The title for today's message is "No Other God Can Deliver Like This." It's not one of God's committed followers that is saying this, is it? This is a pagan monarch who makes this declaration. No other God can deliver like this. This is something that happened to real people in time and space in history, and this pagan monarch was an eyewitness of what God can do, and he declares, "No other God can deliver like this." So. You know how the story goes: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
And by the way, my kids grew up on VeggieTales, and I am really tempted because there is so many syllables in these names. I am really tempted to just refer to them as Rack, Shack, and Benny, but I think I might refrain from that.
So it's Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They have been. Thrown into an extremely maximum heat furnace by order of Nebuchadnezzar because these three men, Hebrews, exiles from Judah, of God's elect people, they did not bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's image, which he commanded, and they said, "We will not, even at the threat." Of a fiery death, they said, "Our God can deliver, because you asked, 'Who is the God who will deliver you from my hand?' We know Jehovah God, and we know that He is able to deliver. But that's really not the point right now. The point is, we will not bow down to your image." And so Nebuchadnezzar, in his rage and fury, commanded that the furnace become seven times hotter.
Why on earth I don't know. But they were bound up, they were thrown in there like logs. And as he's watching the spectacle, all of a sudden he sees four men walking around in the fire, and he's perplexed. He's alarmed. And so that brings us then to the inspection.
Nebuchadnezzar moves to the mouth of the furnace as close as he can get without being consumed himself, and he's watching the spectacle of four men walking in this furnace, the fellowship of the fire, we might call it. And he calls to them, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Is it interesting? Wouldn't you think that he would have just said their names and then told them to come out? No.
What does he do? You servants of the Most High God. That gives us insight into what's going on in his mind right now. It gives us insight into why God did this. You servants of the Most High God, come out!
He had had them tied up and thrown in like logs to the demise of some of his best men, but upon further review, the symbols of his wrath and unbelief were consumed in the flames. And in all this, it was inescapable in Nebuchadnezzar's understanding that God, Jehovah. Of Israel, the Holy One of Israel had intervened. I want you to notice something here: the appropriate deference on the part of these three young men. They had defied the king's order to worship his God, and yet they obeyed the king's command to approach him.
They did all of this with deference to the king. But it says, "You servants of the Most High God, come out." And then, on this inspection of these young men, it says, "On whose bodies the fire had no power." Isn't that interesting? The king's counselors were all around him, and they follow him to the mouth of the furnace as close as they could get. It says, "On these men." Whose bodies the fire had no power. You can just see these guys gathering around, and they're looking.
And it looks, it gives the level of detail to where you know these guys got close, and they were looking at them. You can see them looking at them. You know, they knew that not even their hair had been singed. Let alone consumed, but their hair wasn't even singed. Not only that, but they got close enough to smell them—just regular body odor.
There's no smell of fire there. That's all there was. First-hand eyewitnesses of God's power to deliver.
So what does this lead us to? Nebuchadnezzar is going to issue a decree. Right on the spot, and before he issues the decree, he gives a preamble. This is the preamble to the decree, and this is this is what he says in verse twenty-eight: "Blessed." Be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king's word and yielded their bodies that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God. That's the preamble.
Well, let's let's look at that for a minute. Here he begins with God. In the preamble, he begins with God. That's highly appropriate, don't you think? And he said, "Blessed be the God." That word, "blessed," that is used there, it has the connotation of kneeling down in praise.
The God to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Now, why should we do this? Two things very important here that I want us to notice. Number one, he sent his angel. What does that mean of God? That he sent his angel.
It means God communicates and he interacts with his creation. Implied in Nebuchadnezzar's statement here, he sent his angel. We're dealing with a living deity here. This is not a projection of any man's imagination. This is a living, interacting, communicating deity.
This is a living God. Not only did he send his angel, but he delivered his servants who trusted him. He is a caring God. That is the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And because of that, many years later in Hebrews eleven thirty four, we see these three young men mentioned by this event, where in the in in the hall of faith.
In Hebrews eleven, they quenched the fire by their trust in God. And so he continues.
Now he began with God in this preamble to the decree that he is going to issue, and now now that he's mentioned God and who God is, then he goes on to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and he says four things about them. Number one, they trusted Him, this living God who interacts, who communicates, and who cares. They trusted Him. He delivered the servants, his servants who trusted him. That word trust means to set one's trust upon, to rely upon.
They relied upon God. He had their complete confidence. They had committed themselves to Him. They had committed themselves to His character and His purpose, regardless of what that meant for them. That's the level of trust.
