, I think we start with this, the birthplace of idolatry.

Idols are not just these things we make with our hands. Three sailors had a weekend off and they were on leave and had a couple of wild nights, Friday and Saturday night at port and did about everything you could imagine. They felt so guilty about all their sin that they found a little church in the port city. And they went to church on Sunday morning and behold, the minister preached on the Ten Commandments and went right through all the Ten Commandments. And after church, the sailors were walking away.

They were quiet for a long while until finally one of them spoke up and said, well, at least we didn't make any graven images this weekend. But in fact of the matter, idolatry, the second of the Ten Commandments is actually maybe our greatest problem. It is misunderstood if you think of idolatry only of little statues and things that you make with your hands like in the ancient world or in Hinduism or Buddhism today. In Ezekiel 14 3 where he was son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts. Idolatry is much more about what's going on in your heart than it is just the construct of some piece of pottery or sculpture. And what happened to Nebuchadnezzar was he set up this idol because there was a big idol in his heart. To really understand chapter 3 and what we've read about today, if we had time we would read all of chapter 2.

But let me tell you the story. What happened is there's this king Nebuchadnezzar who rules over the empire of Babylon. And the Babylonian empire has overrun the southern kingdom of Judah and sacked Jerusalem.

And their philosophy politically was to take and deport all those people. And so they took on the Babylon where they are living as exiles just as the prophets had foretold. And while there Nebuchadnezzar's strategy was to take the best and the brightest of all of these Jewish exiles and use them in his court. And so Daniel had been promoted because he was so gifted. And there were others like Meshach and Shadrach and Abednego that were, they're in exile but they're being used in matters of royal affairs.

Well Nebuchadnezzar is arguably the most powerful man in the known world at that time. But as we read about in chapter 2 he had a troubling dream, a nightmare. And the nightmare was so troubling to him that he called all of his wise men and soothsayers and he said, I need somebody to tell me what this dream means. And so the soothsayers came to him and said, yes sir, your royal highness, we'll be happy to. We're skilled in dream interpretation and we'll be happy to tell you the meaning of your dream.

So tell us what is your dream? And he said, no, no. He said, I can't trust that you can tell me the meaning of the dream unless you can tell me the actual dream. He said, I want you to tell me the dream and its interpretation or else all you're going to be killed. And they said, oh king, he said, how are we supposed to do that?

He said, only the gods could have such an information as that. And so he prepares to kill all of his wise men. And Daniel steps forward because Daniel and his friends are also going to be killed because now they're, even though Jewish, they're considered to be part of these wise men and Nebuchadnezzar's court. And he says, let me have an audience with the king. And he trusts that God is going to show him the dream and its interpretation.

And he prays such and he comes and he meets before Nebuchadnezzar and he says, I can't, I can't see into these things and I can't interpret them, but my God can. And he tells Nebuchadnezzar, here was your dream. You had a dream of a giant statue whose head was of gold, whose breastplate and chest was of silver, whose midriff was of bronze, whose legs were of iron and whose feet were a mixture of iron and clay. And in your dream, a rock that was not cut by human hands came and struck those feet of clay and the entire statue toppled.

And as it did, it became like chaff in the summer wind and blew away like dust. And of course, Nebuchadnezzar is, as you can imagine, trembling in awe that this person has seen his dream. And Daniel says, here's what it means, says you and your kingdom are the golden head. And God has allowed you to rule in this position, but there will be a lesser kingdom that will come and follow you and will overthrow your kingdom. And then there'll be another kingdom lesser than that that will come. And then there'll be another kingdom that's like iron that is strong, but then there will come a kingdom that's not cut by human hands and it will be God's kingdom and it'll crush all of the others. And that rock, he said, that came and struck them, grows big like a giant mountain and fills all the earth. Such will be, he said, the final kingdom.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly? Envision it. Being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you or love you less.

Imagine no more of that anxious feeling that you get deep down in your gut that makes you feel like the pressure is always on so you can never really relax. What you're imagining and longing for is a life with no shame. In paradise, before sin came into the world, the Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship.

They were naked and felt no shame. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame. It's a lie that says, until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. Shame causes some to say, I'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted, and others to decide, since I'll never measure up, I might as well rebel.

Either way, the heart is poisoned by shame and there is only one antidote, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Alan Wright.

Free yourself, be yourself. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. And what's so interesting about it, of course, is that historians, Logan, go, well, the Babylonian empire gave in to the Medo-Persian empire that followed it and then the Greek empire and then the strong Roman empire and in that Roman empire of its time, a stone that was cut not by human hands, the rock upon which all of our faith is built came and Jesus inaugurated his kingdom and it turned all other kingdoms by comparison to dust and has taken over the world and will reign forever. Well, Nebuchadnezzar was at first in absolute awe of this and promoted Daniel. And Daniel said, I'd like to also promote my three friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and put them over various precincts in the governance.

And so they did. But not long after that was when Nebuchadnezzar decided to erect this giant 90-foot golden statue. And why did he, having started by saying, well, Nebuchadnezzar is saying to Daniel, your God must be the true God and worship him and promoting Daniel. Why then does he erect this huge golden statue?

Because he's afraid. This is the birthplace of all idols. Fear, angst, the uncertainty, because the fact that he believed Daniel made him aware that his Babylonian empire was going to come to an end. And it was almost as if what he did was he said, if my empire is symbolized by gold, I'm going to make this manifestation of my dream a reality, but I'm going to make it all gold.