To which Nebuchadnezzar speaks is Michael Horton, who said, "Faith does not make something true; faith embraces truth. Faith doesn't make something true; faith embraces truth. That's what faith is. Truth has a name: Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts." The, the Holy One of Israel, truth has a name, and faith embraces truth. When Anne Graham Lotz and her husband Denny go to a football game, it is alma mater, which is University of North Carolina.
There's thousands of people in the parking lot, and she can't see where she's going. You know, it's just a horde of people moving from the parking lot to the stands. Her husband Denny, by the way, though, is six feet seven inches tall, so he kind of has a view that most other people don't have. All right, so what does she do? She grabs his hand.
He grabs her hand, and he just leads her through the crowd because he knows where he's going to the seats. He's got that perspective, got the view, and she just follows him. He takes her hand, and she just follows him through the crowd. The way I get from the car to my seat is just by holding his hand and following him closely through the crowd. Says Anne.
She follows the same procedure with the Lord. I just faithfully follow the Lord step by step each day. Ten years from now, I just want to look back and know that the best, to the best of my ability, I have been obedient to God's call on my life. That just makes it pretty simple, doesn't it? It's not simplistic, but it is simple.
Just follow the Lord step by step, day by day. It's exactly what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have done, because their object of trust was worthy of their trust. They knew who he was.
So Nebuchadnezzar is continuing in his preamble here. First of all, he said they trusted him. Secondly, they frustrated the king's word. They changed it. They set aside the king's command.
They defied the king's command. Listen, that's just not something you do to a Babylonian monarch, unless, of course, your homage is to the living and loving God. Then that makes all the difference in the world, and that showed where their ultimate trust was. They frustrated the king's word by their faith, by their trust in God and God alone. And then he says here, they yielded their bodies.
That interesting term. They yielded their bodies. They risked. Themselves because their confidence was in the higher authority who had authority over Nebuchadnezzar who had threatened them. They risked their bodies.
They gave their lives. In essence, they yielded their bodies. They risked their lives in their trust for God. The trust of God. We have been praying for a number of years now for Tony in Placido Mercado, our missionaries in Bolivia, and what has been a couple years ago as a spurious, ridiculous lawsuit against Placido.
And it's been going on and on and on in a corrupt justice system down there. And we finally got this news just a week or so ago. Tony writes: the prosecuting attorney for the state requested re-imprisonment to await trial for Placido, but the judge himself said that in his opinion, if There was harm done. It was not of a deliberate criminal nature, and he was not willing to try it as such. That's good news.
He also said there was an order to reach consensus. He asked if that had been done. Although the other side was upset that the judge had said what he had, they grumpily said an agreement had been reached and they would accept it. And then Tony writes, "God is good!" Exclamation mark. And then she writes, "But you know, God would have been good even if had not gone so well.
We absolutely must remember that. Those are her words. God is good. There is never a time that He is not good. And here we have our own missionaries who are yielding their bodies." In their confidence in God, because they are pursuing His character and His purpose, and that's what matters even more than their own welfare and comfort.
Trust, Ruth Bell Graham says, worship and worry cannot live in the same heart; they are mutually exclusive. It's a true statement. The last thing. That Neb in his preamble, the last thing that Nebuchadnezzar says about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is that as they yielded their bodies, they were not going to worship any god except their own god. Why is that?
Because their god is the living god. All other gods are simply projections of man's imagination. They are non-gods. They are not creator gods. They are created entities.
And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew that, and they entrusted themselves to the living God. They offered the living God exclusive service. They lived for the audience of one. And so, that concludes the preamble in verse 28. Therefore, now in verse 29, Nebuchadnezzar issues a decree right on the spot.
Therefore, I make a decree that any people, nation, or language—this is an empire-wide decree. Any people, nation, or language in his empire, there were many peoples, nations, and languages represented. And he says, "Anybody in my empire, under my rule, which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, what is he saying? You know, I think first of all, this speaks to the motives of the accusers of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the ones that ratted on them to begin with." We don't like the fact that your faith is exclusive. Nebuchadnezzar here is going to make a decree.
Listen, no bad mouthing Jehovah. Jehovah, there's none of it. We're not going to. We're not going to put up with that. Speaking amiss is a very interesting term, and the idea of speaking amiss is not only speaking against, but in the things that you say, in the way that you, your disposition that you have towards Jehovah, the God of Israel, the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you are promoting inattention to that God.
I'll ignore him. He's nobody. Promoting inattention, speaking amiss, promoting inattention. In other words, he's not really good. He's not really trustworthy.
Just forget him. And Nebuchadnezzar, what does he say here? Anybody who speaks amiss, anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap.