Almost as if he could control it by saying, it's going to be Babylonian empire all the way down to the feet, you see. Our idols are our attempts to deal with our uncertainty, our angst about the future, our weighty realization of our own mortality, all of this. Tim Keller said, power is often born of fear and in turn gives birth to more fear. A lot of people who have ruled throughout history were fearful people, but once they were in power, they became even more fearful. 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said that man is insecure and he seeks to overcome his insecurity by what he called a will to power.

He pretends that he's not limited. So Nebuchadnezzar builds this huge idol made of gold or maybe at least gold plated. And it was as if to say, I can make other people bow down and I will prove the dream wrong. That's the way idols work. Idols will reveal your greatest fears. Again, Keller, idols give us a sense of being in control and we can locate them by looking at our nightmares. What do we fear the most?

What if we lost it would make life not worth living? And so he makes this huge 90-foot statue, this idol and attaches all this fanfare to it. But it's like the whole narrative is mocking the idol because just look at this for fun. If you go through the story, a phrase keeps recurring, and that is that Nebuchadnezzar had set it up. Look at verse two, the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Verse three, 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. Verse five, they are all to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. And in verse seven, all the people, nation, language fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Verse 12, they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Even Nebuchadnezzar said, 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?

And they said in verse 18, we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. It's like eight times, you know, he set it up. He set it up. He just made it himself and he propped it up. He propped it up.

He propped it up. Why is this funny? Because it's like saying you yourself made it and propped it up and now you want everybody to worship it. It's making fun of idols. That's generally the prophetic position of the scripture is to make fun of the idols because they have no breath in them.

They have no life. That's the folly of idolatry. It's interesting that idols are not really, as a lot of people think, a replacement to God, but in addition, you know, it's an interesting story, just briefly mention it, that is one of the earliest and most famous scenes of idolatry. When Moses had gone up to the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, he was gone longer than the people expected and they started getting nervous. And so they made this golden calf in Exodus chapter 32, they received the gold from the hand, fashioned it with a graving tool, made a golden calf and said, these are your gods, O Israel.

So they make this golden calf. But look at what Aaron says at the next verse, when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And so he built an altar before the golden calf. And Aaron, the brother of Moses, made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. They were going to have a big worship festival to Yahweh, but they were also going to have this altar to the golden calf. So our idols don't necessarily replace God, but they're like things that get set up in our heart that are in addition to God.

And they are as if to say, I'm getting sort of nervous. And so I need some other things to prop up that make me feel a little bit more in charge. And whatever you can fill in the blank and say, if blank, if I only had blank, then I'd be fulfilled and I would feel secure in this work. Whatever you put in there is likely an idol that's been set up in the heart. And idols are not necessarily these physical surface things, money and prestige and all. Oftentimes there's something deeper beneath it. You know, I think one of the idols that has mostly been destroyed in my life, and I'm very thankful for that, has come by the grace of God.

But an example of this was in my earlier years, I had too much of a need for others' approval. Now, listen, idols are not usually something that comes from a bad thing. They're usually something comes from a good thing, right? I mean, money's not a bad thing. Money's a good thing. You can use it for wonderful things, but it can become an idol if it becomes like an ultimate thing. And the favor of people is a good thing.

We've blessed our kids every day of their life, that they will grow in wisdom, stature and favor with God and with people. To enjoy the favor of people and God opens doors and enjoy that kind of friendship, that's a wonderful thing. But it's quite another to start looking to it and saying, well, I need to have others' approval or else I'm not going to be okay. And I don't know, maybe it just came from the brokenness of my childhood and broken family.

I just had seeds of wounds and wrong beliefs that got planted there about rejection or whatever it might have been. So I think for a lot of years, even into my early adulthood, that I had erected like an idol of approval. And the problem once you do this is that, and what we will see is the idol itself, you think if only I have everybody's approval, then I'll feel secure and life will feel worthwhile and I'll be fulfilled.

The problem is not only does it not solve your worries, but it adds to them. Because what happens is as soon as you make an idol and you put it up on the shelf of your heart and you say, unless I have this, then I can't be fulfilled. What happens as soon as somebody doesn't approve of you?

What happens if somebody does reject you? Well, now the idol that you've set up mocks you in return. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly?

Envision it. Being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you or love you less. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life changing full length book from Alan Wright, Free Yourself, Be Yourself. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Alan, as we're back here in the studio, we're putting a bookmark here, another in the fire in the series, No Worries. So what's your parting good news thought for the person listening right now? Well, here's the good news, and we're going to learn more about this tomorrow, but if an idol that we set up in our lives turns around and shames us, as we've been describing, if the idol that we set up to relieve our worry instead makes us worry, the good news is that if I set it up, I can take it down. And so the idol starts acting like it has this huge amount of power over you. As I'll be sharing more about what I used to have, an idol, I think of others' approval. Well, it can get bigger and bigger in your mind, and you just find yourself working harder and harder for others' approval until the day you go, wait a minute.

Yeah, no, I don't have to have that. I'm already approved in God. And so then you have the full right and authority to take down those idols and smash them. And so I think that's really good news, Daniel, because what it means is we're never helpless when it comes to idols in our lives. You can take them down. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.