Well, here he goes again. He's kind of worked up right now, wouldn't you think? I mean, he was just a first-hand eyewitness to the power of God to deliver, and he's really worked up about this. And now he says, "I'm not any ever again going to say anything against their God, against this God, the living God, the communicating God, the interacting God, the caring God." I'm not going to say anything against him, and no one else in my kingdom can say anything against him or promote inattention to Jehovah, the God of Israel. And if you do, you will be cut in pieces, you know, quartered, and your your houses will be made an ash heap, you know.
I don't believe he was speaking hyperbolically here. I think he was. I think this is just a way that ancient kings would affirm the degree to which they really meant what they said. And here is the second part of his decree, because he makes an affirmation. Because, end of verse twenty-nine, there is no other god who can deliver like this.
Think about it, folks. This is a pagan monarch who is making this declaration. There is no other god who can deliver like this. Truth is affirmed and inscribed by a powerful monarch. The word "deliver" means to rescue by intervention.
The living God interacts and overrides the laws of nature. Only a creator, designer, can do such a thing. He is the God who can deliver, and you know what? He has. He just did.
I saw it. Let me ask you a question. Let's bring it back to today.
Now, this happened in history. This is a lot of years ago. If this had happened just yesterday. Would your trust in God be any different? Why should time make any difference?
This is history. Yesterday is history. Can't change it. But why should time make any difference? This has happened in history.
This is what God can do. This is who He is. Having posed that question, let me conclude today with three questions. Number one: What is my reputation? What is your reputation?
When Nebuchadnezzar called them out of the furnace, he called them to come out of the fellowship of the fire. You servants of the Most High God. It was an earned. Title by confident, risky trust. Servants speaks of humility, not thinking too much of themselves, and then the Most High God means that they think much of God and they know who God is, and therefore they entrust themselves to Him.
As Paul said, that Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. And Paul said. This is like what Paul is saying in Second Corinthians two fourteen that in every place that we go, God diffuses through us the fragrance, the aroma of Christ. This is what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did. Through their confident, risky trust, they were spreading the aroma of the living, communicating, caring God.
So it is your reputation. There's lots of other things that we can be known for. Unfortunately, anti-this, anti-that. We've got work to do as the evangelical church today, folks. Just last week, a Christian, a brother in Christ, posted something on Facebook.
That was incredibly disparaging to the leader of our country. I had to make a comment, referring to scripture. Incredibly disparaging of the leader of our country. You don't have to disrespect somebody just because you disagree with them. That's not what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did.
What are we known for? What is our reputation? Are we a monolithic voting block? God help us if that's all we are in this country. That's not how change happens.
Instead, our reputation ought to be that we are pro-humanity. Pro humanity, in that we identify with the brokenness of humanity, and we're pointing them to God through our confident trust.
So, what is your reputation? May it be known in the people in our circles of influence that we are servants of the Most High God, and we do so with with character, with respect, with reverence. That as servants of the Most High God, we remain pro humanity. In identifying with them in their brokenness. Second question to end today: What is most important to you?
What is most important to you? It says of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they yielded their bodies. They yielded their bodies. Do you understand the big picture revealed in Scripture? Do you understand the reality of God's purpose, or do you have a self-referenced view of your existence?
Do you understand that you were made by God and for Him, or have you simply invited Him to be a part of your life? Where your life is represented by this committee, all these voices sitting around the table that are vying for your attention, and you've invited Jesus to sit on that committee. Listen, the committee needs to be fired. Is Christ preeminent or not? What is most important?
These men yielded their bodies because their welfare was not the highest end, was not the chief goal. They yielded their bodies. You are an embodied soul. You are an embodied soul. Life is a continuum.
Therefore, listen to this, please. Success and satisfaction of your life is a spiritual matter, not a physical one. You are an embodied soul. Therefore, success and satisfaction for your life is a spiritual matter. It is not a physical matter because everything physical—look around you, look at yourself—everything physical will be consumed.
That's what God has revealed. Your body is temporary, so that says your habits and responses to adversity reveal what is most important to you.
So that question: what What is most important to you? First of all, what is your reputation? Number two, what is most important to you? And question number three: Why would I trust myself to another? As Nebuchadnezzar affirmed, no other god.
There is no other god who can deliver like this. Behold, your God. Is it possible that your honest answer to the above three questions? What is my reputation? What is most important to me, and why would I entrust myself to another?
Is it possible that your honest answer to the above three questions could show you that you speak amiss, that I speak amiss of God? I promote inattention of God. If I honestly answer these three questions, do they in any way show that I am promoting inattention to God? Unlike Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That you, through your character, your priorities, the things that you really trust, actually promote inattention.
Or do you trust the designer, the one in whom all things consist? He is the anchor of your hope. May those in our circle of influence observe our day-to-day routines and challenges and know. That we are servants of the Most High God, the Living God, the interacting, intervening, communicating, caring God. We are His servants, and we live for the audience of one.
